Thread

1. usernomdeguerre · 1790961094 · focus · HN ↗

   >As we’ve said time and time again: the internet will always route around censorship.

   Is this still true, or has it become a truism? It seems nations like Iran and China (and events like Kashmir come to mind) have progressed the state-of-the-art and playbook to where we can't actually say it definitively will route around it.

   Now seeing that the US and EU are flirting with these similar restrictions it's making me wonder how we'll be able to keep hold of these principles.

   Maybe my concern with that adage is ultimately its passive voice, since it takes 'active' action by people to give us those options, and will probably take more actions by more people to keep it alive now.

   1. nemomarx · 1790961692 · focus · HN ↗

      Is China that successful at it lately? I see a lot of posters and info from China getting around the great firewall, and my understanding was that they don't really care if 1% of users do that so long as it mostly holds and only the technical minded or really fixated will see it.

      So there is a route around censorship, but maybe the public doesn't really care about it.

      1. Scaled · 1790962681 · focus · HN ↗

         There is also the difficult reality that the government doesn't need to block vpn entirely, but just make it a credible risk of being detected. If you have to worry about the state police barging into your home, you are likely to decide it isn't worth the risk and self-regulate.

         1. Gigachad · 1790983256 · focus · HN ↗

            How I have heard it described is using a VPN in China is like smoking weed in the US. It’s widely done even if illegal and you’d have to be seriously unlucky to get in trouble. You’d at most get a warning.

            People with more first hand experience can probably explain it better but it doesn’t seem that strict. China is not North Korea, their aims seem less about preventing people from learning about the world and more preventing non compliant foreign tech companies having Chinese users.

            1. physicles · 1790998286 · focus · HN ↗

               It absolutely is primarily about preventing people from learning about the world. You can’t run a system like China’s without controlling information. During the political meetings, they ramp up their blocking, and then they usually turn it down again after.

               During the World Cup (2022, still zero covid in China), they started blurring out the crowd because people were noticing that nobody in the stands was wearing masks. They’d been told that the zero covid policy and draconian lockdowns were keeping them safe, and outside China was a Covid hell-hole. Protests followed four months later.

               Nobody in China was told about western covid vaccines, much less allowed to get them.

               VPNs aren’t widely used — there was a study posted here some months ago that estimated VPN use at around 1% of the population, too little to matter.

               That’s why they’re a bit lax. They can afford to let some through to grease the wheels of commerce. You do have to be seriously unlucky to get into trouble.

               (I was there during Covid, and some years before and after)

               1. cheez-wiz · 1791046231 · focus · HN ↗

                  Do you write anywhere about your time there during covid? Seeing a foreigner's perspective during that time would be fascinating.

                  That's some interesting info anyways if not. It's funny that the absolute number of VPN users is large but negligible compared to the overall population.

                  1. physicles · 1791080563 · focus · HN ↗

                     Not publicly unfortunately. I still go back to visit from time to time, and some of the things I could write about would definitely get me harassed if the wrong person found it. That's self-censorship for you.

                     TL;DR: it was far better than the rest of the world in 2020, marginally better in 2021, but 2022 was a shit show. I still remember Dec 7 as the day zero covid ended.

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