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Q: Can I have this stance?
mArtiAn's thread regarding the deep web and his use of "abhorrent sh1t" and "vile" got me thinking about publicly stated opinions (opinions, of course, are like a55h0les...everybody's got one).
The "dark web", "deep web" or whatever you may choose to call it is only a place where the 'rest' of the Internet resides. A place where those who wish to post, show, upload, or expound on whatever issues, can do so without the ranking (monetization), censorship, or fear of suppression that today's society deems fit (or unfit)...what the Internet was originally conceived to be.
Is it akin to Pandora's Box that we are inclined to go where we are not supposed to go (as society tells us is for our own good) or is it, as mArtiAn states just, "out of morbid curiosity"?
And labeling that which we do not know, or agree with, should be automatically derided?
Censorship, which is supposed to be along the lines of society's "normal, accepted" standards is never really put to a nation referendum, is it? Which society should decide what is acceptable for display on the Internet? The United States (which controls the Internet) with 380 million people who can never agree on anything? The Chinese (who desire to control the Internet) with 1.4 billion people? Should "the people" of all nations, races, religions, creeds, colors, gender identifications, etc., control the Internet (oh...the U.N....well, that answers that).
A lot of posters here on ECC even can't agree on what should/shouldn't be permitted.
A good friend of mine started his own forum as an alternative to the arbitrary application of rules at the 'Greasy Spoon' (Dave's ESL Cafe). There already was Raoul's, but that catered to a fringe element not welcome by my friend. We bantered, discussed and argued over countless topics. One day, the topic of degreed vs. non-degreed teachers came up. A teacher with a B.A said that no one without at least a Bachelor's should be allowed to teach in China (fair enough, that is the law, after all). A teacher with a Master's said that only those with a Master's should be allowed to teach in China. Then you had the certified teachers battling the uncertified, the PhDs against both the Master's and Bachelor's, the double-degreed against the single...you get the picture. The forum died soon after that. My point here being that this forum was for like-minded people and censorship was reserved only for obvious trolls and wumaos (half of ECC wouldn't have got past its first post on that site). But it still died.
China, of course, censors heavily and with obvious protectionism of its homegrown, albeit copied, online offerings. Many moons ago, when Google was still available here in China, I was teaching my students (aspiring flight attendants) about their prospective careers. I was looking for pictures to better illustrate and support my PPTs so I typed, "Airline meals airline food" into Google's image search. I was constantly blocked. Who (or what) in the heck decided that airline food was subversive?
And that brings me to my actual point. China's censorship is supposed to be about societal norms and protecting those from subversive and "dangerous" things, yet they (it?) has absolutely no clue what constitutes subversive or anti-societal material. Yahoo! has endeavored to stay within China's guidelines concerning censorship yet has made no effort to parallel Google's usefulness and power as concerns its search engine capabilities.
If mArtiAn is apprehensive about what he does not know or understand, is it not also right that China is the same? If we are to validate mArtiAn's fears, then we should validate China's.
Or should we, as mature, educated adults, be free to choose what we see, read, hear and be exposed to and leave the legal entities to battle the demons of obscenity, illicitness and subversiveness?
P.S. RiriRiri is a wee bit mistaken. TOR is only one method of delving into the "deep" or "dark" or "hidden" web. TOR relies on several layers of protocols (hence ".onion and its browser, 'Vidalia') but you really require TOR plus a VPN to ensure anonymity. There are other means to explore the other 90%+ of the web, but you'd be sorely disappointed to see just how banal that is. Yes, guns are there, if you look hard enough (same as Craigslist), porn (of whatever genre) is there, if you look hard enough (same with Google if you know the keywords to search for), hitmen are there to hire, if you know what to look for (you have the idea). So are recipes for apple pie, holiday pictures, movies, MP3s, love letters, fan fiction, memes, cats (lots, and lots and lots of cat pictures!!!!) and research documents, match-making sites, fitness sites, yes, even controlled substances.
So much for Pandora's Box.
You both raise interesting points. My view on Chinese censorship is that it is arbitrary & follows on real logic. Some of it is clear (The three T's) but I've known random sites get blocked that bear no relationship to China or hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.
I'm torn about Scandi's comment that censorship has no place in this world. The key one for me is child porn. The children depicted have no choice in their abuse. Should this be allowed freely? Difficult one. If allowed freely then maybe child support agencies would catch abusers more easily. Who knows?
For anything that doesn't physically or emotionally abuse the people involved then fair enough.
expatlife26:
Yeah I agree with you.
