Copying China’s online blockade Alexis Beauclair Author Headshot By Shira Ovide China’s government commands the “Great Firewall,” an elaborate system of

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Copying China’s online blockade
Alexis Beauclair
Author Headshot

By Shira Ovide

China’s government commands the “Great Firewall,” an elaborate system of technology and people that blocks foreign websites, contorts online conversations and punishes people for straying.

I spoke with my colleague Paul Mozur, who has written for years about technology and politics in China, about what he called “firewalls great and small” by governments in Myanmar, Russia, Uganda and other countries that are to varying degrees also trying to control online activities.

Shira: Please first explain China’s system of internet control.

Paul: It’s a combination of blocking just about any foreign website you can think of and providing an information environment that reinforces what China’s government and the Chinese Communist Party say about the world.

The controls are comprehensive. A huge government bureaucracy monitors online activity, and an army of volunteers report content to be censored and help spread positive messages about government initiatives. Companies are tasked with pulling material off the internet, and engineering teams are dispatched to build artificial intelligence tools to help. Contractors provide the manpower for industrial scale censorship.

The newest phenomenon is the internet police, which detains or investigates people if they’re found to routinely do things like make fun of China’s leader, Xi Jinping, online or raise sensitive political topics.

Does the firewall work?

Yes. It comes at the cost of the government’s energy and money and the permanent anger of a segment of the population, but it’s extremely effective in shaping what many think.
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Most people don’t have time to escape the information environment they live in, so it informs their outlook on the world — especially during crises. The online manipulation during the early coronavirus outbreak was probably the biggest censorship event in history.

How do other countries’ efforts to block some websites or control the internet compare with the Great Firewall?

Iran and North Korea also have nearly complete control over the internet, and Myanmar and Cambodia are potentially trying to do something similar.

But it’s difficult for any country to permanently block major social media sites and censor what people say online — as our colleague Anton Troianovski has reported from Russia. It risks angering citizens and isolating the economy, and the government risks missing its other priorities. It’s also difficult to stay on top of people’s attempts around the internet controls.

How has Myanmar tried to control people’s online activities?

When the coup started last month, the military used brute force tactics to simply blackout the internet temporarily. In some cases, they did it at gunpoint. Now they’re slowly cutting access.
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Each morning, people wake up to find new websites they can’t access. For now, it has been fairly easy for people to get around those blocks. The worry is that new technology from China could make the blocks more complete, though we’ve seen no evidence to date of China’s involvement.

How do you explain that in Myanmar people have suffered from too little restraint of the internet and also too much? First, the military spread hatred online against the country’s Rohingya minority group, and now it’s cutting off the internet.

Where democratic institutions are weak and there are challenges over a country’s future, powerful actors will both cut off the flow of information when it suits them and deploy the internet to spread information in their interests. China does both, and so has Myanmar. Though it might seem contradictory, censorship and disinformation go hand in hand.

What’s next?

The fear is that China will make the technology and techniques of its internet manipulation system readily adaptable by other autocratic countries. Myanmar is important to watch because if the generals control the internet without decimating the economy, it may become a model for other authoritarian regimes.
The New York Times
Me: “We” have internet censorship. Certain sites are blocked, but we don’t know which ones until we try to access them. Currently I use a proxy or a VPN to get wherever I want to go, but I notice that some of the other sites I use less frequently are no longer accessible, so I think it is only a matter of time before all of my internet download sites have been removed and nothing will be available anymore.

New Confession

Living with my aunt…..i got home from classes one day and my aunt was rushing around in a panic, apparently a lifelong friend had been taken to the hospital. She had me follow her quickly next door to where the sisters/landlords/my lesbian aunt’s long term relationship partners lived. She told them what was going on and asked them if they could watch me while she was gone, keeping in mind that they were already aware of why i was having to live with my aunt, they knew of my “little problem”. My aunt told me that i waa to behave and obey them no differently than her. My aunt left and i was rold to sit and watch tv with them. Since i already drove home from classes each day anticipating my spanking from my aunt, i was already a bit primed for and disappointed with this situation and they could tell i guess because they asked me why i was distracted and fidgeting. They were not harsh but were very clear in telling me to not lie to them because if they had any suspicions they would tell my aunt without fail. So i had to admit that i was a little off and they immediately asked if it was because of the delay in my spanking. That my aunt told them everything anyway. So i had to admit to these women, who were far greater anti male than my aunt seemed, that yes i was fidgety because i had not been spanked. They pushed harder, making me say why i had to and deserved to be spanked. It was very embarassing and degrading. I was told to they would fill in that burden of my aunt’s today, and whenever my aunt needed their help in the future. I was fairly soundly verbally degraded, even being told that they did not want their property, whether their home or the one i shared with my aunt, dirtied by such a filthy little masturbator. They told me that they had already asked my aunt to occasionally administer my spankings for that reason. They left for the kitchen and came back each holding a spatula and a towel and pointed to a large overstufded chair and told me i knew what to do. I was actually not looking forward to it like i would have with my aunt. I was told pants and underwear down to my ankles and had to place the towels on the chair cushion to kneel on, and kneel and brace my elbows on the back of the chair. I sensed their approach and was immediately screaminfg and crying because the spanking was on both cheeks at the same time and very swift and hard. It was in total silence without a soothing voice from my aunt to mentally and emotionally anchor or ground myself to while enduring it. It was all over my cheeks and up and down the backs of my thighs, and i was told to spread my knees apart and they whaled on my inner thighs as well. I was sobbing and pleading without any mercy. When they were done they made me stay there and disregarded me completely. I tried to calm myself telling myself my aunt would take care of me when she got home but thinking of her meant that i was thinking of her bare in the morning showers and i tried but failed to will myself to not have an erection. When they saw that they were angry and they actually made an ice pack and forced me to keep it clamped between my thighs to shrink my g e nit als as they lit me up even worse. It was so relentless that i actually briefly lost bladder control slightly and spurted urine down my leg. More anger, they made me go empty my bladder and come back and resume the spanking. Then i was allowed to pull my pants back up and sit quietly intil my aunt returned. They reported everything and when my aunt walked me back home she said she was sorry she had to rely on their help knowing they would be much harsher but she was also disappointed in me for having expereinced the arousal. She also said that she wished she had thought about using an ice pack before. She did show tenderness by letting me shower to warm up and soothe the pain in my cheeks and thighs, and told me that she was proud of me that my arousal was because of thoughts of her and not about them spanking me. She held me through the night consoling me and saying that she should have expected that i would be more easily aroused since i had not ej acul ated in so long but she did not know how she wanted to adress that right now.

To be continued.

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The next Algorithmic Echo series on Vampire hero has a 110 chapter and it is completely comedy worthy. You can see what happens when that their cave becomes the villain home. I been reading it too, it better than dripping quills role playing games like that.