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Comment by mrich | Hacker News Reader

The interesting part is not the story itself, but that they chose to demo it to the BBC. Marketing at its best, they want everyone to be fully aware of their capabilities. Wouldn't be surprised if they were overstated, so as to keep citizens in check. The BBC willingly plays along and does not even question the capabilities either way.

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There's such a funny mismatch of culture and display of poor international PR sense too.

Based on some cursory search, it looks like it's another one of those local-government-pioneered pilot/experiments [1] like the credit score (except there are dozens of cities in that pilot).

The second tier city local government, trying to tout their achievements at the national level, then goes on a PR spree [2] (probably to earn points for the local party secretary). They even proudly market it as "Guiyang has 'Skynet' everywhere. No matter where you go, there are eyes on you,". I can totally visualize the locals thinking, who wouldn't think this is cool and an indication of Guiyang finally being ready to join the ranks of the civilized world.

Meanwhile, nobody at the local level thinks (or has enough international context to know) that this is a huge negative rather than an achievement from the western perspective. They probably can't even wrap their heads around why wouldn't everyone want this. Smelling the big story, in goes the BBC also, presenting this story as this state of the iron curtain, straight as constructed from Xi's directives.

The 2 sides of the story are just living in very different worlds.

[1] http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1093864.shtml [2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eoO1dqE...

> this is a huge negative rather than an achievement from the western perspective.

To you and I, yes, but I don't think we can take for granted that everyone or even a majority of the West thinks that way these days. Especially if you told them it was to be used for immigration control.

We've already got the mass surveillance TV show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunted_(2015_TV_series)

oh ya, for sake of brevity, that was totally a coastal HN crowd facing message. I'm sure people living in Chicago where 40-60 people are being shot each weekend has a different perspective.

I'm trying to work out whether there's a constituency who's in favour of mass surveillance but not gun control, and what that landscape looks like.

Given the prohibition on building a database of gun owners, I wonder if we'll end up with a situation where everyone's face is recorded but the guns are blurred out to protect their rights.

> The BBC willingly plays along and does not even question the capabilities either way.

What should they do? Not run the story? It is of interest, it is scary to a lot of people. It does also warn people wanting to hide from it.

Should no one talk about this technology, or China's current capabilities? Do you think that would be better?

No, they should run it, but they should discuss why the Chinese side chose to demo it, and why they appear proud of it. They should also discuss the limitations.

> The BBC willingly plays along and does not even question the capabilities either way.

They've got a lot of experience doing this since the conservative government started applying it's will to the BBC after choosing the board of directors. Ther'es no longer a sense of "balanced" and "unbiased" news and it's glaringly obvious just by watching their news for a few weeks.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/13/government-cho...

Odd isn't it? I watch their news for more than a few weeks and for the most part find it both balanced and unbiased. I think there were legitimate gripes about its coverage surrounding the Scottish devolution debate, but other than that - it's very good.

What were those legitimate gripes?

I would say that there was probably a case that the BBC News coverage leaned against the independence cause. (I speak as someone who wanted Scotland to stay in the Union).

I would say in partial mitigation that the one bias the BBC probably does have is a bias towards the status quo.

It's an old trope, but the concept that everyone thinks that the BBC is biased (against their point of view, naturally) is probably a pretty good indicator of their neutrality.

  > Marketing at its best, they want everyone to be fully aware of
  > their capabilities. Wouldn't be surprised if they were 
  > overstated, so as to keep citizens in check.

The marketing is aimed at foreign countries who might buy the technology.

If some government buys this technology, they better demand full code -and data- disclosure, including any hardware design and firmware, because adding exceptions to skip certain individuals (spies?) or use it as a surveillance network that phones home local images hidden in updates would be less than trivial.

The BBC is one of very few respected foreign news outlets that is not routinely blocked by the GFW. They generally have a more China-friendly stance than US news media.

The BBC has been blocked by the GFW since around mid-2018 when they migrated to HTTPS. The Chinese censors could no longer snoop on or selectively block the traffic.

Ah, thanks, I should probably have checked the current situation before repeating what I remember.

Random thought: it would be interesting to compare news services that are and aren't blocked and see if the ones that haven't been blocked yet tend to be more positive on Beijing in their coverage.

The BBC is blocked all (it is blocked right now because of the Hong Kong protest/riot happening at the moment) the time and its live news feed is also cut off regularly in the middle of stories.

That being said it is trusted a lot more than CCN & Foxnews which are the other two news sources that are on cable TV (neither are blocked at the moment).

I wouldn't really say that the BBC has a China-friendly stance. I would say that it tries to be more objective most of the time (which I agree with when compared to CCN & Fox News).

I was comparing more with the NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, all of which have broken major stories that were critical of Beijing. I haven't seen as much of that from the BBC. Fox I consider mainly to provide domestic entertainment, so whatever China bias they have wouldn't be that relevant.

It sure would be interesting to someday learn about how all these decisions of what to block get made.

You can bet they only demo things if they are 100% sure it will work (in a very controlled environment not unlike North Korean "tours"), and even then often it will fail because of Soviet-style bureaucratic incompetence.

I also demo only things, I am sure 100% it will work. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense. Every YouTube technical demo is repeated hundred times until perfect video is made to make an impression, it works 100%. That’s the purpose of demoing something. About bureaucratic incompetence I have no opinion.

