Twitch is reportedly blocked in China | Hacker News Reader

Twitch is reportedly blocked in China

engadget.com

73 pointsbeerlord48 comments

Why are these digital service blocks seen as anything but tariffs by the US government? They cost American companies billions of dollars and help enrich Chinese companies.

Yes, maybe censoring is the purpose, but the financial effect is the same.

I'm not opposed to foreign countries fighting against tech monopolization either, it makes sense from their perspective.

I'm just wondering why the US government doesn't seem to see it as a hostile act and respond likewise. Do they just not understand the effect it has on American companies? That senator asking Zuckerberg how Facebook can offer a free service comes to mind...

Responding likewise? You mean censoring stuff back? That seems like an awful thing to do, to verify for global audience that censorship is a legit tool of foreign politics.

You could respond with tarrifs on physical goods. Tarrifs don't have to be on the same item, they could just aim for equivalent financial impact.

Chinese treatment of US tech companies (forced technology transfer, IP theft, censorship) is the primary reason why US is imposing tariffs on China. One can see that from reading the primary sources (i.e. press releases on wh.gov).

That's interesting, I was not aware of the US response to the IP theft I read about.

Well, it's been a long time coming.

America has no right to the markets of sovereign nations. Blocking Facebook etc is a matter of national security. Europe should do it too.

America has no right to the markets of sovereign nations.

That seems fairly 'self-evident'.

I wonder how the US would respond to some country on the other side of the world insisting the US buy that country's product, and even saw it as a 'hostile act' if the US just didn't want to do so. That would just be bullying, plain and simple. And it would be ridiculous. You see that, right, GP?

Of course, I agree.

Every nation decides who has access to it's markets. China has denied access to a set of US companies in certain industries.

It is then only fair that the US match this denial of access, which is what a tariff is.

Cyber Security Law of the People's Republic of China[0] give it a read. On the surface, it's like GDPR or other similar data regulation, but focus on different purpose.

The law basically gives the China government a legal foundation to block any service that does not comply with it, and most foreign service does not.

If you DO completely obey the law however, then you can operate in China. Amazon.com for example, can be accessed directly in China. But the law was very restrict and tricky, for most companies (Twitch for example) it's not worth the trouble.

(Maybe you don't know, China's game streaming service are heavily controlled: you could only stream few games that are selected by the platform. Streaming illegal game that is not approved by the authority (Battlefield for example) is not allowed and likely results a ban)

BTW: Do we have any international treaty that can prevent political censorship?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Internet_Security_Law

Thanks for the info.

Yes, I read about a Chinese gaming company that was affected by these restrictions, so it could be that censorship is the end game.

It's hard to ignore that US companies have lost hundreds of billions of dollars because they cannot operate in China, though.

You see this everywhere.

Food safety regulations, tend to favor local food, and be stricter on foreign foods.

This is the mirror image of "why aren't environmental and safety standards considered tariffs?"

Should link to the original article, which is either of: https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/20/17883736/twitch-china-blo... https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/twitch-vanishes-chin...

Thank you. The main link only shows a blank page.

I wonder how this is going to work for say, The International 9, which is going to be in China. Is the government really going to block streaming of an event that so many of their citizens will have national pride riding on. Just hosting the event is something I expected the government to be proud of given Dota's profile in China.

Edit: Actually they're probably going to have it on national TV, that will allow them to have a layer of control over the broadcast.

One of China’s larger tech companies also owns a competing streaming service with casting in Chinese, so most Chinese viewers generally don’t use Twitch.

You could say that Valve was Shanghai'd

Steam is apparently officially launching in China with the help of Perfect World who have been distributing Dota 2 in the meantime. I assume that this will let Chinese viewers to watch TI9 on Steam.tv or on the Chinese equivalent.

I heard positive reviews for Steam.tv during TI8 and that it surpassed the Twitch experience at times.

Source:https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/11/17451484/steam-china-anno...

Wouldn’t surprise me. Last trip to mainland China and nothing worked online. Apps like Instagram, sites like Google, etc. except Bing and WeChat. Perfect WiFi yet everything filtered.

I think this is specifically addressing gaming restrictions deployed enmasse by the Chinese gov. I go to China often and I ask people there what do they think of the govt - everyone nodes in unison with their approval. This is scary.

Not true from my point of view, people have the same criticisms of their government as you'd see in any other country. Chinese people aren't like brainwashed.

To any one coming to China, get a shadowsocks server ready first! Or let me know if need help.

To be even more prepared: spin up two Digital Ocean Shadowsocks servers in case one gets throttled down (which happens after extensive usage). I often combine this with ExpressVPN as well, which still works in China (although many are sceptical of how ExpressVPN has managed to do so over the years, so expect there to be logging).

