Why is China still doing this? What do they have to fear about the outside world and the open Internet?
China might be doing it in the most obvious and blunt way, but they are not doing anything that's especially unique, other countries just have less obvious ways to get what they want. Like enacting laws to fine social media companies or pressuring them to tow the line trough less visible means.
This sounds like the Merkel approach to Internet censorship.
If you run a website in Germany you are liable for any and all content on your website, this includes user submitted content like comments.
Add to that the fact that Germany has libel laws and considers Holocaust denial a crime and it's not surprising at all that barely any German websites allow for comments and if they do it's pretty much only moderated comments.
While this might not be "direct censorship", it has the de-facto effect of censorship by suppressing "unpopular" opinions and putting scissors in people's head if they want their opinions to be published.
Nothing at all, that's the thing German legislators seem completely ignorant about like a lot of other facts about the Internet. But what German news company would go that route? Not a single one because it would make them look like they want to "break the law on purpose".
So they all keep on hosting in Germany and moderating their comments or sometimes do not allow them at all because certain topics are way too much effort to moderate.
Keep in mind: This has been the state of things for decades and if you ask any regular ass German about this they wouldn't even know about it and instead keep on complaining how it's media companies who are censoring them and their opinions, even tho these companies are pretty much forced to do so by German laws, at least if they want to prevent massive legal issues for themselves.
It's a very comparable system to how Germany censors/bans media like movies, music or video games. It's not the German government "banning" certain media, the German government merely puts very heavy restrictions on certain media, which, for all purpose and effect, makes it impossible to sell them.
That's how you create an system of censorship even when your Grundgesetz (German constitution) quite clearly states "There shall be no censorship", just don't call it censorship but rather "youth protection" and you are a-okay.
Oh, they are well aware of that. However, they rightfully see technology alone not as a valid reason to stop caring about something. If you target the German market from abroad, they will try to apply German law. If you make it obvious by moving an already existing operation abroad without noticeable change to the user doubly so. Why should the physical location of the server change anything? Usually the people arguing against regulation say that there are no borders in the internet. Somehow that argument is only used when it suits them.
This is not unique to the internet. Radio stations that targeted other countries learned the same lesson 40 years ago. The same happens to people who try moving their financial assets to some tropical island. Just because technically the money isn't in the country anymore does not mean the government gives up on taxing.
Merkel also started mentioning regulating the Internet around the G20 meeting and even before that. She's been quite evasive though, only giving some hints, since they have elections in Germany this fall and there would be no talk of pensions or censorship before that. So better watch out for EU-wide Internet censorship using the German model.
Even better: host it on IPFS.
I'd argue government restrictions on free speech is a bigger threat than fake news.
So if you write a poem critical to Edrogan, whoops, it's libel against other heads of state punishable by law.
/s
Contrary to the party line China is truly an aberration when it comes to censorship for a modern, wealthy, industrialized country. Pointing out that China belongs to a tiny group of outliers compared to the entire rest of planet Earth when it comes to censorship does not equate to somehow claiming the US has no faults.
It's like, the USA executes people, china executes people too, so they must be the same. Ignore the fact that china executes a hell of a lot more people than the USA (even on a per capita basis), they aren't the same at all. Likewise, the USA has corruption, so does china, but the scales of the problems are completely different. Talking about the USA's censorship problem in the context of China's is like talking about a flu in the context of terminal brain cancer. Ya, they both suck, but one sucks a lot more than the other.
On principle they are the same, just because the scales are different does not mean the US is in any position to criticize Chinese behavior on that issue.
It's pretty much the equivalent of "do as I say, not as I do" and a very easy to spot double standard.
> Ya, they both suck, but one sucks a lot more than the other.
Murder is murder, regardless of the scale, the injustice stays the same. Let's also put the scale into context [0]
"China, together with Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US (the only G7 country to still execute people) carried out the most executions last year."
China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, that's a list the US wants to be on too, really? From 2007 to 2012 the US executed more people than Pakistan, Yemen or North Korea did.
> Likewise, the USA has corruption, so does china, but the scales of the problems are completely different.
You realize that if you read Chinese media, you'd get exactly the opposite stories about how corrupt the US is? What does this mean? That all Chinese are constantly lying and all US Americans are always telling the truth? No, it only means countries control the narrative to make themselves shine in the most positive light possible. They do this regardless of what form of government they run, the only thing that changes are the methods they are using.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/death-...
Personally, I think not all censorship is in some way aimed at free speech, that's just the most obvious parts.
Anything the party leadership disagrees with can potentially be censored. That includes criticism and ridicule of the party, but also pornography or memes they don't like.