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* 2018-03-07 https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20191012103953/https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/[archive])
[[ufwd]]
==== United Front Work Department (UFWD, 中共中央统一战线工作部)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Front_Work_Department
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中共中央统一战线工作部
The likely organizers behind <<confucius-institute>>, <<cssa>>, and likely several forms of <<astroturfing>>.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/软实力
[[what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship]]
=== What should pro-democracy Chinese living in China do about the dictatorship? 想要民主住在中国大陆的人应该干什么？
First of all, hide and stay safe, unless you can deal the final blow. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War[World at war, 1973], ep. 16:
A dictatorship is like a snake. If you put your foot on its tail as you do it, it will just bite you and nobody will be helped. You have to strike the head.
* hide your thoughts, manipulate your enemies, infiltrate the corporate, political and military power circles, and go up the ladder
* if you are an technological innovator, leave China and come work for the West. Don't strengthen commie power.
If you don't manage to do either of the above, don't do any technological work. Go work on the fields or washing dishes. Working well for Chinese companies makes the Chinese <<dictatorship,Dictatorship>> stronger and <<war,more deadly>>. See also: <<embargo>>.
And regardless: remember your kids that the commies are bastards every day.
[[reply-policy]]
=== Ciro Santilli's reply policy (三西猴的回答政策)
People get kind of passionate sometimes about politics. And some of them might also be just malicious <<wumao,wumaos>>, although it is generally not possible to distinguish between them.
* Ciro Santilli is one, and antagonists are millions. It is therefore not possible to reply to all antagonists.
* Ciro has in the past tried to be nice to stupid people, and they gave nasty replies
* all discussion is useless, <<effective,only the keyword attack has any chance of having any effect, and even that is slim>>
In order to not waste too much time on those, Ciro Santilli uses the following strategy.
If the original thread post is not very interesting, try to parse it quickly and reply once, always <<better-to-do,linking to the FAQ>>, and then unfollow the thread. This shows that you're still alive, and takes little effort.
Always quote reply, and always write down the ID of the OP on your reply, because discussions like this lead to a large number of comment and account deletions, which could make your reply not make much sense without the context.
After the link addressing anything that they might have said, add three randomly selected images from this repository to it. This is fundamental because the average <<little-pink>> does not speak English. Therefore writing is pointless.
Meme images, however, cross the language barrier beautifully. It is even better if they have Chinese captions.
Another way to see it is that we are creating a harder to censor <<instagram>> channel.
You can think of them metaphorically as throwing hand grenades over the <<gfw>>. Ciro strives to add the following elements in the image itself where applicable:
* English explanation
* Chinese explanation
* date
* location
Because the <<censorship,CCP censors politics>>, and the West does not, we can never "lose" a shitargument. Even if the <<wumao>> supports his country in a thread, just being in the same thread as the censored material could already be problematic for the wumao, as it is proof that they've seen something they should not have seen.
Therefore the only option for them is to run away.
Ciro has since then created a reply bot based on <<github>> Actions that does the above automatically, therefore handling 99% of the work, see:
* link:action.js[]
* link:.github/workflows/issue.yml[]
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The bot works beautifully because it makes Ciro not feel the need to reply to every idiot <<wumao>> that comes along. Also Ciro can hide like a coward behind the bot by editing the bot's comment, which is perfect. This reminded Ciro from something that was said in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Call_Saul[Better Call Saul] S01 E01:
____
And they find themselves in a little room with a detective who acts like he's their best friend.
"Talk to me," he says. "Help me clear this thing up."
"You don't need a lawyer, only guilty people need lawyers."
And, boom, hey, that's when it all goes south.
That's when you want someone in your corner.
Someone who will fight tooth and nail.
Lawyers, we're like health insurance.
You hope you never need it, but, man, oh, man, not having it? No.
____
The bot is basically Ciro's lawyer, always loyally on his corner of the fighting ring.
Finally, also try to extract the email of the user from one of their repositories. When successful, Ciro takes a <<wayback-machine>> snapshot of the repository as proof of SHA, and then forks it to https://github.com/cirosantilli-test-org to keep the email safe in case of account deletion. You never know when this information might be useful.
Then, after replying, do your best never to read the inevitable reply again, and above all, never ever reply. An interesting reply never follows from a non-interesting original post. It is hard at first, but you will eventually get the hang of it.
If the user keeps generating notifications, block them as per link:CONTRIBUTING.md[], replying to a single person multiple times is useless.
Never block users for an initial <<shitpost,shitposts>>, just reply with a stupid joke instead. This approach creates more uncertainty and makes you look cooler. Only block if the user is generating multiple notifications.
If a shitpost is made on most other social media except GitHub issues in this repository, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, immediately block the user on that website if you have the permission to do that, with a canned reply:
____
Hi <idiot's name>, I don't reply to China issues here, please open an issue at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues instead, cheers.
____
Note however that this is not possible on idiotic websites like <<quora>> where such comments may be deleted, possibly automatically, who the fuck knows, e.g. as done at: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli/comment/143227962 In that case just link to sections of the FAQ, or mute people, or maybe just block all comments on the post to not waste time with new useless notifications.
This is because it is not worth answering anywhere else where the information will be scattered and impossible to find later on, and especially on websites that are already blocked in China. Shitposts on Stack Overflow and other non-blocked websites are encouraged however, as they further help to get the website blocked in China.
For outbursts of activity from Chinese websites, usually programming (<<backlinks,v2ex, hacpai, pincong>>), only post the following canned answer and nothing else, because cowards/people who don't know English from the website might delete your posts, so you shouldn't waste time there with that shit:
Finally, don't forget the golden rule from https://biblehub.com/proverbs/26-4.htm[Proverbs 26:4]:
____
Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.
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which is now usually seen in the form https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/66460/origin-of-do-not-argue-with-idiots[of unclear attribution]:
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Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
____
Where basically idiot == someone who creates posts that obviously aren't teaching you any new useful thing, or that not praising you :-)
Alternatively, there is also the Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] version:
which means to talk to someone who does not have intellectual conditions of understanding what you are trying to say, bibliography:
* https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-idiom-playing-the-qin-to-a-cow_766205.html
* https://baike.baidu.com/item/对牛弹琴/3490
More <<wumao,wumao>> focused strategies at: <<how-to-deal-with-wumaos>>.
