How social media is shaping what people know — and don't know — about the Hong Kong protests
Social media has played an important role in Hong Kong’s anti-government protests over the past few days with protesters planning their moves via apps and mainland China users apparently blocked from learning about the unrest on multiple platforms.
Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets since Sunday, protesting a proposed government law to allow extraditions to mainland China . Opponents of the bill are worried about the growing influence of Beijing on Hong Kong, and the potential erosion of the partly autonomous city’s rule of law .
A number of messaging services including Telegram and Facebook -owned WhatsApp were being used by protesters to organize rallies.
The large-scale use of Telegram was revealed when one administrator of a 30,000 strong group on the platform was arrested, according to the South China Morning Post, citing his lawyers. The individual, Ivan Ip, was accused of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance. CNBC has reached out to Ip’s lawyers but has yet to receive a response.
Telegram and WhatsApp are encrypted and in theory should not allow third-parties to snoop on conversations.
Several other major social media platforms were used to broadcast what was going on the ground. There was an hour-long live stream on Twitter -owned service Periscope. Users also posted to their Instagram Stories. Even Twitch, a platform that hosts video gaming-related live streams, had content about the Hong Kong protests .
In Hong Kong, services like Google , Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are all freely available but are blocked in mainland China by the country’s so-called Great Firewall.
That means people in mainland China are subjected to government controls on the information they can access.
On microblogging site Weibo, the term “let’s go Hong Kong” was blocked with the platform citing “relevant laws, regulations and policies” as the reason for not showing search results. The same search query on Tencent’s popular messaging app WeChat did not yield any results related to the protests.
Pak Yiu, a video journalist in China for news service AFP, posted a screenshot of him sending an image of the Hong Kong protests to a friend. His friend, however, said they could not see the image, potentially demonstrating how WeChat is blocking content related to the protests.
On Wednesday, messaging service Telegram said it had suffered what’s known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This is when a number of computers try to overload servers of a company with bogus requests. The result is that the service could stop working or it may slow down considerably.
Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, said that the IP addresses behind the attack were coming mainly from China and it coincided with the Hong Kong protests.
I think that Hong Kong is in for a rude awakening... and it's not even near dawn.
Both they and Taiwan are living on a knifes edge with respect to China.
I think Taiwan's case to remain free of mainland China is a lot stronger than Hong Kong's.
Point taken Buzz.
A million protesters, I'd say they're not very happy with the situation. They obviously don't want to be under China's rule.
as china is a socialist republic...
I'm not thinking many people would want to live under any form of socialism. in fact, the people might even burn such a govt down.
cheers
You constantly to not understand the difference between the economic ideas of socialism and an authoritarian state, that are not intrinsically linked. You can have one without the other and it is much preferred that to be that way. Authoritarianism in any form of economic system is a problem.
Of course they are. As Kevin Williamson wrote:
"History has shown us that socialism exhibits three core defects from which it cannot escape and which its champions cannot avoid. The first is what Hayek termed “the knowledge problem.” This holds that all economic actors make errors based on imperfect knowledge but that a decentralized economy will suffer less from this, partly because the decision-makers are closer to the information they need, and partly because each actor does not wield total control over everything but is only one part of a larger puzzle. The second problem is that, because socialism eliminates both private property and supply and demand, it eliminates rational incentives and, thereby, rational calculation. The third problem is that socialism, following Marx’s dialectical theory of history, lends itself to a theory of inevitability or preordination that leaves no room for dissent, and that leads in consequence to the elevation of a political class that responds to failure by searching for wreckers and dissenters to punish. Worse still, because socialists view all questions, including moral questions, through a class lens, these searches tend to be deemed morally positive — bound, one day, to be regarded by History as Necessary. Together, these defects lead to misery, poverty, corruption, ignorance, authoritarianism, desperation, exodus, and death.."
I stopped reading when you quoted libertarian Hayek about socialism. You might as well quote Ken Ham as proof that evolution is wrong because the claims are equally laughable. .
You made another crucial mistake when you claim that there is no private property or supply and demand in socialism. The first is a communist ideal. The second ignores the concept of market socialism.