I wonder how long it'll take before Steam going offline as well, now that they are both thinking about implementing streaming and the fact that gaming is seen as unharmonious these days (e.g. refer to Tencent's recent stock drop). Steam is currently handled by Perfect World Games as the Chinese partner, so I'm curious to see what will happen.

vultr works even better

I wonder if it is because so many are using vultr for this purpose now they started to accept WePay.

Or get a low cost international roaming data plan. Nothing is blocked if you are on international roaming because essentially your traffic is tunneled to your home country carrier.

in other news Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba's video streaming services, VERY successful after "unfortunate" youtube ban, move into the new game streaming market.

The Chinese Internet already blocks nearly all western social media sites. Twitch is a form of social media. Secondly, in June this year, China blocked livestreaming even on domestic sites. So it should come as no surprise that Twitch would be blocked under these rules.

Can confirm. Wasn't blocked yesterday but is not reachable right now.

I've been to China and before entering the country I was hugely critical of all the things we read on our mainstream media. However, after spending time travelling through large parts of China I'm on the opposite side now. People in China are so calm, so polite and helpful. Their streets are extremely quiet because there is not a single motorized two wheel vehicle. Even though it is a 1.4 billion nation, the largest on the planet, people live comfortable lives, they have space and time to recreate together (you literally see people exercise before and after work everywhere) and most importantly the nation is not divided. Yes, they have problems and not everything is perfect, but heck, they are 1.4 billion people and their president is not Trump, they don't hate each other and nobody shoots children in schools, people don't spend all day on Twitter to kill each other and nobody gets publicly shamed for a small mistake. Their problems in relation to their size are literally peanuts. Maybe democracy and freedom the way we know in the Western world is not that great for everyone after all. They are in a unique position and China is doing pretty well, so whatever they do which makes you think is bad, it seems to work for them better than for the US.

On one hand we read how foreign nations manipulate and taint the minds of our people through social media and that we drown in fake news, biased one sided reporting and an agressive ad driven consumerism which makes us vulnerable, but on the other hand we are critical of a nation which basically says no to this through censorship. Maybe the only way to keep 1.4 billion people at peace is through censorship, who knows? We only have one country to measure this experiment and they seem to be doing fine, right?

EDIT:

Lol, lots of people saying I was in China only for a day or what not and pointing out all the problems the country had to justify their criticism. I don't say they don't have problems, I'm saying their problems in relation to their unique size are actually not that big. The US has also lotsbof big problems, 100s of years of slavery, Vietnam war, Iraq war, killing lots of innocent people for no reason, Guantanamo bay, torture, etc

Yes, China is not a role model in human rights when you look at their history, but please save your poor criticism if you can't honestly compare two things without national pride and bias.

I hope you realize the “non divisiveness” of the Chinese people is a state enforced ruling. Dissidents are jailed or expelled. Just saying looks and initial impressions can be deceiving. I was always reminded of this whenever I saw Ai Weiwei walking up the street in Berlin to his studio https://qz.com/1325316/why-berlin-is-the-favorite-city-of-ch...

I’ve only been to Beijing and there were plenty of two-wheeled scooters. Maybe they were electric but they were all over the road.

And while I understand your point, I can’t help but think of the 1 million Uighurs in concentration camps and that this system is not a good one. This is the same system where the cultural revolution thrived where mao ordered all the birds shot and then locusts swarmed without predators and millions starved to death. And let’s not forget their current President is in power forever now. Imagine trump for life. I don’t think it’s a good model to follow.

...but this is the same state that shot people in public in cold blood and now forbids discussion of that act.

I've never been to China, but I'm not surprised by the positive vibes you describe. But is it worth it?

The US is full of positive vibes too, but I don't use that as a way to suggest that our government structure is working well.

This is an idiotic comment made by an obvious fly-by tourist that hasn’t lived in China for more than a few days.

If you actually lived in the country you would be infuriated by

- toxic milk powder. Which the government has done very little to punish the offenders. The offenders got rich and fled. Oh yeah, if you complain in we chat, you get censored

- disgusting air in Beijing and elsewhere.

- tons of ponzu schemes that go unpunished. And hey if you protest, you get jailed and your sesame score goes way down

Etc etc etc

to say nothing of the people-eating escalators.

The regular people in countries with repressive regimes are still just regular people.

The fact that this was a discovery to you is what surprises me.

What to me was a surprise is that people in a politically oppressed country, were happier and mentally healthier, than some fat potatoe chip eating people running around with rifles in a politically "free" environment where everyone blames their misfortune on the next person with darker skin or foreign accent, manipulated by consumerism and lead by an erratic maniac.

>fat potatoe chip eating people running around with rifles in a politically "free" environment where everyone blames their misfortune on the next person with darker skin or foreign accent

This isn't an assessment of a population. This is you regurgitating political propaganda that taught you to hate that population.

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