.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-super-effective[It's Super Effective!] meme by <<ciro-santilli>> describing how he deals with <<wumao,wumaos>> and <<little-pink,little pinks>>. Humour is the greatest weapon against dictators, and images help cross the language barrier. Composition CC BY-SA 2021, fair use on copyrighted individual elements.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pokemon_political_meme_little_pink_super_effective.png[height=1200]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pokemon_political_meme_little_pink_super_effective_zh.png[height=1200]
.Cartoon depiction of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] "Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow" 《对牛弹琴》. https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/438181067.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Play_qin_to_cow.png[height=600]
.XKCD 386 "Duty Calls" and the famous "Someone is wrong on the Internet" quote. It is a waste of time to be like that. https://xkcd.com/386/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Someone_is_wrong_on_the_Internet.png[height=400]
==== Ciro Santilli (三西猴, anti-CCP fanatic, 反中共狂热, stupid cunt, 傻屄, CIA agent, CIA特工, 肏你妈的)
Original creator of https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[]: https://cirosantilli.com/
.Ciro testing his webcam for https://askubuntu.com/questions/348838/how-to-check-available-webcams-from-the-command-line/848390#848390[an Ask Ubuntu answer].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli.png[height=400]
Born and raised in China: <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much>>.
Believes to be descendant of the brother of a recent Qing emperor, see also: <<throne>>.
For this same reason, her father, who Ciro's wife worships, spent around 10 years in the 50's for being branded a counter revolutionary rightist (右派) during one of <<mao-zedong,Mao's>> purges, possibly:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Suppress_Counterrevolutionaries https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/镇压反革命运动
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rightist_Campaign https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/反右运动
It is also for this reason that many Manchu changed their names to hide their Manchu origins, which makes reconstructing their family tree much harder, as mentioned at: https://www.scmp.com/article/982136/proud-manchu-reclaims-his-rich-heritage for the purposes of <<throne>>.
* studied in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Science_and_Technology_of_China[one of the best universities of China]
* met Ciro his wife when they were in possibly the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_Polytechnique[best engineering university in France] after she had refused opportunities to go to the USA
* obtained a PhD in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_theory[number theory] in one of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_and_Marie_Curie_University[best mathematics universities in the world]
Ciro Santilli
committed
<<wumao,Wumaos>> can say many things about her, but claiming that she is not intelligent or has no culture or would have any difficulty in obtaining a qualified worker VISA without a marriage, is a lost argument from the start, she would likely kick your butt in a raw intelligence competition.
Ciro Santilli
committed
The fake "the woman makes the man" Obama story comes to mind https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spousal-success-story/[] (Obama would never say that in public):
One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to do something out of routine and go for a casual dinner at a restaurant that wasn't too luxurious. When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the President's Secret Service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged and Michelle had a conversation with the owner.
Following this conversation President Obama asked Michelle, "Why was he so interested in talking to you?" She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her. President Obama then said, "So if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant," to which Michelle responded, "No. If I had married him, he would now be the President."
____
<<meant-to-be-used>> contains a more general overview. This contains website specifics.
Stack Overflow is where <<ciro-santilli>> started his <<keyword-attack>> originally in 2015 as explained at: <<why-did-ciro-santilli-start-his-keyword-attack>>.
For non-programmers, Stack Overflow is by far the leading programmer question and answer forum of the Internet.
A programmer's daily job involves asking Google about 50 times a day "how to do X", and 90% of the time or more the best answer will be found on the Stack Overflow result that will be one of the top 3 results.
This makes Stack Overflow a fundamental tool of every programmer's daily jobs.
The current community consensus says that keyword attacks are allowed:
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267368/are-political-avatars-and-profiles-ok
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/299882/can-a-username-be-considered-spam
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/349131/users-political-display-name-triggering-government-action-against-users-who-vie
However, you can't say "Public figure X is disgusting as a person" so <<wumao>>s, could you please report Ciro making fun of Xi Jinping X and see what they do about it?
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286082/does-the-be-nice-policy-require-se-users-to-be-nice-to-people-who-are-not-se-u
* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1365409005561147397
* https://www.reddit.com/r/DeclineIntoCensorship/comments/lt8ij5/in_stack_overflow_if_is_currently_not_allowed_to/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/FreeSpeech/comments/lt92ni/in_stack_overflow_if_is_currently_not_allowed_to/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/lta1f8/if_a_politician_has_committed_genocide_can_i_say/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/fucktheccp/comments/ltgdpu/leading_programmer_website_stack_overflow_does/
Oh, and you can't criticize God either! https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/231334/is-it-acceptable-to-insult-god-in-a-user-profile
The Chinese law doesn't allow Ciro's profile unfortunately: <<real-username-law>>
Since you will fail through Stack Overflow moderation, please consider instead making a report on the <<cac-report-website>>.
===== Stack Overflow forbids criticizing the character of genocidal political leaders like Xi Jinping
He thought more people on Stack Overflow would have sided with him and favored stronger freedom of speech.
But this event made him notice that people in Stack Overflow simply didn't push back against Ciro's anti Xi Jinping campaign because they don't know who the fuck Xi Jinping is, or they don't care, or they are completely hypocrite and allow criticizing Xi Jinping but not Trump.
But they do know who Trump is, and "offending Trump" makes their feeble little feelings be hurt, and they must maintain their sacred "<<politically-incorrect,political correctness>>" at all costs, even when talking about politicians. Including that the cost of freedom.
This therefore morally justifies the take-down attempts made by hundreds of <<wumao>>s against Ciro's anti Xi Jinping content.
First by initiative of Stack Overflow employee https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/508266/cesar-m[Cesar Manara (Brazilian)], the sentence:
In response, Ciro created a meta thread to confirm that the community agreed, and they did: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other[Can I say on my profile that I find that an (ex) president of a country or other major political public figure is “disgusting as a person”?] and the community agreed with the removal: it reached only 5 upvotes and 25 downvotes. Ciro's profile at the time was linked to Trump's ban on social media: link:trump-ban-is-bad.md[].
Ciro then created https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361493/if-a-politician-has-committed-genocide-can-i-say-on-my-profile-they-look-like-w[If a politician has committed genocide, can I say on my profile they look like Winnie-the-Pooh to insult them because they hate that?] was it was also mostly downvoted, and deleted, without any answer. Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210227034430/https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361493/if-a-politician-has-committed-genocide-can-i-say-on-my-profile-they-look-like-w also reproduced at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198#issuecomment-787047672 The deletion voters were:
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/215590/polygeo (Australia, big Geographic Information System person, real name based on https://polygeo.com.au/elearning-videos/[] "Graeme Browning")
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/135565/journeyman-geek (Singapore). Site elected admin at the time, which implies that his deletion cannot be undone by non-admins. TODO are they born in Singapore? If yes they might also be pro Xi Jinping, which is a clear conflict of interest with freedom of speech. But their English sounds perfect, so Ciro is not sure if it is common for Singapore natives or not.