Please reply to me again when you understand the differences and we can discuss it.
That’s idiotic. He’s a Nobel prize winner. You just embarrassed yourself with such a comparison,
market socialism is an oxymoron. It doesn’t exist.
He is obviously very biased.
You automatically believe that socialism means an authriotioan government and planned economy because that is what you have been told by the conservative media, but you are very wrong. Market socialism does exist and it is actually very common. Have you ever heard of an employee-owned business or a partnertship? The employees or in some cases the employees and the customers own the means of production. The business is socialist but the individual workers are capitalists.
You took him to school Epistte
How many people have imperialism, capitalism and colonialism killed?
European Colonization: How many of the native american people died, in the creation of the New World process, untill 18 century?
India's secret history: 'A holocaust, one where millions disappeared...'
I didn't even start to school him. There was that libertarian troll on Newsvine that I took to task many times. He finally shut his mouth around me because Dscala(s0 and I poked holes in his claims. Just because somebody said that it is socialist doesn't mean that it is true. East Germany and North Korea claim/ed that they are democratic republics, despite being obvious dictatorships. Russia was never socialist or communist.
If you want to know more, just ask Digailalis(sp), but he doesn't post much. He knows 10x what I do on the subject.
What "f'ing" fantasy utopia would market socialism depend on?
DEATH TOLL FROM THE SLAVE TRADE - World Future Fund
DEATH AND DISEASE IN THE NEW WORLD. No one knows the exact number of slaves who died in the New World. Yet in American Holocaust (1992), David Stannard estimates that some 30 to 60 million Africans died while being enslaved. He claims a 50% mortality rate among new slaves while being gathered and stored in Africa,...
Those people died because of violent repressive dictatorships. They were not socialist economies.
EarthRx: The Irish Potato Famine Was Caused by Capitalism, Not a Fungus
Regardless of the wealth of the British Empire, it repeatedly refused to use its resources to either effect structural changes or alleviate food shortages when they occurred,” Kinealy says, explaining how the Irish Great Hunger was not an isolated incident. “Famines occurred periodically in both Ireland and India in the 19th century. In both countries, the rulers in London blamed the indigenous poor for their own poverty—creating the myth that they were lazy, socially backward and uncivilized .”
... In other words, a million Irish starved for no reason other than greed .
Hardly. A small investment in basic research (just Google 'Market Socialism') shows that it most certainly is not an oxymoron. For a very good model of market socialism it might be helpful to read up on David Schweikart's Economic Democracy (a market socialism model).
Correct on this point. It is theoretical and thus does not and has never existed as a national system. Marxism, by the way, has never existed as a national system either. Leninism did briefly (in a fledgling sense) and Stalinism has clearly existed and has evolved into similar systems ... all of which suck and have served to define the pejorative label 'socialism'.
By the way, Hayek was quite brilliant and spot on in much of his criticism of the USSR. Hayek, however, presupposed central planning in his definition of socialism. He categorically dismissed achieving the objectives of socialism (not Lenin or Stalin, but more Marx) without central planning. That presupposition colored all of his work on the subject. For the most part when Hayek stated 'socialism' he was speaking of the system initiated by Lenin but mostly about the system Stalin evolved. The systems that were active (and horrid) during Hayek's most productive years. Lenin deviated from Marxism almost immediately and Stalin's version of 'socialism' was nothing but brutal authoritarian rule. Never did the people of Russia (and then later the USSR) gain distributed control over their economy (nor was that even attempted). They went from hardship under an incompetent Czar to a struggling interim government to Leninism full of 'hope and change' but delivering only authoritarian rule and then to Stalin to live under historically extreme levels of unabashed oppression and brutality.
Whether or not any system of market socialism (there are a number of such models) would work in the future (rather distant future IMO) is debatable. But denying the existence of market socialism as a theoretical framework is clearly and demonstrably incorrect.
Dignitatem Societatis
You spelled his name correctly and I butchered it. I hope that he can forgive me.
I call him 'Dig' for convenience. I doubt Dig worries about little things like the spelling of his forum name.
