We don’t want to control the Internet: Faith Muthambi

[Kevin Lancaster]

We don’t want to control the Internet: Faith Muthambi

The Department of Communications is not seeking to control the Internet, Minister Faith Muthambi said on Monday.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Well even if you're lying (which most of us suspect you are), you can't control the internet... even China who are a million times smarter at this shyte than you could ever hope to be struggle with it.

 

[konfab]

We are not corrupt- Jacob Zuma

 

[gregmcc]

lol. So much fail there. They making it sound like they have the ability to control the internet.

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

We are witnessing a failure of self-regulation in certain sectors of the industry. Also, state regulation has its limitations within the industry.

“Therefore, a much coordinated co-regulation model that provides for the involvement of industry and the government is required,” Muthambi said.

So, control the internet ..... ?

 

[itareanlnotani]

Well even if you're lying (which most of us suspect you are), you can't control the internet... even China who are a million times smarter at this shyte than you could ever hope to be struggle with it.

Going to be a contrarian, and say that China does control their internet to a large degree.

Reasonably easy to do - you enforce controls / firewalls at the international POPs.

The majority of content of interest to Chinese is in China - as its in Chinese.
Chinese sites are mostly hosted within China, and subject to Chinese data laws. (i.e. real name registration for users, additional registration requirements for media provision or discussion forums etc, which are enforced with penalties on the site owners if users do something bad).

Its not 100% successful - people use VPN's, SSH tunnelling and other methods for unfettered internet, but it achieves their goals of having control over the majority of what matters to them.

The exceptions to locations having Chinese content are mostly HK, and Taiwan, and to a much smaller degree Singapore, and US.

HK has reasonably unfettered internet, due to its history as a separate state. Its still mostly not quite China - HK has a different currency, visa requirements for Chinese nationals, different government, different laws etc.

Taiwan is the "rebel province". HK gets a loose leash as the ultimate goal is re-unification of Taiwan with the mainland. How HK is treated is what Taiwan watches. I think re-unification will ultimately happen, but its going to take another generation.

I digress though.

 

[dualmeister]

What watch is she wearing? Looks like it could be expensive.

Best to hide your bribes

 

[The_Librarian]

if this happens, then I'll happily spend some money for an overseas VPN account.

Not going to hold my breath though, it is bound to happen sooner or later.

 

[Ninja'd]

It'll take more than faith to control the internet.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Going to be a contrarian, and say that China does control their internet to a large degree.

Reasonably easy to do - you enforce controls / firewalls at the international POPs.

The majority of content of interest to Chinese is in China - as its in Chinese.
Chinese sites are mostly hosted within China, and subject to Chinese data laws. (i.e. real name registration for users, additional registration requirements for media provision or discussion forums etc, which are enforced with penalties on the site owners if users do something bad).

Its not 100% successful - people use VPN's, SSH tunnelling and other methods for unfettered internet, but it achieves their goals of having control over the majority of what matters to them.

The exceptions to locations having Chinese content are mostly HK, and Taiwan, and to a much smaller degree Singapore, and US.

HK has reasonably unfettered internet, due to its history as a separate state. Its still mostly not quite China - HK has a different currency, visa requirements for Chinese nationals, different government, different laws etc.

Taiwan is the "rebel province". HK gets a loose leash as the ultimate goal is re-unification of Taiwan with the mainland. How HK is treated is what Taiwan watches. I think re-unification will ultimately happen, but its going to take another generation.

I digress though.

I def don't disagree with you.. know a little bit about the lay of the land in terms of the Chinese interwebs... but my point basically being, yes they control it for the average joe to a large degree, but if someone really wants to bypass it, they can and its not rocket science to do.

 

[Thor]

She looks like she's fcked up high on something

 

[HavocXphere]

Would love to see her try actually...

 

[Lazy]

And here I thought another word for internet was "SELECT * FROM Gupta" already...what did I miss?

 

[Park@82]

Going to be a contrarian, and say that China does control their internet to a large degree.

Reasonably easy to do - you enforce controls / firewalls at the international POPs.

yeah. I speak to one of our suppliers in china on occasion, they have told me that both google and facebook are blocked "because of censorship".

 

[DeathStrike]

My 2c. I think they want to because then they will be able to monitor/control media sites online and they already try to protect number1 from the media.

 

[Arthur]

lsheed_cn is quite right. China very effectively controls the internet for most people inside the PRC.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Yup, China even controls satellite based internet if you so much as touch Chinese waters.

 

[TheSn00pster]

 

[laric]

Going to be a contrarian, and say that China does control their internet to a large degree.

Reasonably easy to do - you enforce controls / firewalls at the international POPs.