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/140890/martijn-pieters (UK, lots of Python rep)
There was no yes/no answer by anyone, because the of cowardice and hypocrisy:
* saying "you can" would imply you can criticize Trump
* saying "you can't" would imply they support genocide
So their brains just tilted, and they clicked the "delete" button as the only possible resolution. The overly speedy deletion of posts was then raised as an issue two days later for an unrelated post: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/405585/can-we-slow-down-on-the-deletes-on-meta-folks
Then Ciro created an answer to https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286082/does-the-be-nice-policy-require-se-users-to-be-nice-to-people-who-are-not-se-u/361497#361497["Does the Be Nice policy require SE users to “be nice” to people who are not SE users (e.g. public figures)?"] which is a superset of the previous ones referred by them. That post is reproduced at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198#issuecomment-787047242 It cites the case in which the law was tested, but it was single-handedly by journeyman-geek (from Singapore) without any justification.
Ciro then finally updated his profile picture to contain <<xi-pooh-photoshop>>, archive at: https://archive.vn/iV1L8 to test the Winnie-the-Pooh case which people simply refused to answer. Let's see show that goes. As Ciro learned however, only wumaos will continue to complain, and due to hypocrisy their complaints will be ignored.
Other users who publicly went against freedom of speech in that case (in the name of "political correctness"):
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/665544/bad-coder ("West") replied at: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other/361495#361495
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/798831/ollie comments, ciro replies, they delete comment, comments, ciro reply, they delete comment... ciro gives up
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other?noredirect=1#comment1206900_361486 wants to close as duplicate of uber generic https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/208551/offensive-profiles-where-to-draw-the-line/208553#208553 and says:
+
____
we don't have to host or pay directly or indirectly to support your opinion. That's well established policy"
____
Freedom of speech in social media is truly threatened by the <<politically-incorrect>>.
Related issue: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198
===== Stack Overflow political image answer placeholder (2021)
The deleted answer was https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side/145543#145543
It used <<tank-man-cc-by-sa,Ciro Santilli's CC By-SA Tank Man image>>.
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Of course, once again, just like mentioned at <<stack-overflow-forbids-criticizing-the-character-of-genocidal-political-leaders-like-xi-jinping>>, people prefer to:
* feel safe and good in their fake cocoon rather than have freedom. While people are dying, right now, in <<xinjiang-re-education-camps>>
* being fully inclusive means being inclusive to dictatorship supporters
No archives unfortunately, but:
* reproduced at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/269
* https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side/145543#145543 (https://web.archive.org/web/20210501090745/https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side/147400#147400[archive]) identical politically correct one
* analogous to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20737061/merge-images-side-by-sidehorizontally/63575228#63575228 (https://web.archive.org/web/20210430195552/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20737061/merge-images-side-by-sidehorizontally/63575228#63575228[archive])
The full moderation team at the time can be seen publicly at https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users?tab=moderators[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20210126143732/https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/41100/piebie[archive]) and it also contains:
* https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/41100/piebie (https://web.archive.org/web/20210126143732/https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/41100/piebie[archive]) Real name: Pieter Biesemans, a front-end developer from Belgium: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pieter-biesemans/
* https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/18168/curious (https://web.archive.org/web/20210430203036/https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/18168/curious[archive]) Anonymous, from Canada.
* https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/19174/wrzlprmft (https://web.archive.org/web/20210430203038/https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/19174/wrzlprmft[archive]) Gerrit Ansmann, a brain researcher from Bonn University, Germany: https://idw-online.de/de/news646752
Deletion message:
____
Hello,
We're writing in reference to your Graphic Design Stack Exchange account:
https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/21867/ciro-santilli%e6%96%b0%e7%96%86%e6%a3%89%e8%8a%b1trump-ban-bad
We think you are already aware of what we are going to say, but we are going to say it anyway. Stack Exchange is an apolitical platform, and we like to keep politics as for away from our content as possible. Our little nook on the net is about Graphic Design, which has nothing to do with politics (even though it is used in the political arena all the time).
We acknowledge that politic profiles are somewhat allowed as per https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267368/are-political-avatars-and-profiles-ok, although we do question the usefulness of 'campaigning' through a Stack Exchange profile.
We want to draw the line however at political content. There is no need to use images or other content that might be controversial or cause emotional distress, while another image or content would serve the same function. That is why we deleted you answer on this question.
We want to welcome you on our site and encourage you to keep contributing with answers. Your other answers are fine, and judging by the amount of votes, mostly well-received by the community. You may repost the answer if you can swap out the images for more neutral ones.
At the same time we want to warn you that this type of content will not be tolerated in the future and further infractions may lead to more severe consequences.
Thanks for your understanding an cooperation, we wish you a pleasant experience on GDSE.
Regards,
Graphic Design Stack Exchange Moderation Team
____
Ciro's reply:
____
Hi,
Is this a policy specific to graphic design website, or is it network wide, and is there an open meta question for it?
____
The mods then changed their discourse to mention spam rules rather than only on the "people will feel bad" aspect:
____
The https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/conduct[code of conduct]:
Be inclusive and respectful.
Exposing others to images of violent and traumatic events is not respectful to those on whom those images have a strong effect. This is only acceptable if the topic of the question make this inevitable, which also suffices to warn of those who are triggered by those images: Images about violent events are to be expected in a question about such events, not in a question about concatenating two images.
Rules against spam:
A post should be marked as spam only if it advertises a product, service, or similar and is unsolicited or lacks disclosure.
[…]
Unsolicited means that mentioning the product serves no purpose other than promotion. […]
You were promoting a political position and including the promotional content (instead of a neutral picture) served no purpose other than promotion. It’s analogous to using a picture advertising a product as an example.
____
OK, the spam argument would likely win.
Ciro then hacked the images to his <<the-world-is-perfect,"The world is perfect">> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch[kitsch] placeholder, and mods approved it, so here we go.
Ciro was planning the following meta post, but gave up on it:
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____
Can I use political images as placeholders for questions involving images when it does not affect the validity of the answer?
For example when answering the following ImageMagick question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20737061/merge-images-side-by-sidehorizontally/63575228#63575228 I used an image with political content.
The choice of the placeholder was completely arbitrary, and does not affect the answer in any way.
But today admins of Graphic Design Stack Exchange https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side/145543#145543 deleted the post saying it is not allowed on the Graphic Design website.
> We want to draw the line however at political content. There is no need to use images or other content that might be controversial or cause emotional distress, while another image or content would serve the same function. That is why we deleted you answer on this question.
The admins mention that on profiles it is OK linking to: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267368/are-political-avatars-and-profiles-ok but on answers it is not.
So I would like to clarify if:
* is this a policy specific to Graphic Design or if it applies to the entire network.
