Why thw silly headline?
'Mom, mom! Make China stopppp!'
Why?
The United States government is attempting to limit extraordinary online censorship efforts by China, complaining to the World Trade Organization that such measures will damage global trade. The Chinese government passed a new cyber security law in November 2016 that took effect this June, which the authorities have been …
Well it's something like this: Two siblings are arguing and one isn't going to listen to the other let alone do anything they say, so the aggrieved sibling goes to an authority, let's say Mom, to try and make their sibling do what they want. Of course, Mom isn't going to do a damn thing and tells them both to bugger off and play nicely together cos she's busy watching her stories. Not that she'd have much chance either but that's a different matter.
Because El Reg, for all its many excellent features, apparently thinks that inane juvenile punning and infantile repetition is an asset, rather than an eyesore which the adult readership steadfastly tries to overlook in our search for worthwhile news.
The stupid, unfunny headlines probably seemed brash and fresh 20 years ago? Now ... just tired and so transparently lame.
an asset, rather than an eyesore which the adult readership steadfastly tries to overlook in our search for worthwhile news
Your definition of an adult readership needs work. It does not mean "utterly devoid of a sense of humour". I'm one amongst the many here who have earned their grey hair (or the absence of hair altogether), and it doesn't bother me. I can't speak for others, but I enjoy some entertaining sauce poured over otherwise pretty dry news.
The massive multi-national I work for has quite the presence in China, and I have noticed several disruptions to our networks over there lately.
It would seem to be collateral damage though, because the links tend to come back up fairly quickly.
According to our network guys, it's hard to get any sort of straight answer from the local infrastructure suppliers as to what's really happening, so who really knows.
Also, as everyone knows, China will do what they want, and this sort of noise will be ignored.
"In recent months, not only have VPN services been shut down, but the government has killed off crypto currency exchanges, banned non-Chinese music and TV shows, demanded that chat app users verify their identities, deleted unwelcome images in real time, and forced some citizens to install spyware on their mobile phones."
and China still can't find anyone smart enough to run its whizzbang $180m 1,640ft radio telescope even when 'the post is currently open to scientists working outside China only'. I wonder why.
This is hardly a new thing - some may recall the tale of a certain Dr Freeman who was hired as a mere trolley dolly to shove things around in a test lab, and who proved that qualifications are nothing without practical skills, since he couldn't even manage that without breaking everything.
The country's internet watchdog said on Monday it was imposing its maximum fines on Baidu, Tencent and Sina Weibo – thought to be 500,000 yuan (~$75,300) – because they hadn't done enough on their platforms to restrict pornographic, violent and banned content, such as any that "promotes ethnic hatred."
Ah, yes. Of course. We in the West just love web platforms that support porn, violence and ethnic hatred, and wouldn't dream of legislating against them.
Is the one-way transfer of information to China ...
"The use of mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships with foreign companies, universities, and research centres in order to acquire local identities that enhance influence activities; and potentially, access to military technology, commercial secrets, and other strategic information."
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/for_website_magicweaponsanne-mariesbradyseptember2017.pdf
Let's not be too sanctimonious about how the Chinese go about things: especially the US was not adverse to lightly skip over its alleged morals to acquire technology - a substantial part of their rocket and war industry is based on what Nazi scientists brought along.
US attempts to protect intellectual property are in that context also rather hypocritical - they kickstarted their industry by enthusiastically ignoring that for as long as they could get away with it.
"In recent months, not only have VPN services been shut down, but the government has killed off crypto currency exchanges, banned non-[State approved] music and TV shows, demanded that chat app users verify their identities, deleted unwelcome images in real time, and forced some citizens to install spyware on their mobile phones."
I wonder if the US will also lodge complaints when, in around ten years time, this is the situation in the UK too?
Coming soon to a Britain near you...
Britain 2025:
"Halt! Why are you out of your home?! Your chip says you don't do your shopping on this day and that you don't have work until tomorrow. Go home! You have 5 seconds to comply or be Exterminated arrested under terrorism prevention laws!"
"... forced some citizens to install spyware on their mobile phones."
While in the west, the cud-chewing masses buy spy devices directly from the internet giants so that they can place them on the kitchen table to facilitate the online ordering of bits of overpriced shiny plastic garbage they don't need, and to save themselves the incredibly onerous labour of using a touchscreen to select the music they want to listen to.
if one large world economy is slowly sinking
and another large world economy is rising
then WTO seems like a great place to discuss the potential timing & ramifications, but surely the random words in the title should also be cards openly on the table?