The Guardian bans criticism of the Government

[economistParticipant 225]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/31/readers-editor-on-readers-comments-below-the-line

Moving us one step closer to the brave new world where dissent is banned, and you are policed for your thoughts rather than your actions, the Guardian has decided to ban pretty much any criticism of the government, or it’s handling of the migration crisis, or really if you read what they consider to be unacceptable, essentially any dissenting viewpoint that isn’t identical to their own. Because when they can use mental gymnastics to define EVERYTHING as racism and hate speech, it won’t be long before they do exactly that.

[Faust For ScienceParticipant 22521]

That is nothing compared to what China is doing. The chinese government have implemented a system that they use to judge if a person is a “good citizen” or not, which is based on social media scoring.

If the local government implements such a system in the nation I live in. I am checking out. I have no interest being force to play a popularity game that could get me imprisoned, or murdered, because I am not well liked. Especially, when by law, I am placed at the bottom of the popularity list already.

[economistParticipant 225]

Oh yeah, the whole chinese obedience meter thing is bizarre. But honestly it’s not nearly as disturbing to me to see those things happening in a communism rather than in a modern, western democratic society. China has a long history of bizarre, collectivist ideologies that place the state above the individual. And hundreds of millions have suffered and died for those beliefs. I’m hoping we don’t end up in the same place here in the West.

[Anonymous 42]

The Guardian? That’s a hypocritical name for anything hushing those of us willing to stand up and say something! “The Guardian”, No, more like forward guard for a new world order.

Speak as we speak!
Think as we think!
Do as we do!
Load those ovens!

[HitmanParticipant]

yes, big brother is pulling no punches .
sharia law for social media .
the gaurdian is now gaurding the government and not the freedom of any one else .
i hope there’s a special place in hell for the fascist bastards behind this .

[uchibenkeiParticipant 7965]

Faust For Science wrote:

That is nothing compared to what China is doing. The chinese government have implemented a system that they use to judge if a person is a “good citizen” or not, which is based on social media scoring.

If the local government implements such a system in the nation I live in. I am checking out. I have no interest being force to play a popularity game that could get me imprisoned, or murdered, because I am not well liked. Especially, when by law, I am placed at the bottom of the popularity list already.

Where did you hear about this? I used to teach Chinese students in China and never heard of anything like this. I’m very wary of information about China from western sources. I remember how Russians were also demonized during the cold war and it was all bulls~~~. Russian women were all fat, hairy, manly beasts. Remember that nonsense?

I bathe in the tears of single moms.

[economistParticipant 225]

Uchibenkei, I would say this explanation of the topic is from a pretty good source:

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/chinas-nightmarish-citizen-scores-are-warning-americans

The things they are doing are pretty Orwellian, combining mass surveillance with social media in a way that allows them to monitor the “citizen score” of every netizen.

[JasonParticipant 282]

Economist: The article author in that link explicitly states that he has no idea if his source holds any accuracy whatsoever and that no journalists with first-hand knowledge of Chinese culture, language and society have (at the time of the article’s writing) reported on it. He has not corroborated the information nor has he any reason whatsoever to trust his source, or even his own interpretation of said source (due to a lack of contextual knowledge).

In short, while the information in the article may or may not hold true in reality (based on the article, we have no way of knowing), I wouldn’t consider it a “good source” any more than I would a five-year-old hopped up on hallucinogenics who’s never heard the word “China” before.

There lies serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the eye of the hurricane.

[MonkeyMindParticipant 5340]

The Guardian doesn’t realise that there is a good reason why people disagree with their articles – They’re absolute bollocks. The comments section is the the only part of the website worth reading.

They used to have a forum years ago and it was an absolute bear pit. It was great to have arguments with people and it was mostly unmoderated. Everyone who posted there knew they were in for a rough ride but that was part of the fun of it.

Eventually they were sued by a guy called Thor Halland for an undisclosed sum that he got as a settlement. The forum literally closed down overnight without warning around 2011.

[economistParticipant 225]

Jason – You’re totally right. My bad. I’m guilty of skimming my own sources. That’s a lesson learned. Thanks for calling me on that… have more reading to do on the issue I suppose. Heard it repeated from so many sources I assumed it was fact – we’re all aware how much of a mistake that is!

[ShinyParticipant 2307]

Criticism of the Government? I thought the Guardian was a lefty rag and the governments in both the UK and Australia were right-wing. This is about controlling speech on social issues, not about protecting government. The Guardian here in Oz gets quoted a lot but I don’t know anyone who reads it – the leftist mainstream media here is Fairfax, and they regularly close down comments on such issues (and when feminists write).

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