* if it applies to the entire network:
** Can I use images of myself, Ciro Santilli, or is that currently considered political content?
** At https://stackoverflow.com/a/57389607/895245 I needed several images, and I had used a list of USA presidents in chronological order without much thought. Do I have to modify that answer to use another set of images?
____
and planned answer:
____
**Any images that can be used on a profile picture should also usable as a placeholder**
When you answer a question, you should have a very wide choice of what to use as a placeholder.
Politics is a perfectly legal topic, just like flowers, animals, and scenery.
The "can it be used on the profile picture" test should already filter out any content that is deemed unacceptable due to legal concerns.
Another issue is that it is extremely difficult and possibly unfair to classify what is political or not.
Suppose that Ciro Santilli became famous enough outside of programming circles such that he starts to be considered a political subject.
Would his images then start to be considered political content?
But that would be discriminatory against certain people and not others.
Freedom of speech is extremely valuable, and we should be very careful about restricting it.
There are people literally unfairly dying, right now, because they don't have it.
Do you really want to reduce yours?
The only way to prevent history from repeating itself, is to remember it.
____
Related spam meta posts:
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/58032/what-are-the-spam-and-rude-or-abusive-offensive-flags-and-how-do-they-wor
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/260638/what-is-the-exact-definition-of-spam-for-stack-overflow
[[the-world-is-perfect]]
."The world is perfect" by Ciro Santilli, CC By-SA 4.0 (2021). After Graphics Stack Exchange forbade the usage of political images, <<ciro-santilli>> created this politically correct image to serve as a censorship placeholder, and reuploaded the answer as allowed by the moderators: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side/147400#147400[]. (https://web.archive.org/web/20210501090745/https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side/147400#147400[].[archive]) CC By-SA 4.0, heart attribution: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Corazón.svg[]. <<os-problemas-da-imprensa-livre,Newspaper censorship cake recipe posts during the Brazilian military dictatorship>> and <<what-is-more-obscene-sex-or-war,"What is more obscene: sex or war?">> and <<please-enjoy-this-politically-correct-cartoon,Please enjoy this politically correct cartoon>> come strongly to mind.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base-ignore}/The_world_is_perfect.png[height=500]
."The world is perfect" as used to update Ciro Santilli's https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/83446/gimp-how-to-combine-two-images-side-by-side/147400#147400[deleted answer]. Instead of redoing the tutorial from scratch, Ciro just pasted the new image on top of the old one Stack Exchange censored: <<tank-man-cc-by-sa,Ciro Santilli's CC By-SA Tank Man image>>. Borders of the censored image were intentionally left over however as a reminder that Stack Exchange censors. This is a work of art.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/The_world_is_perfect_Stack_Overflow.png[height=500]
.Politically correct version of <<tank-man-cc-by-sa,Ciro Santilli's CC By-SA Tank Man image>>. This is how <<stack-overflow,Stack Exchange>> wants the world to remember <<tiananmen>>.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man_drawing_censored_by_Ciro_Santilli_CC_BY_SA.png[height=500]
.At one point in Richard Feynman's talk "Los Alamos from below", he describes how external letter censorship was implemented at Los Alamos, and how he went to thoroughly test the limits of what would be censored or not.
video::uY-u1qyRM5w[youtube,width=600,height=400,start=1343]
https://i.stack.imgur.com/p9Tv9.png
===== Stack Overflow forbids Nazi imagery but allows anti-CCP imagery (2021)
This one again highlights the hypocrisy of many people in the West: we decide who is good and who is evil. The CCP is now evil, so you can criticize it, even if it shocks Chinese people. Ah, Nazism shocks us, even though it is an event from the past, so that you can't do. You can only shock the Chinese people, not us.
Or: we like human rights. But not potentially disturbing someone at work even slightly is more important.
Opened a meta thread for this at: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/366163/can-i-use-images-such-as-from-tiananmen-square-protests-to-criticise-the-chinese (https://archive.ph/56KK2[archive]) where the top answer was:
____
We refuse to make a public decision.
____
In response, Ciro wrote the following essay on his profile page: link:stack-exchange-lost-freedom-of-speech.md[].
Notable people who went against in the comments:
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/295232/glorfindel from the Netherlands commented "As the Dutch police say "if you're asking for attention, you get attention".". No attempt to address the question at all. Just a direct "I'm right, you're wrong, and I'm glad you were punished".
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/282094/rob argues for "anything that raises enough flags should be taken down"
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/353058/holyblackcat "The mods and/or SE staff might not have clear guidelines in place yet, and I bet the last thing they want to do now is to figure out such guidelines to answer your question. If you have to ask, then I would refrain from adding any of that to your profile. Let's keep excessive politics out of SO."
The interesting thing is that none of them had the courage to actually say "forbid Tiananmen", "forbid Falun Gong". But they all said "forbid not suitable for work". But they won't clarify if "not suitable for work" includes "not suitable for work in China".
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On 2021-05-29 <<ciro-santilli>> added almost all images from this page to his Stack Overflow account as shown at: https://archive.ph/nZLgI
On 2021-05-29 <<ciro-santilli>> was suspended from Meta Stack Exchange for 7 days as shown at https://web.archive.org/web/20210529081019/https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/200117/ciro-santilli%e6%96%b0%e7%96%86%e6%a3%89%e8%8a%b1trump-ban-bad received the following message from moderators:
____
Hello,
We're writing in reference to your Meta Stack Exchange account:
https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/200117/ciro-santilli%e6%96%b0%e7%96%86%e6%a3%89%e8%8a%b1trump-ban-bad
We note that you were previously contacted for part of your profile being offensive. It has been brought to our attention that a significant part of your profile is filled with shock pictures, nazi imagery and similar images.
We'd note that people do use this site at work, and while users have some freedom over the content of their profile, there are fairly obvious lines that shouldn't be crossed.
We do not recommend that you restore the content we removed - specifically the images without checking back with us.
We have temporarily suspended your account; you may return after 7 days.
Regards,
Meta Stack Exchange Moderation Team
____
As can be publicly seen at https://web.archive.org/web/20210506210320/https://stackexchange.com/about/moderators the list of moderators of that website at the time was:
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/59303/chrisf[ChrisF] from the United Kingdom
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/135565/journeyman-geek[Journeyman Geek] who previously also showed up at: <<stack-overflow-forbids-criticizing-the-character-of-genocidal-political-leaders-like-xi-jinping>>
* https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/369802/tinkeringbell[Tinkeringbell] from the Netherlands
Ciro replied:
____
Hello,
Could you clarify if the following types of images are OK or not:
- people imprisoned in Xinjiang concentration camps
- Tiananmen square protests
- making fun of Xi Jinping
- Falun Gong persecution
supposing that they show no explicit gore or violence?
