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Comment by mattnewton | Hacker News Reader

I absolutely agree this is propaganda, but I think there is a meaningful distinction about the degree this is done in China vs here. America cannot completely censor something internally, because we have no great firewall, despite being able to practically do it for millions relying on facebook. And that is a meaningful difference, the difference between some and almost none. We cannot make a political dissidents life as hard as it is in china, with originizations like the ACLU, and that too is a meaningful difference of degree.

The goals of the organizations doing these things are not always aligned either, since many of them do have to maintain consumer trust they aren't always on the same page as the government, and that's a meaningful friction that doesn't exist AFAICT in China.

I hope Americans don't get cynical enough to discredit that we have more rights and they are worth fighting for, because it could always get far worse.

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The article overplayed the contrast and underplayed the comparison. China has civil rights organizations parallel to the ACLU, and in America civil rights activists and journalists are routinely finding themselves charged with crimes, in prison or harassed. I myself have been harassed (followed, gaslit, personally surveilled, and threatened) by state police in America, for sharing Snowden documents and their contents. My mail between my relatives and I were opened. All subtle hints and threats: stop being outspoken.

Following the state of the law with regard to providers and services in the United States, I think you've overemphasized the capability for companies to fight back, as the pressure from the state is incredible and at every front. Primarily, PR is used to emphasize that businesses are really on consumers' sides: that they'd like to not provide data and access. But in actuality, being a successful company at the scale you need to survive means working hand in hand with the US government. We saw how large ("trusted") brands worked hand-in-hand with government by the Snowden documents and we've watched it slip further since.

> I hope Americans don't get cynical enough to discredit that we have more rights and they are worth fighting for, because it could always get far worse.

We have the same rights worth fighting for that the Chinese have.

Government does not give us rights. The rights are independent of government. Americans and Chinese have the same rights. Both governments are impeding on them. Washington DOES NOT give Americans more rights than the Chinese. Rights have never been something Washington can give.

What you are seeing is Washington taking rights, and pointing fingers at the Chinese, telling you that they're taking more.

You want to fight for rights? You can't fight the Chinese for your rights.

You have to fight Washington for your rights.

> China has civil rights organizations parallel to the ACLU

No, it doesn't, because the ACLU has a degree of power and legitimacy in the US which the Chinese government would not allow to any equivalent organization. The ACLU has actually won cases in court which effected a change in law and/or behavior.

> I myself have been harassed (followed, gaslit, personally surveilled, and threatened) by state police in America, for sharing Snowden documents and their contents. My mail between my relatives and I were opened. All subtle hints and threats: stop being outspoken.

Without minimizing the wrongness, illegality, or harm those things have done to you, I have to imagine that in China, a) Snowden documents would never have seen the light of day, and, b) If you had attempted to share something like that you would have been imprisoned without trial.

As the parent poster said, the difference between some and none is significant.

I do agree with the ultimate statement of you post, about fighting for rights.

> No, it doesn't, because the ACLU has a degree of power and legitimacy in the US which the Chinese government would not allow to any equivalent organization. The ACLU has actually won cases in court which effected a change in law and/or behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weiquan_lawyers

> I have to imagine that in China...

a) Had Washington had its way the documents never would have seen the light of day. They broke international law to ground planes in search of Snowden. They blocked as much of the documents as they could from being shared. They spread rumors about malware on Wikileaks. They worked with the media industry to not cover the contents and to work on the messaging to the American people: "This is bulk collection, not mass surveillance." Their official and public statements on the contents and scope of the programs were repeatedly shown to be false. They passed a law legalizing and expanding authorities and passed this off to the public as their stopping the programs, while the media ran 24/7 news about Caitlyn Jenning. The UK infiltrated the Guardian at gunpoint and destroyed the documents.

b) The laws are in place for exactly this. Snowden, had he been caught, would have been in military prison. His lawyers are arguing today the terms of a trial for him to come home, with senior members of our government calling for his execution. The US government under the Obama Justice Department has compromised on a secret jury-less trial in the Virginia legal subsystem (notable for prosecuting National Security cases, and siding with National Security over individual rights). Remember Chelsea Manning's court case? I don't.

The very link you posted refers to the problems that human rights lawyers face in China. They are estimated to number only a few dozen, in a country of 1.3 billion citizens. (This info is right there in your link!)

It's absurd to compare this environment to the ACLU.

In 1986, Gorbachev released Andrei Sakharov from internal exile. I guess you would have been saying: "That's it, the West can stop harping about human rights in the Soviet Union, it's all equal now"...?

And besides their small number, they are also often jailed and abused for taking on cases (mentioned in the article itself). There was a high profile case involving Chen Guancheng, who escaped house arrest and sought refuge in the US embassy. He was granted asylum and now lives in the US.

To my knowledge, there has not been a case of an ACLU lawyer being jailed or harassed simply for taking on a case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitong_Law_Firm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Human_Rights_Lawyers_Con...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Constitution_Initiative

You read the first Wikipedia article looking for reasons to dismiss it.

