Fred sez, “This week’s New Yorker feature article explores how Chinese nationalism is on the rise despite the proliferation of the internet and so-called “democratizing technologies” that many thought would help Chinese citizens break free of their country’s tyranny. The author, Evan Osnos, is answering questions and comments on The New Yorker’s website.”
“Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of M.I.T.’s Media Laboratory and one of the early ideologists of the Internet, once predicted that the global reach of the Web would transform the way we think about ourselves as countries. The state, he predicted, will evaporate “like a mothball, which goes from solid to gas directly,” and “there will be no more room for nationalism than there is for smallpox.” In China, things have gone differently.”…
“In the anonymity of the Web, decorum deteriorated. “People who fart through the mouth will get shit stuffed down their throats by me!” one commentator wrote, in a forum hosted by a semi-official newspaper. “Someone give me a gun! Don’t show mercy to the enemy!” wrote another. The comments were an embarrassment to many Chinese, but they were difficult to ignore among foreign journalists who had begun receiving threats. (An anonymous letter to my fax machine in Beijing warned, “Clarify the facts on China . . . or you and your loved ones will wish you were dead.”)”