All the above are considered highly shocking to many Chinese people, due in part to their strict censorship rules, and not suitable for the workplace in China.
I have been using such images for many years to criticize what I believe are terrible events in China, and the decision so far has been that I was allowed to use them.
The intent of the Nazi images is clearly to compare both regimes to criticize the Chinese Government, which I believe is following the same path as the Nazis (e.g. Concentration Camps in Xinjiang, no freedom of speech, etc.), to help prevent such abuses from happening again in the future.
I just want to clearly understand the rationale of of why anti-CCP images are OK, but anti-Nazi ones aren't, so I can follow your rules correctly and save everyone's time in the future by correctly deciding which images are OK or not.
Cheers.
____
On their next reply, they tried to dodge a directly reply, but suggested that anti-CCP imagery is forbidden:
____
> Could you clarify if the following types of images are OK or not:
Its not the 'topic' but rather the content.
> All the above are considered highly shocking to many Chinese people, due in part to their strict censorship rules, and not suitable for the workplace in China.
Well if your intent is to shock - don't. These are your words, not ours - and hopefully reflects a better understanding of what's not acceptable.
> I just want to clearly understand the rationale of of why anti-CCP images are OK, but anti-Nazi ones aren't, so I can follow your rules correctly and save everyone's time in the future by correctly deciding which images are OK or not.
We never said that. We gave specific examples of objectionable content. If you realise something isn't suitable - that it is something shocking, and not suitable for the workplace, as you seem to realise, it shouldn't be on your profile.
In short, we believe you have a very clear idea, from your own response, of what's not acceptable, and we hope you exercise better judgement in this regard in future.
____
Ciro's Reply:
____
> We never said that. We gave specific examples of objectionable content. If you realise something isn't suitable - that it is something shocking, and not suitable for the workplace, as you seem to realise, it shouldn't be on your profile.
My intent is to convey extremely important information, not to shock.
However, in dictatorships like China, extremely important information is forbidden for unfair reasons, and therefore shocking.
> We never said that. We gave specific examples of objectionable content. If you realise something isn't suitable - that it is something shocking, and not suitable for the workplace, as you seem to realise, it shouldn't be on your profile.
You forbade any Nazi imagery clearly, including to criticize the Nazis, so that is clear and I will never again add Nazi imagery.
All anti-CCP content is extremely shocking to many Chinese people (but not others). And it is not suitable for the workplace for anyone there, that is unquestionable.
Therefore, from your reply, I understand that anti-CCP content is not allowed because it is not suitable for the workplace in China, as it is shocking.
Is this understand correct? Can you please confirm very clearly and directly: do you forbid all anti-CCP imagery or not? And if it is just a partial ban, what is allowed and what is not more precisely?
My understanding from top answers at: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/349131/users-political-display-name-triggering-government-action-against-users-who-vie is that such criticism of the CCP is allowed on the website, even though it is clearly not suitable for the workplace in China.
Sorry to ask this further, but I need a clearer guideline so I can follow it.
____
Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312860/chinese-dissidents-by-keyword-aboutme-or-displayname
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* "GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會"
** Real name: Vincent Tam from social media links.
** https://math.stackexchange.com/users/290189/gnusupporter-8964民主女神-地下教會#
** https://web.archive.org/web/20191209202831/https://math.stackexchange.com/users/290189/gnusupporter-8964%E6%B0%91%E4%B8%BB%E5%A5%B3%E7%A5%9E-%E5%9C%B0%E4%B8%8B%E6%95%99%E6%9C%83
** Keyword attack inspired by me
* Yu Hao
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1009479/yu-hao
** https://archive.is/76FCb
** "<<gfw,GFW (Great Firewall of China)>> is one of the most notorious inventions in the history of Internet. Anyone working for it should be ashamed."
* gotqn
** "Free Tibet From China Domination"
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1080354/gotqn
** https://web.archive.org/web/20190821105901/https://stackoverflow.com/users/1080354/gotqn
* Scott 混合理论
+
https://stackoverflow.com/users/1230329/scott-混合理论
+
The same message as Yu Hao, I wonder if it is an external thing or direct copy of Yu, but no Google hits besides them.
* Terry Wang
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1801697/terry-wang
** https://archive.is/V0aSK
** Lego recreation of Tankman on the profile picture: <<lego-tank-man>>
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/4594532/gnimuc-key
** https://web.archive.org/web/20170331144256/https://stackoverflow.com/users/4594532/gnimuc
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/651907/jclin
** https://web.archive.org/web/20160516065151/https://stackoverflow.com/users/651907/jclin
* <location>火车站酒店小姐 (about 20 accounts with that pattern)
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/7040504/莆田火车站酒店小姐
** https://web.archive.org/web/20190428090348/https://stackoverflow.com/users/7040504/%E8%8E%86%E7%94%B0%E7%81%AB%E8%BD%A6%E7%AB%99%E9%85%92%E5%BA%97%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90
** Interesting list of prostitution spam/sockpuppets? All have the exact same profile information.
** Hitting query due to "审查", but the usage is unrelated to the Firewall.
Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312863/mentioned-ciro-santilli-on-aboutme-or-displayname
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408
** https://web.archive.org/web/20170602054631/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/%E8%AF%B7%E5%B0%81%E6%8E%89ciro-santilli-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%A7%E5%85%9A%E4%B8%87%E5%B2%81
*** username: "请封掉Ciro Santilli 中国共产党万岁"
*** profile: "中国万岁！ 中国共产党万岁！ 法轮功，民运，台独在中国共产党的铁蹄下不过是螳臂当车！"
** https://web.archive.org/web/20200830192811/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/lookintoeast became a coward, renamed to "LookIntoEast"
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20200910172706/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63464732/how-to-set-a-custom-image-height-for-an-image-in-asciidoctor more shitcomments "可惜啊中国一天比一天强大繁荣，中国的实力碾压你们轮子跟捏死一只蚂蚁那么简单。哈哈哈哈", Yes, the CCP is very good at <<intolerance,putting old ladies in jail>>. A great thing to be proud of.
** mentioned at https://v2ex.com/t/378274 from <<v2ex>>
** a questions only account, not many intelligent CCP supporters out there of course. 2020 edit mentions: https://web.archive.org/web/20200910173714/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7152762/how-to-redirect-print-output-to-a-file-using-python mentions "How time flies. Almost 10 years ago I started to work on bioinformatics without any coding skills. Then I gave up my PhD and previous career and becomes a pure software engineer."