You're arguing semantics when the point is that they likely aren't ask sophisticated as they make themselves look.

I heard rumors, that Russian KBG had always eyes on all high levels foreigners in the country. All of them were observed expecting to find something interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompromat Why should China do it differently? BBC journalist is highly valued target for sure. And there you get bonus points for using this information to showcase facial recognition system in 7 minutes.

First of all it is KGB, and secondly Kompromat is just russian word for blackmail, and I am pretty sure nowadays FSB and any other self-respecting agencies in other countries always keep and eye on influential, wealthy or otherwise having political impact people in their country, that is just national security basics really.

Tell that to Microsoft haha.

Both your clauses seem to contradict one another

> Wouldn't be surprised if they were overstated, so as to keep citizens in check.

This is a little stretching. Most Chinese audience can’t or won’t watch BBC.

You have to understand that Chinese prefer security over freedom. They support this kind of measures since majority of them probably won't be bothered by it their whole lives, as their typical response: if you don't illegal things, what's to fear for.

And the state media has been touting for years that China is the safest country on earth that "you can buy skewers at midnight", that America is the example of a failed society.

They mostly likely are sincerely and proudly presenting this as a superiority over the tumultuous west.

I don't know, hongkongers seem to prefer freedom.

Exactly. HongKongers dont consider themselves Chinese.

https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/28/hongkongers-identifyin...

Only the minority that are protesting.

"minority"

This doesn't help the discussion. Also, anything less than half is a minority.

If a country is 33.33% of three different groups, are all 3 a minority?

I suppose so. Though it's much clearer when the matter is dichotomous, such as "going to protest"/"not going", and "GOP"/"Democratic" (I know, I know, but independent is not significant).

Not everyone participates, some are scared probably.

The hongkongers are protesting, so in Hong Kong your minority is 100% of the residents.

Your statement is deceptive

Are you saying that every Hong Kong resident would choose to protest if not scared?

When asked, over 50% of Hong Kong people identified as “Hongkonger[s]”, even though various Chinese options were available.¹ Clearly then at least some non-protesters agree.

1. https://www.hkupop.hku.hk/english/popexpress/ethnic/eidentit...

Yeah, abject outcasts sponsored by black hands from America and the UK.

As I noted in another comment, a majority of Hong Kong people did not identify themselves as “Chinese” when given the choice.⁰ It is rather implausible to claim that over three million Chinese people are “sponsored by black hands from America and the UK”. Moreover it is quite unlikely that the majority of them are “abject outcasts.” And, finally, as a Marxist, I should like to know in what sense you consider your remarks to be compatible with the compassion for “outcasts” that animated at the very least Marx: “we should not abandon Marxism-Leninism;”¹ “[a]ll Party members must…be firm in their commitment to…the Marxist view on development;”² “[w]e must adhere to Marxism.”³

0. https://www.hkupop.hku.hk/english/popexpress/ethnic/eidentit...

1. XI Jinping, The Governance of China, p. 10

2. Ibid., p. 23

3. Ibid., p. 25

At their height, about a half of Hong Kong's labour force (people aged over 15) hit the streets.

Not sure one can easily speak about 1 billion people, speaking different languages, having different religion, living in different climates, as « prefering security over freedom ».

The chineese i’ve spoken to, that actually lived in china, first told you the official point of view, and then after the conversation kept going on, told you about things they didn’t like, then after some more time you realize all they want is leave china and come live in the west.

Ask the ones you've talked with whether they dare to level with their own parents or relatives, most likely they will be scolded as traitors or even be shuned to avoid troubles.

Yes, there will always be outliers, but in the case of China, where conformity is of utmost importance, they really are just absolute minorities in the 1.4B population.

If you've been following the developments of HK protests, a key indicator is that almost all of these "passive dissents" of the CCP you described turned against HKers just like average Chinese, they are bashing HKers and lapping up the info the party gave them.

Do these people love freedom or even democracy, yes, but they are also acting against it in the case of HK. This is the paradox, they love the "good aspects" of freedom and democracy but they also vehemently hate and reject the "bad ones" that inevitably come with it.

It's the tradeoff between democracy and nationalism. I bet if you offered the typical mainlander the following choices.

1. Democracy + Developed country standard of living, but Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Xinjiang, Tibet vote to become independent and do become independent countries.

2. Autocracy + Developing country standard of living, but mainland China unifies with Taiwan.

Then most mainlanders would pick the second option. Due to historical reasons, any scenario that risks tarnishing the borders of the idealized unified China incurs a hyperallergic reaction.

The UK government probably wants this setup, no?

Already under proposal for the existing "ring of steel": https://www.professionalsecurity.co.uk/news/interviews/new-r...

And selectively deployed at "public order" events: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/facial-recognition-tec...

>You have to understand that Chinese prefer security over freedom.

Pretty much everyone prefers security over freedom in particular in the abscene of security, but also just in general. Take a look at countries that have freedom written on their flags and then count the CCTV cameras in London or the number of three letter agencies in the US.

The only difference is the fact that in China the role of the state in exercising this surveillance is out in the open and endorsed as a means of organising society and everywhere else it happens through the backdoor.

> You have to understand that Chinese prefer security over freedom.

Or, as Mike Tyson put it: everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

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