England gave Hong Kong back to mainland China a number of years ago. They were obligated to do so. It should be no surprise to anyone that since Hong Kong is incorporated back into mainland China that mainland China's laws would eventually be imposed upon it. When the colonies became part of the USA, many United Empire Loyalists were unhappy about the change, and left for Canada. Those who remained may have complained, but had to accept that American law thenceforth governed them. I see little difference in the situations.
Buzz,
Huge difference. England didn't give up the USA. We went to war to win our independence. The English tried to even take us back in the war of 1812. But in Hong Kong, they were very happy with part of the commonwealth and were given all the freedoms of that commonwealth. Then they were handed over to a dictatorship. Also, this arrangement was made 100 years ago, before China was communist. The people of Hong Kong were supposed to be able to keep their freedoms, and that is now being taken away not too slowly. I feel bad for those people.
The 100 year agreement was well known. It's not as if nobody knew what would happen when the time came to give back. I don't know the terms of the agreement as to preserving their freedoms, but surely, taking into consideration China's treatment of Tibet and attitude towards Taiwan would be a pretty visible hint of what would happen.
those poor bastards were handed over to a " socialist dictatorship.
aka: socialist-republic which is governed by the communist party
Funny how none of your links say anything about "socialist dictatorship", you invented that yourself because the two terms are completely incongruous.
Just more evidence many people have no clue as to what actual socialism is. We need a much better public education system, then these kinds of laughable misunderstandings would likely happen far less.
nothing funny about it. I used those words not the links... LOL
china is a socialist republic and... wait for it...china is a dictatorship
also note: that china is run by the communist party.
and guess what? nothing about any of that is even debatable. it is a known fact.
from venezuela, to china, and hong kong, every country socialists touch - eventually turns to crap
why? socialism and communism are the two ends of the same piece of shit.
You really ought to stop making stuff up that just shows how far off base your argument is.
You linked: aka: socialist-republic which is governed by the communist party but that's not what the link says. No where does it call China a "socialist-Republic". You are not only misrepresenting "socialism", you're lying about it which is just getting sad to watch.
Here's a quick primer you can study which might help you make coherent factual statements.
Socialism: noun - a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole
Communism: noun - a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
Dictatorship - noun - government by a dictator.
Fascism: noun - a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Republic: noun - a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
China is a communist republic. You can see by the very definitions a "socialist-dictatorship" doesn't make any sense.
yes it does on right sidebar near the contents
use CTRL / F search: socialist republic
you will find the text and link to this page
I get that you do not want the word socialism attached to another dictator... but its too late for that
now move along...
Absolutely false in China. People buy, sell and own their own homes and farms, and besides, China is becoming extremely capitalistic - otherwise how do you explain self-made people like Jack Ma? One of my wife's brothers has just bought the title to a new home for the equivalent of US$500,000, and her other brother occupies what has been the family farm for generations. Oh, and the only class war here I've become aware of is when the classes in the private high school where I taught in Zhengzhou fought a snowball fight.
China is an interesting modern example of state capitalism. ( Actually a mix of several -isms including private sector capitalism, but you really should investigate the state capitalism factor of China. )
If you see 'socialism' everywhere you turn, you simply do not understand what you are seeing.
When I first read the title, I thought it was going to just end with "How Social Media is Shaping What People Know - And Don't Know". Hong Kong is just an example. As I've said before, I think Mark Zuckerberg could be the most dangerous person in the world.
Sadly their social media will probably be gone next.
It must be hard watching your freedoms taken away.
You might notice that I'm still here communicating on NT - notwithstanding many comments have been made by members, sometimes by me, that the rampant paranoia as I've seen about China would have blocked long ago. In the movie Oceans 11 (the Clooney remake), it was said that "someone is always watching", so isn't it amazing that I'm still around?
Maybe this discussion can expand to being more universal to show that what is happening in Hong Kong may not be much different from what is happening around the world. i.e. just remove the reference to Hong Kong and discuss THIS:
"How Social Media is Shaping What People Know - And Don't Know"
"How Social Media is Shaping What People Know - And Don't Know"
And in my opinion, it's happening as much in the USA as anywhere else.