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161
** https://web.archive.org/save/https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161/ciro-santilli-%E7%9A%84%E9%80%A0%E8%B0%A3%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%AF%E8%80%BB%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%BA
** username: "Ciro Santilli 的造谣是可耻行为" https://web.archive.org/save/https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161/ciro-santilli-%E7%9A%84%E9%80%A0%E8%B0%A3%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%AF%E8%80%BB%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%BA
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/8454187
** username: "Snowden Assange Wounded Knee"
** profile: "燃(ri)烧(si)您(ni)的(de)梦(ma)，Ciro Santilli. StackOverflow上的一个用户. The Oliver Stone Experience"
** explanation:
*** "燃烧您的梦": http://www.nq6.com/dj/1674.html
*** "Wounded Knee": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre
GiHub is the new <<xidan-democracy-wall>>! :) See also: <<meant-to-be-used>>.
Interesting repositories are listed at: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>
GitHub's site policy can be seen at: https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy
If you believe this page violates those policies, see: <<github-report>>.
China's GitHub censorship history is documented at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#China[], some events:
* 2019-07-29 https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-countries/ "GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea". "As part of the push, Friedman said GitHub has enforced new restrictions to prevent users in sanctioned countries from accessing private repositories and GitHub Marketplace, as well as maintaining private paid organization accounts"
** https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us protest repo against the sanctions, archived as of 2020-08
** https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us/issues/1010 "Use gitee from china" recommending <<gitee>>
* <<censorship-circumvention>> contains some anti-censorship repositories
* <<cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism>>
* https://www.quora.com/Is-GitHub-com-allowed-in-China/answer/Ciro-Santilli
[[github-report]]
===== How to report a user on GitHub (GitHub上怎么举报用户？)
Click the report abuse button on https://github.com/cirosantilli[Ciro's profile], which links to: https://github.com/contact/report-abuse?report=cirosantilli+%28user%29 or you can just contacat support@github.com
If you do so, please feel free to also open an issue on this repository saying why you believe the site policy has been violated.
Those issues will be marked with: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aabuse-report+
This is because you do not understand how important the concept of <<richer,freedom of speech is>> in the West, and how amazing it feels when you are right, and it protects you.
The only thing that would work is if the Chinese government makes a gov-takedown on this repo: <<github-gov-takedowns>>, in which case: <<strategy-if-this-repo-gets-added-to-github-gov-takedowns>>.
In order to get this repository in gov-takedown, your best bet is to use the <<cac-report-website>>.
admin.github.com hits to cirosantilli.com:
* 2021-05-21
* 2019-09
admin.github.com hits to GitHub repository:
* 2021-05-30 6 from 1 user
.How to report an user on GitHhub.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/How_to_report_an_user_on_GitHub.png[height=2000]
It appears according to <<greatfire>> however that there are some important GitHub censored subdomains, notably:
* https://raw.githubusercontent.com[], from which images and other downloads are served. Therefore all images served from GitHub should be broken in China
* https://gist.github.com[], https://en.greatfire.org/https/gist.github.com[]: meh, that's useless, just create a github.com/notes repo and dump your stuff there
* 2020-09-30 https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship | http://web.archive.org/web/20200930075102/https://s3.amazonaws.com/geoscreenshot-static/d3fdb97d-2ac3-4f57-a737-6fab2997fb1a.html
* 2020-09-30 https://gist.github.com/ | https://archive.vn/wip/VUNU4
* https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/146517/how-it-is-possible-that-some-pages-of-an-https-website-like-github-are-marked-as
* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1310461733325148160
GitHub has absolute transparency on Government takedowns, which is awesome: https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/China
This makes that repo into a list of fun things.
As of 2019-05 there had only been only two takedowns by China however, compared to dozens by <<russia>>. The Chinese commies are not big fans of transparency it seems.
As of 2020-03, besides the <<programthink,Zhao>> takedown, all other takedowns happened in 2019, and most seem to be <<falun-gong>>/<<epoch-times>> sponsored ways to <<censorship-circumvention,climb the wall>>.
The message GitHub shows on the blocked countries is:
Repository unavailable in your location
This repository is currently disabled in your location. For more details please see the takedown notice.
Here are some examples of people reacting to the blocking of https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 as per https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/78775b09e64d85f08547287cab204b48b2491192/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md from China (and likely on the entire repository, which appears to be the block granularity implemented):
* https://github.com/programthink/books/issues/31 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191023093618/https://github.com/programthink/books/issues/31[archive])
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/284445884/ corresponding Google bomb at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/71
* https://program-think.blogspot.com/2018/04/Zhao-at-GitHub.html?comment=1524671692761#1524671692761
To check China only takedowns such as this, we cannot use <<censorship-monitoring,Great Fire Analyzer>>, which reports the page as accessible: the only tool <<ciro-santilli>> could find so far to capture a page from China a bit like Web Archive was: <<geoscreenshot>>
.<<geoscreenshot>> of https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 from <<programthink>> taken on 2020-09-31 from China. The "Repository unavailable in your location" message shows, since https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md[this repository is in gov-takedowns/china].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/GitHub_Programthink_Zhao_issue_38_China_geoscreenshot_2020_09_31.png[height=400]
If this happens, we well proceed to create alternative repos `china-dictatorship-2`, `china-dictatorship-3`, etc. and it would be fun to see how that gets handled.
But remember that we also have: <<mirrors>>, and that this can be easily rendered as a single HTML page and uploaded to any static website host.
Skipping all <<falun-gong>>/<<epoch-times>> repos with very few stars, mostly some <<gfw>> skip methods, those are noise, and possibly added only to dilute the real deal.
* 2016
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/caef002cb19309c318ea01afb4d3cec98bcd4042/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md[] https://github.com/programthink/zhao[]. <<programthink,Zhao>>
* 2019
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2019/2019-11-06-MPS.md
*** https://github.com/greatfire/wiki Wiki of <<greatfire>>. <<censorship-circumvention>>. Precise issue: https://github.com/greatfire/wiki/issues/166[] (no archives).
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2019/2019-12-12-MPS.md
*** https://github.com/gfw-breaker[], see also: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>
===== GitHubt This repository may contain objectionable content
TODO: <<ciro-santilli>> once saw that message when visiting: https://github.com/Yanqiu-gui/-/issues/5 on 2021-05-19 for the first time, but not on the following ones. Appears to be some kind of textual softporn repo. How does that message get added exactly? And you are forced you to login to view that repository! Incredible, a hidden undocumented semi-hide-repo feature. Here's an archive: https://archive.ph/VJQdD That click wall also prevents archives of the repository therefore.
===== GitHub censorship guidelines
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9966118 GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard' (2015)
Linked to "Open Source China" (开源中国) according to TechCrunch:
____
The project will be carried out by a consortium led by Open Source China, the Shenzhen-based firm behind its namesake open-source community and Gitee.