The majority of content of interest to Chinese is in China - as its in Chinese.
Chinese sites are mostly hosted within China, and subject to Chinese data laws. (i.e. real name registration for users, additional registration requirements for media provision or discussion forums etc, which are enforced with penalties on the site owners if users do something bad).

Its not 100% successful - people use VPN's, SSH tunnelling and other methods for unfettered internet, but it achieves their goals of having control over the majority of what matters to them.

The exceptions to locations having Chinese content are mostly HK, and Taiwan, and to a much smaller degree Singapore, and US.

HK has reasonably unfettered internet, due to its history as a separate state. Its still mostly not quite China - HK has a different currency, visa requirements for Chinese nationals, different government, different laws etc.

Taiwan is the "rebel province". HK gets a loose leash as the ultimate goal is re-unification of Taiwan with the mainland. How HK is treated is what Taiwan watches. I think re-unification will ultimately happen, but its going to take another generation.

I digress though.

I believe that our FPB probably want to follow the Chinese example and the only hope we have is the constitutional court strikes it down as unconstitutional like most things Zupta government seems to be doing lately.

However I do have an issue with what you describe the situation in Hong Kong and Taiwan. First of all Taiwan is not a "rebel province" but a de facto state separate country from People's Republic of China as the communist government in China never ruled Taiwan since their inception in 1949.In 2016 the pro eventual unification parties in Taiwan lost control of the government and parliament to the pro independence parties largely thanks to the power of the social media as the traditional medias are controlled by pro unification groups. The shifting in media consumption has actually given the pro independence groups enough absolute majority to change the constitution and call for a vote on independence, the only thing holding the people back is the threat of thousands of ballistic missiles (nuclear and conventional) China has pointed towards Taiwan as the percentage of people who wants unification with China is currently under 10% so they have to hold the people of Taiwan at "Gun point" and I doubt reunification will ever happen peacefully between the two countries.

As for Hong Kong the leash is getting shorter and shorter as the anti Chinese movement is getting widespread acceptance and people who publish anti-Chinese books in Hong Kong "disappear" and rock up in China to "assist" in investigating various crimes, and anti-government protesters are getting arrested and jailed for crimes such as "attacking" police officers with breasts.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundayti...woman-jailed-for-attacking-police-with-breast

Again the anti-government and anti-China protest are as a result of social media based movements as the traditional media in Hong Kong are again mostly controlled by pro china groups.

However with the new found riches in China, they are helping autocratic and/or kliptocratic regimes to push agendas of limiting freedom of speech and access of information in the name of "national security" and "anti-pornography" as they seek to limit and censor social media to prevent political activism therefore we should all be very wary of such moves currently being pushed by any government as they fear the power of the internet.

 

[itareanlnotani]

I believe that our FPB probably want to follow the Chinese example and the only hope we have is the constitutional court strikes it down as unconstitutional like most things Zupta government seems to be doing lately.

However I do have an issue with what you describe the situation in Hong Kong and Taiwan. First of all Taiwan is not a "rebel province" but a de facto state separate country from People's Republic of China as the communist government in China never ruled Taiwan since their inception in 1949.In 2016 the pro eventual unification parties in Taiwan lost control of the government and parliament to the pro independence parties largely thanks to the power of the social media as the traditional medias are controlled by pro unification groups. The shifting in media consumption has actually given the pro independence groups enough absolute majority to change the constitution and call for a vote on independence, the only thing holding the people back is the threat of thousands of ballistic missiles (nuclear and conventional) China has pointed towards Taiwan as the percentage of people who wants unification with China is currently under 10% so they have to hold the people of Taiwan at "Gun point" and I doubt reunification will ever happen peacefully between the two countries.

As for Hong Kong the leash is getting shorter and shorter as the anti Chinese movement is getting widespread acceptance and people who publish anti-Chinese books in Hong Kong "disappear" and rock up in China to "assist" in investigating various crimes, and anti-government protesters are getting arrested and jailed for crimes such as "attacking" police officers with breasts.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundayti...woman-jailed-for-attacking-police-with-breast

Again the anti-government and anti-China protest are as a result of social media based movements as the traditional media in Hong Kong are again mostly controlled by pro china groups.

However with the new found riches in China, they are helping autocratic and/or kliptocratic regimes to push agendas of limiting freedom of speech and access of information in the name of "national security" and "anti-pornography" as they seek to limit and censor social media to prevent political activism therefore we should all be very wary of such moves currently being pushed by any government as they fear the power of the internet.

"rebel province" - Note the quotation marks.

From China's perspective, Taiwan is very much the rebel province.
I write from China's p.o.v. I'm well aware of the nuances, I didn't feel like writing a books worth of material in a short post about the internet!

FYI - I read/write/speak Mandarin, and oral Shanghainese, and spent most of my adult life on the mainland in Shanghai.
I also do a lot of internet related business there, so am well aware of the rules (sadly).