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Comment by joyfulmantis | Hacker News Reader

These were accounts that were holding meetings with large amount of mainland chinese users. Whatsmore they admitted the blocking was a mistake caused by their inability to prevent users from joining a meeting by region, a functionality which they are now developing because of this problem.

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I don’t think that’s an excuse at all. As an American, it’s fully within my rights to critique the CCP to as many mainlanders I want to, including holding meetings with mainlanders.

They should have been never blocked.

As an american you don't have the right while in mainland china to criticize the CCP. While there is no simple way to apply sovereignty to the internet, the decision to follow the laws of the participants countries seems relatively reasonable.

The interesting thing about this is that it's asymmetric.

If you are a Chinese citizen you can be arrested for sharing content the Party objects to, even if you were overseas when you did it[1]. You do not even have to be inside China or a Chinese citizen, the authorities may still kidnap and imprison you for exercising your right to free speech in jurisdictions where it is not restricted[2]. So it seems like it doesn't really matter to the Chinese government what the laws are in other countries, when it comes to suppressing speech.

Meanwhile, Chinese officials and propaganda outlets continue to enjoy full freedom of speech in both social media and traditional media in the west.

[1] https://www.axios.com/china-arrests-university-minnesota-twi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causeway_Bay_Books_disappearan...

Chinese propaganda operating freely in the west platforms, while western propaganda being filtered in Chinese platforms is a real conundrum since both parties are... following relevant local regulations. I suppose labeling state actors and revealing misinformation campaigns is a start. The other insidious strategy is suppressing speech on foreign campuses that target foreign citizens, particularly anti-China advocates who can be coerced with threats to family back in China. No real good solution except punishing obvious bad actors. Maybe ban children of CCP officials from attending these institutions if they can stomach the retaliation in withdrawn Chinese enrollment. Censorship between US and Chinese platforms are a difficult structural asymmetry. Hard to see how west can match without adopting similar (anti)values. Not much to do but mitigate.

On your examples: CCP sees some speech as national security issues, which in itself is not controversial i.e. wikileaks. On Luo Daiqing in, countries have subject matter jurisdiction, laws that apply to citizens at all times and regardless of location, i.e. treason. If certain speech is outlawed in China then Chinese nationals can legally be prosecuted by China for them regardless of jurisdiction. Other countries have same legal arrangements on other issue, i.e. sex tourism, organ transplants, drug use. Causeway Books is more complicated, HK(Chinese) and foreign nationals operating in HK to distributed banned books to customers IN mainland which is illegal but also un-prosecutable due to lack of extradition treaty with HK. Basically the reason behind current HK national security law designed to close one-country security loopholes. CCP believes selling illegal books to mainland undermines national security. It was less of a free speech issue than shenanigans comparable to foreign NGO meddling that CCP thinks jeopardizes one-country national security and worth expending political capita on to control. Since national security in context of one-country was legally undefined, CCP was forced to resort to coerce or rendition. It's like how the west will prosecute whistleblowers wherever they are, sometimes through extraordinary means, no matter the optics. Even though in this context the book sellers were (from my understanding) peddling salacious gossip.

In response to the first point most countries retain the right to prosecute their citizens for crimes committed overseas even if it wasn't a crime where it was committed. For the application of US law on US citizens abroad see https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/6503/are-there-an...

Assange is an Australian citizen and everything you said China does to its citizens s, the US did to Assange.

It seems if Assange leaked Chinese government info, as a non-Chinese citizen, he wouldnt be in jail right now.

A great feature of Americans looking at China, is they gain an awareness of how the rest of the world views the US in its many areas of overreach.

You certainly have the right, all humans do, even PRC citizens. It's the natural right of free speech. That some governments (the PRC, for example) have passed laws abridging that natural right means you'll suffer consequences for exercising that right anywhere CCP cronies can get their hands on you.

I think it's an important distinction. Might doesn't make right.

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