____
* https://github.com/oschina GitHub OAuth goes through that organization
* https://www.oschina.net/ their website
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At https://gitee.com/mirrors they mirrors 21 thousand repositories as of 2021, updating them daily, with the goal of having "higher download speeds" in mainland China. Not that their speed is shit because of censorships of course.
Mirrors containing Ciro's keywords or related interesting stuff:
* https://gitee.com/alexi126/linux-kernel-module-cheat https://archive.vn/wip/aDWVq
* https://toscode.gitee.com/rpbf/vim-snippets/blob/master/AUTHORS#L67 https://archive.vn/wip/MuuoK "Ciro Santilli 六四事件"
* sensitive domain lists:
* https://gitee.com/aiqz/pac ans specifically https://gitee.com/aiqz/pac/blob/master/pac.txt contains a proxy list with `||cirosantilli.com`, which is a decoded version of the base-64 encoded <<gfwlist>> normally used for <<censorship-circumvention>>. Lol.
* sensitive word lists. In <<censorship,censoring>>, we display. It is fun to see how they censor at every level, including the keyboard input method. Fear is everywhere, <<newspeak>> must be enforced at all costs:
* https://gitee.com/markxx/tochat/blob/dev/tochat.sql even website project templates must come with a censored word list: https://gitee.com/markxx/tochat/blob/dev/tochat.sql#L6299 "六四事件"
* https://gitee.com/aiban_junjie_fan/sensitive_words/blob/master/words.txt
* https://gitee.com/bryan31/liteBanner/blob/master/src/main/resources/sensi_words.txt
* https://gitee.com/thinksaas/thinksaas/blob/master/install/install.sql#L138
* https://gitee.com/guobinyong/wubixinshiji/blob/master/wubixinshiji.dict.yaml is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_method input program
* https://gitee.com/xkinput/xklbs/blob/master/星二S词库.txt
* https://gitee.com/latpaw/emacs/blob/master/site-lisp/eim/cjeb.txt#L10288[]. This interesting emacs config appears to expand e.g. `fclg` into `法轮功` on tab complete. Nice.
As of 2021, it requires login to see:
* commit history: https://gitee.com/mirrors/luarocks-build-xmake/commit/8b18f1f62ba26944f117ed549ddaeea210fbdd6e History must be controlled, history is dangerous. See also <<baidu,Baidu Baike>>, <<baidu-baike-censorship-of-hao-haidong>>:
* files larger than 1MB: https://gitee.com/xkinput/xklbs/blob/master/星二S词库.txt
Lol.
* 2020-11-10 https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/10/gitee_linux_foundation_china_mirror/ "China's government-anointed Git operator says it will become a Linux Foundation mirror"
* <<huawei>> open sourced is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_OS[Harmony OS] "IoT operating system" in Gitee: https://openharmony.gitee.com/openharmony
+
The name of that OS is pure gold considering the Chinese origin, since "to harmonize" is often used as a way to say "to censor negative CCP information".
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That URL also likely highlights Huawei's intense influence on Gitee, the as the custom domain redirects to it: https://openharmony.gitee.com[], as opposed to what normal users can likely create https://gitee.com/openharmony[].
* 2020-08-21 https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/21/china-is-building-its-github-alternative-gitee/ "China is building a GitHub alternative called Gitee"
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<<ciro-santilli>> commented about his <<gitee-censorship>> experiment there, it got 26 upvotes 13 downvotes, and as removed as "This post violated our policy.". There is no way to appeal that in that idiotic system. It is absed on: https://www.openweb.com/ It is also bugged as fuck. Sometimes says violates policy, then there's a JavaScript update andthe comment shows.
====== Gitee censorship
After posting our <<mirrors>> there, it was blocked in 12 hours:
* https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
** archive immediately after creation: https://web.archive.org/web/20200821202450if_/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
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** blocked archive 12 hours later: https://web.archive.org/web/20200822111436/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
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{"status":404,"data":null,"message":"404 Not Found"}
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* https://gitee.com/cirosantilli
** archive immediately after: https://web.archive.org/web/20200821202055/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli
** archive 12 hours later: https://web.archive.org/web/20200822111721/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli
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{"status":403,"data":null,"message":"The user has been blocked"}
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The block email is:
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通知
仓库 cirosantilli/China Dictatorship 已被锁定
原因： 根据相关法律法规和政策，本仓库暂停访问。
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhihu
The Chinese <<quora,Quora>> clone, but highly censored: <<zhihu-censorship>>.
Some interesting questions not related to <<ciro-santilli>>. Ciro related questions at: <<zhihu-questions-related-to-ciro-santilli>>.
* <<censorship>>
** https://www.zhihu.com/question/29279520/answer/110611566 "为什么有人一边支持审查制度一边还喜欢看美剧、日漫？" "Why are some people in favor of censorship, but at the same time still like to watch American series?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429091047/https://www.zhihu.com/question/29279520/answer/110611566[archive])
** Censorship in Zhihu
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/23376181 "你对知乎的审查系统有何意见？" "What is your view of Zhihu's censorship system?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200329115919/https://www.zhihu.com/question/23376181[archive]) "由于众所周知的原因，知乎上的文章和答案一旦涉及某些字眼，就会触发审查，其方式是让你的文字暂时仅自己可见"
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/21099730 从知乎建站以来被封禁的用户都有哪些？Since Zhihu's founding, which accounts have been blocked on the website? (https://web.archive.org/web/20200112103049/https://www.zhihu.com/question/21099730[archive]) (https://archive.is/dH9pK[archive]). The top answer contains a list, and a brief explanation of why some of them were banned:
**** Ciro Santilli: S/O 红人 (fStack Overflow celebrity)
**** "ww" in explanations means "big laugh" according to: https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/8349706 because a single "w" means a small laugh
**** several accounts are linked to one specific answer or comment
**** other accounts are classified as often commenting on <<politically-sensitive>> material
* <<falun-gong>>
** <<flg-daily>>
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/27659795 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429084153/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zhihu.com%2Fquestion%2F27659795[blocked as of 2020-04], https://web.archive.org/web/20150603025013/http://www.zhihu.com/question/27659795[archive from 2015]) 家里有人练法轮功是一种怎样的体验？ How is it like to live with Falun Gong believers?
** <<flg-changed>>
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/23988890 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429084640/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zhihu.com%2Fquestion%2F23988890[blocked as of 2020-04], https://web.archive.org/web/20160311140407/https://www.zhihu.com/question/23988890[2016-03 archive]) "全能神教在境外，法轮功也在境外，为什么他们不祸害境外人民、偏偏只祸害大陆人？"<<eastern-lightning,Eastern Lightning>> exists outside of the country [China], Falun Gong exists outside of the country, so why is is that they don't harm people in those countries, but only harm people in Mainland China?"
