"Just like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter"
The main difference being that, if they don't do better, somebody's going to jail.
That is something we can't do in The West.
China's Netcasting Services Association has issued a list of 100 topics local netizens must not include in short videos posted online. The list, officially the "Online Short Video Content Review Standard Rules (2021)", includes predictable prohibitions on mocking China's leadership, or suggesting that history did not unfurl …
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
flouting the rules can reduce access to jobs, education, and even access to high-speed internet.
Apparently in China, it is "cancel culture on steroids".
I wonder what they'd do to you for a WINNIE THE POOH costume...
I ran the list through google translate, saw some specific mention of the use of hats and clothing that had faces of Chinese communist party leaders on them, and the practice of folding or otherwise distorting the hats and clothing to produce (assume humorous) facial expressions. That actually sounds kinda funny!
It is a lot harder to put the genie back in the bottle than it is to keep it in the bottle in the first place.
I do believe the Chinese are learning that; too much of the population has tasted life beyond the borders, either directly or indirectly, much as we've experienced life beyond our own borders.
Well, 'cept for the Yanks. They seem to think their borders demark the end of the known world, 'cause that is the only way the "Leaders of the Free World" can be qualified to deserve that phrase... not to mention the "World" series that never leaves the continent, and so on and so forth. But watch their media, and it is no surprise - where the BBC, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), et. al. provide global news segments that are usually as long as the national news segment, the American news channels don't really do that save for CNN. Their news is all about themselves, so most of their population has no idea what is going on with those "danged foreigners."
TikTok, owned by Chinese outfit ByteDance, last month said it was making an effort to minimize the amount of data from US users that gets transferred outside of America, following reports that company engineers in the Middle Kingdom had access to US customer data.
"100 percent of US user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure," TikTok said in a June 17, 2022 post, while acknowledging that customer information still got backed up to its data center in Singapore. The biz promised to delete US users' private data from its own servers and to "fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US."
That pivot has not yet been completed. According to a June 30, 2022 letter [PDF] from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, obtained by the New York Times on Friday, some China-based employees with sufficient security clearance can still access data from US TikTok users, including public videos and comments.
China's ban on cryptocurrency mining – and general dislike of any form of blockchain-based assets – has seen web giant Tencent clamp down on discussion of the subjects on its massive WeChat and Weixin messaging platforms.
News of Tencent's policy can be found in recent amendments to its terms of service which last week added a section about cryptocurrency and NFTs.
The added verbiage states that accounts engaged in discussion of crypto trading, exchange between bit-bucks and real money, or provision of pricing services for digital currencies, all need to stop it.
Chinese web giant Tencent has admitted to a significant account hijack attack on its QQ.com messaging and social media platform.
In a post to rival social media platform Sina Weibo – a rough analog of Twitter – Tencent apologized for the incident.
The problem manifested on Sunday night and saw an unnamed number of QQ users complain their credentials no longer allowed them access to their accounts. Tencent has characterized that issue as representing "stolen" accounts.
Executives at China's Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) – a state-backed initiative aimed at driving the commercial adoption of blockchain technology – labelled cryptocurrency "the biggest Ponzi scheme in human history" in state-sponsored media on Sunday.
"The author of this article believes that virtual currency is becoming the largest Ponzi scheme in human history, and in order to maintain this scam, the currency circle has tried to put on various cloaks for it," wrote Shan Zhiguang and He Yifan in the People's Daily.
He Yifan is the CEO of startup Red Date Technology – a founding member and architect behind BSN – where he serves as executive director. Co-author Zhiguang Shan is chair of the BSN Development Alliance.
The US arm of Chinese social video app TikTok has revealed that it has changed the default location used to store users' creations to Oracle Cloud's stateside operations – a day after being accused of allowing its Chinese parent company to access American users' personal data.
"Today, 100 percent of US user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure," the company stated in a post dated June 18.
"For more than a year, we've been working with Oracle on several measures as part of our commercial relationship to better safeguard our app, systems, and the security of US user data," the post continues. "We still use our US and Singapore datacenters for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete US users' private data from our own datacenters and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US."
The Cyberspace Administration of China has announced a policy requiring all comments made to websites to be approved before publication.
Outlined in a document published last Friday and titled "Provisions on the Administration of Internet Thread Commenting Services", the policy is aimed at making China's internet safer, and better represent citizens' interests. The Administration believes this can only happen if comments are reviewed so that only posts that promote socialist values and do not stir dissent make it online.
To stop the nasties being published, the policy outlines requirements for publishers to hire "a review and editing team suitable for the scale of services".
China's internet regulator has launched an investigation into the security regime protecting academic journal database China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), citing national security concerns.
In its announcement of the investigation, the China Cyberspace Administration (CAC) said:
Tencent Cloud has released an odd robot-adjacent device designed to provide telemedicine services.
The effort is called i-Care and is the result of a tie up with USA-based IT services Millennium Technology Services (MTS)'s subsidiary Invincible Technology. The two companies set out to create "a digital solution that aims to improve patients' experience and quality of life as well as draw patients, families and caregivers closer than ever."
"Customers' habits and expectations have evolved dramatically over the last few years across various industries including the medical and healthcare field, driven by the further emergence of digital technologies and cloud computing," said Tencent Cloud in a canned statement.
China's government has outlined its vision for digital services, expected behavior standards at China's big tech companies, and how China will put data to work everywhere – with president Xi Jinping putting his imprimatur to some of the policies.
Xi's remarks were made in his role as director of China’s Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission, which met earlier this week. The subsequent communiqué states that at the meeting Xi called for "financial technology platform enterprises to return to their core business" and "support platform enterprises in playing a bigger role in serving the real economy and smoothing positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows."
The remarks outline an attempt to balance Big Tech's desire to create disruptive financial products that challenge monopolies, against efforts to ensure that only licensed and regulated entities offer financial services.
It seems promoters of RISC-V weren't bluffing when they hinted a laptop using the open-source instruction set architecture would arrive this year.
Pre-orders opened Friday for Roma, the "industry's first native RISC-V development laptop," which is being built in Shenzen, China, by two companies called DeepComputing and Xcalibyte. And by pre-order, they really mean: register your interest.
No pricing is available right now, quantities are said to be limited, and information is sparse.
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