It's tough to make blanket statements even on something like censorship because there are always going to be exceptions like child porn.
But on the other hand it's easy for that one to fall under the category of "censored because it's illegal" rather than having to leave censorship up to the judgment call of a person or group. In that case a child or minor will ALWAYS be unable to give consent either to engage in that at all or to use their image. As the images are the product of a criminal act, hosting those images would be similar to storing drugs or stolen property. Ditto false accusations, like posting something accusing someone of murder in bad faith with no compelling reason to do so. It's not censored out of one person or group's sense of morality it's censored because it is by itself illegal to make such statements.
Its a tough issue. I think we can objectively say that China goes WAY past the point of censorship because they censor things which are just in the interest of those who can censor. For example if I wrote a well documented entirely provable expose on a high party official, It would be censored which is a very clear betrayal of the public trust.
But somewhere in between china censorship and total freedom to post what you want there is a place of rational good judgment.
There is something horribly wrong with "Censorship, which is supposed to be along the lines of society's "normal, accepted" standards is never really put to a nation referendum, is it? " Censoship has no place in this world.
Janosik:
This is a bit difficult point.
Is selective informing also kind of censorship? I think so - result is the same - it also includes 'hiding' of some information from you by 'forming' your point of view.
But full, unlimited access to full information is also not the solution because in the fields where the person is not at home you may need the analysis and explanations helping you to fully understand the topic.
But unfortunately each and every analysis cannot but to be subjective and you never know if it was prepared with the 'purpose'.
In other words - probably no way out. At least in the world where the profit plays the major role.
World of free information which is fully understood and also used by all (or at leas majority) of population is similar wishful thinking like socialists present already since several centuries ...
This thread prompted me to read a bit about the deep web as i knwe next to nithong about it. It's big!
"It is impossible to measure, and harsh to put estimates on, the size of the deep web because the majority of the information is hidden or locked inside databases. Early estimates suggested that the deep web is 400 to 550 times larger than the surface web. However, since more information and sites are always being added, it can be assumed that the deep web is growing exponentially at a rate that cannot be quantified"
You both raise interesting points. My view on Chinese censorship is that it is arbitrary & follows on real logic. Some of it is clear (The three T's) but I've known random sites get blocked that bear no relationship to China or hurting the feelings of the Chinese people.
I'm torn about Scandi's comment that censorship has no place in this world. The key one for me is child porn. The children depicted have no choice in their abuse. Should this be allowed freely? Difficult one. If allowed freely then maybe child support agencies would catch abusers more easily. Who knows?
For anything that doesn't physically or emotionally abuse the people involved then fair enough.
expatlife26:
Yeah I agree with you.
It's tough to make blanket statements even on something like censorship because there are always going to be exceptions like child porn.
But on the other hand it's easy for that one to fall under the category of "censored because it's illegal" rather than having to leave censorship up to the judgment call of a person or group. In that case a child or minor will ALWAYS be unable to give consent either to engage in that at all or to use their image. As the images are the product of a criminal act, hosting those images would be similar to storing drugs or stolen property. Ditto false accusations, like posting something accusing someone of murder in bad faith with no compelling reason to do so. It's not censored out of one person or group's sense of morality it's censored because it is by itself illegal to make such statements.
Its a tough issue. I think we can objectively say that China goes WAY past the point of censorship because they censor things which are just in the interest of those who can censor. For example if I wrote a well documented entirely provable expose on a high party official, It would be censored which is a very clear betrayal of the public trust.
But somewhere in between china censorship and total freedom to post what you want there is a place of rational good judgment.
And I believe that all PhD, Master， Bachelor and non degree English teachers in China should be banned because the level of English, despite of so many years of their effort is horrible!
They all failed and should be replaced as redundant, too expensive and unnecessary.
Why to spend so much money for the foreign teacher when the result is similar (if not worse) like when using the local ones.
Or is it not the result we measure?
iWolf:
I believe that the writing in your comment is a perfect example of why you need foreign teachers. You are obviously smart and pretty good at English but there are at least a dozen errors in your comment. As to why foreigners earn more....China needs foreigners. You consider 10,000rmb a good salary, right? It is less than unemployment benefit payments when converted to dollars....ergo, no one would come here to earn 5,000 per month so there needs to be a trade off.
Sinobear:
After all my years in China, I would tend to agree with the futility of having English as a formal lesson in schools.