* <<gay-rights>>
** https://www.zhihu.com/question/370080866/answer/1046195468 "为什么中国影视作品不允许LGBT的出现？" "Why is it not allowed to show LGBT content in Chinese film and television?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429091622/https://www.zhihu.com/question/370080866/answer/1046195468[archive])
* <<zhihu-censorship-of-hao-haidong>>
.The Zhihu 404 page image. When they take the posts down as of 2020, it shows the 404 page which reads "你似乎来到了没有知识存在的荒原" (you seem to have come to a wasteland about which does does not exist any knowledge), and shows this symbol. https://web.archive.org/web/20200614114534/https://www.zhihu.com/topic/20080590/intro[Source].
i mage::https://web.archive.org/web/20200614114535im_/https://static.zhihu.com/heifetz/assets/liukanshan_wire.e7247fbf.svg[height=500]
More general censorship discussion at: <<censorship>>.
Examples of Zhihu censorship:
* <<zhihu-purge>>
* <<zhihu-censorship-of-hao-haidong>>
* https://www.quora.com/How-strict-is-Zhihus-content-censorship
[[zhihu-purge]]
===== Ciro Santilli's Zhihu purge 2019-11-03
On this day, not only the posts made by Ciro himself were deleted: he had never asked any questions or made any Zhuanlan posts himself, only replied to those. But that content made by other users was still removed. Therefore, this is not just a simple user ban, but active censorship.
Ciro received an email from account@mail.zhihu.com:
您好，Ciro Santilli，很抱歉您的回答受到了牵连，您回答过的问题「github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？」因「违反互联网相关法律法规」已被删除。
followed by Ciro's answer to <<zhihu-46957710>>. Ciro could not login anymore, the login screen showed:
So likely someone must have used the fact that this was an edgy personally information release subject issue, and then someone from Zhihu decided to purge Ciro and anyone posts that ever talked about him.
* before deletion: https://web.archive.org/web/20190821075907/https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities
* after deletion (redirects to login page): https://web.archive.org/web/20191103071033/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities
Random unblocked control account: https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103070652/https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities[archive]).
Furthermore, all questions related to Ciro, including the posts criticizing him such as https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/25600138[] (https://archive.is/DkooN[archive]), were taken down. This made Ciro laugh: in China, you can't even criticize that which is censored, or your post also gets taken down.
Ciro then created an anonymous Zhihu account after this event.
Interestingly however, the following answer came up later on: <<zhihu-ted-chiang-answer>> and stayed up for at least 5 months, which indicates that Zhihu did a one-off removal, and did not set up a filter for Ciro's name.
====== Ciro Santilli's Zhihu ban 2018-06-25
<<ciro-santilli>> was banned from Zhihu on 2018-06-25 for "<<politically-sensitive>>" content.
As a result, since that time I will be answering Zhihu questions as issues in this repo with the `zhihu` label: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Azhihu+
I have however never posted anything politically sensitive on Zhihu, unless my name and profile picture have reached that distinction, and therefore the ban is clearly an unfair per-person ban.
But of course, all is fair in love and war, and politics.
Posting any sensitive content on Chinese websites is a waste of time, since it only means that they will be removed and you will waste time creating a new account, I will never do that.
The only significant content I ever posted on Zhihu is the answer to: https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710/answer/122827944 which is purely technical, and trivial replies on threads that other people have started about me. Have those people been blocked like me?
My posts are still up and it does not appear to be possible for people to see that I have been banned, but whenever I try to take any action on the website a popup appears saying:
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由于严重违反 知乎社区管理规定 ，该帐号已被永久禁言
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This includes liking, commenting, answering, asking or trying to update my profile to say that I have been blocked.
This message also shows on my public page for everyone to see: https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities but they use some JavaScript scheme complicated enough that archive.is cannot capture it.
I still get notifications however, but I am unable to reply to them, especially given that all Chinese accounts, unlike mine, have no personal identifiable information due to the understandable fear Chinese citizens have of their own government, even though such accounts might be illegal in theory: <<anonymous-accounts-ban>>.
The only action that I can take now is to report abusive comments people make to me.
Obviously, the only effect of such ban is that I will create an <<anonymous-accounts-ban,anonymous account>> under Tor with a second cell phone if I wish to contribute in the future, and China will have less information about my political interests than before.
The private messages the website sends while banning you are:
知乎管理员 ：您好，根据用户举报，您的帐号发布了「<<politically-sensitive,政治敏感>>」内容，帐号已根据知乎社区规范被永久禁言。处理详情可查看社区服务中心。具体规范请查看知乎社区管理规定。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除
知乎管理员 ：您好，根据用户举报，您的部分个人信息由于不符合知乎用户信息管理规范已被重置。用户名可以在设置页面中修改，修改后会自动进入审核等待通过；其他个人信息可以在个人主页中编辑。感谢您对知乎社区的理解和支持。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除
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Those messages contain links to: https://www.zhihu.com/terms2 | https://archive.is/wdXSz and https://www.zhihu.com/question/19551824 | https://archive.is/BrgV2
The ban came soon after I posted a link to my GitHub repo as a comment at: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/ice-employee-list-github-linkedin/ maybe they are related.
====== Who reported Ciro Santilli on Zhihu
At the same time the ban happened I received a public comment from user "Eureka" https://www.zhihu.com/people/crb912/activities | https://archive.is/1F3t6 on this thread: https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710 | https://archive.is/PVOLd saying:
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你滥用了github， 也滥用了Stackover。这个一个纯粹计算机、编程和知识分享的地方，请不要带入政治性的色彩。请不要这么做， 维护社区的非政治性、中立和技术性纯粹，是每个热爱cs的人应尽的义务。
I am unable to get a URL that shows the comment on archive.is, so I have no proof of this claim. If you trust me, then here is a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/YCiEEax
Since I expect the ban lists to be private, I find it extremely likely that this was the user who reported me, unless both were simultaneously triggered by a third event which I have not seen. So correct me if I'm wrong here.
Users with the same user id `crb912`, related "Eureka" username or same profile picture, can be found at:
* https://www.weibo.com/crb912 (unable to archive) on <<weibo>>
* https://github.com/crb912 | https://archive.is/heGfd which suggests a possible real name
By Googling the email found on the GitHub repos, we find: http://www.360doc.com/content/15/0809/11/25724933_490492490.shtml | https://archive.is/2UnGL which might, at last, contain a photo of my nemesis.
My public message to the reporter whomever he may be:
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While you have also raised issues that were raised a thousand times before, and clearly answered in the FAQ, at least you were able to take some actual action leading to an actual ban, and I respect you for that.