There's plenty of Civil Rights activity in China. It's a myopic American view that there is none and "no true Scotsman" all the civil rights law firms, attorneys and court cases should be dismissed out of hand for consideration.

In China, most disputes are resolved without institutional involvement whatsoever. Off the bat it's difficult to point to institutions and institutional processes and claim China doesn't have equivalence.

You are right. China is different. But it's not some wasteland dystopia from a fantasy novel. It has a wide and active civil society. That civil society is uniquely Chinese, and frankly, it's exciting to see it blossom as it has been since the 80s.

The most shocking thing is that the United States thinks China and Chinese society is a country to compare itself to. The ignorance of these comparisons is nearly as shocking.

Again, I can't believe you're bringing out these links as evidence of a healthy civil society in China. All the events described indicate active long-term persecution by the government. (Why do you think China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group is based in Hong Kong?)

Your argument could have been made about the Soviet Union in the late '80s. I grew up in Finland, and I remember people actually saying that: defending the Soviet human rights record, saying Russia is different, and pretending that a sprinkling of perestroika has fixed everything. It was complete bullshit then, and it's the same today in China.

>Why do you think China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group is based in Hong Kong?

Because Hong Kong is part of China, probably?

And the simple proof is that you're able to write this _on an American website_.

Are there open debates about Chinese civil rights on Chinese websites?

I was actually asked to leave. My comments and opinions have been deleted, hidden, shadowbanned and obscured elsewhere.

Indeed, it's hard to find a place on American social media where dissenting opinions can be argued. There's either an administrative agreement to shut the ideas down, or places (such as HN) don't like the idea of having opinions on their site for whatever reason (harmful to the community) so they shut it down.

I'm certainly not getting thrown in jail. But you won't hear any dissenting opinions.

>I was actually asked to leave

By the FBI?

Do you think some government agency actually complained to the owner of Y-Combinator threatening them with reprisals unless they evict you?

For what it's worth I've been upvoting you for giving me great perspective. It's not often I get to hear about China outside the American media lense, and so I tend to think of it as a real-life IngSoc state. And we both agree America won't get better by saying "china has it way worse guys"

I think we are in violent agreement.

I think that both countries are on equally slippery slopes. I want to appeal to an American sense that this is something in our fiber, and civil liberties are as important to being American as baseball and apple pie.

They are on equally slippery slopes, but China is farther down the slope.

The US has far more legal protections and better rule of law than China has ever had. And, crucially, America is a democracy with constitutionally protected free speech. American citizens have much greater ability to challenge the actions of their government than Chinese citizens do.

I think it does a disservice to those defending civil liberties in the US to not recognize that the two countries' situations are vastly different.

Right. You've been harassed by police, but here you are, still commenting on the open internet about what happened to you, and not locked in your house with your internet severed and having not seen a lawyer or your family members for 9 months. Thats the difference.

> I hope Americans don't get cynical enough to discredit that we have more rights and they are worth fighting for, because it could always get far worse.

That's a really good point--those of us in America are lucky to be here. Do you think people are fighting enough, though? Amy Goodman was nearly thrown in jail just for covering the Dakota Pipeline Protests--what punishment will be handed out in response to that egregious attempt at violating civil rights in America. Right now it looks like: none.

Another example: At least one Journalist has been physically detained, searched and had equipment seized for travelling to cover the Dakota Pipeline Protests.^1

What about the fact that the Iraqi government was desperately trying to prove they did not have chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction, and the Bush administration hid this from the public?^2 Even though that is a proven, factually-substantiated conspiracy, and it is not technically censored, how many Americans would you guess are aware that happened? In my experience, most aren't.

What about whistle blower protections? Human rights abuses? Guantanamo? Police brutality? Legalized propaganda? Our actions in Syria? Government harassment of Greenwald, Poitras, and others for covering the Snowden leaks? The list goes on and on.

If we lost just a few of our best 'freedom fighters:' the ACLU, the EFF, and people like Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald, my best guess is that the world would start to turn into a different place. I'm not sure if we are fighting enough.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/does-what-happened-jo... [2]https://theintercept.com/2016/12/15/if-donald-trump-is-so-up...

Well, when I saw creeping authoritarianism in action, I started giving a monthly $72 donation to the ACLU. If we all do similarly, they'll have more strength to fight back for our rights. I also just gave part of my holiday bonus to the ADL.

That makes me feel good, reading that you do that. I wish I had more financial freedom to support those two and other organizations which fight for liberty, particularly the EFF.

I suspect USA don't need a great firewall, because so few of the public can read anything but english.

In contrast anyone Chinese that are active online effectively has to be capable of understanding both english and Chinese.

Why would not reading anything other than English matter? There are a large number of English language news sources based outside the US. Even inside the US, there is a wide range of news sources with varying ideologies.

In contrast anyone Chinese that are active online effectively has to be capable of understanding both english and Chinese.

I find that hard to believe. I know it's not true for Portuguese native speakers, and China seems to be even more keen on providing native alternatives to foreign sites.

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