As for the teachers themselves, I've known great teachers with no degree and non-effective teachers with PhDs and the gamut in between.
The point I was making with the teachers is that even a group of experienced and relatively educated people, disagreements can be rife.
Janosik:
This was meant more as mocking only.
I am of course fully aware that it's not only teachers who can influence the result. If the students are not motivated or if the classes are set up in a way that it actively prevents learning of foreign language (for instance 50 people in the class etc.) so even the teaching genius would fail.
No blame to good English teachers as the world needs them and full blame on those bad ones :-)
And iWolf:
For me English is a second language and merely a tool for communication in my job and for entertainment in my free time.
I never mentioned my English is perfect - as a matter of fact it's far away from perfect but with full modesty I still find it acceptable for my needs.
And I learned the English from Americans who came to my country and taught for free when we changed to 'capitalism' so I am actually quite happy there are English teachers around (even though you may blame them that they did quite a bad job ...
)
Not sure what fears you're referring to, I was simply stating, albeit from a position of relative ignorance, that I have no wish to visit a mall that caters only to gangsters, perverts and drug addicts, I have enough of those at home. B-dum cha! I had no idea the deep web was anywhere near as large as you suggest or was anything other than a haven for reprobates of the lowest order, but now I know they have cooking recipes and cat pictures, wahey, just try and stop me, I'm there!
Regarding your main question, are you asking whether we should be restricted in our access to the internet? If so, then no. The whole thing should be left wide open, warts and all, it would probably make it harder for criminal elements to hide. As it is it's like there are wanted posters up but people are forced to wear blinkers.
Like the title by the way.
Sinobear:
I was not targeting you personally, just using your words as an example of preconceptions when facing an unknown prior to personal experience.
The title came to me courtesy of cognac.
mArtiAn:
Do you wear a smoking jacket and a cravat when you drink that?
mArtiAn:
Waddaya know, I wear boxers with horses on them when I'm drinking beer, I'm sure we move in many of the same circles.
No you may not! that is not a stance which is approved by the Internet Cops, the PC Police, the CFTU or any other official sanctioning body.
What would happen if a poor innocent person read that stance and felt uncomfortable? You monster.
You'll be facing the firing squad for that stance, especially if you wrote the title as a pun "Can I have this dance?" because puns can be very confusing. I suggest you turn yourself in at the next CFTU meeting.
expatlife26:
The Leader is going to find out who downvoted this and they'll pay. Don't think they won't pay!
I think the problem isn't necessarily having access to view - it's that some of those things are available in the first place. As Hots used for an example, kiddie porn
There are some things in this world that the great majority of people would think to be 'inhumane' (whatever that may mean). If these things became more easily accessible, then it might put ideas into people's heads... after all, if those people on the internet can get away with pack-raping a woman on film, why can't little Timmy here?
Similarly, there are people who would sexually get off on seeing someone kidnapped and tortured. There are Hannibal Lectur types out there. So they deserve the same amount of space and attention as Mrs Martha's apple pie recipe? Should we have the same ease of access?
You mention the idea of letting the lawyers deal with the legal side of things (such as those mentioned above). But, the deep web allows anonymous users to post whatever they want - and from wherever they want! So, such legalities become completely irrelevant.
Take a simple example - a hitman. Hitman Joe sits in his hometown of Bumsville, Nowhere. Anonymously, posting ads to take people out for $5000 NQA. Little Timmy is pissed of with his father because he wouldn't buy him a new Lamborghini this week, so he pops online to the totally unrestricted no-longer-deep web, finds Hitman Joe, negotiates the deal (all anonymously), and a week later, daddy is dead. Evidence? Virtually none. That's the way the deep web is set up!
Similarly - slavery. I'm quite sure you can bulk order your slaves on various parts of the web. You can even have your order catered to (the statistics on missing persons is actually phenomenal!!!)
The main issue with the deep web is anonymity. Which happens to be the exact reason that it still exists.
As for China blocking searches on airline food... why even bring that into the discussion? There is no sense in questining why idiots do anything they do.
Sinobear:
To address two points, I meant "the law"...not lawyers. Anonymous (I should mention 'them' but I have to) dealt nicely with a lot of the pedophiles and their ilk.
The other point, regarding the airline food, was to illustrate a point about arbitrary censorship. I don't use FB, Twitter or YouTube and thus feel no need to circumvent the GFW. When I cannot even search for pictures and graphics related to my work, then I would have to consider a VPN...China "forces" me to seek ways of circumventing their bizarre regulations.
