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Comment by greyboy | Hacker News Reader

Then they could go down the road to the local coffee shop/home/mobile network and browse the internet, unblocked. No?

They have options. I'm not sure the Chinese population have (such an easy) option to get around it.

Having several friends and relatives who are either attending or alumni... no, AFAIK it's pretty isolated for students without a car. Not that you can't get away, just that for most people leaving the campus isn't a daily activity. Also, I would be surprised if many of the nearby businesses had public wifi, unless there's a Starbucks I've missed.

You don't even need to move a centimeter. All you need is an iPhone with 3G.

Or is that not allowed for students of the university? Sorry, I didn't read the full article.

Well, similarly, every Chinese person annoyed at the censorship just needs a short-wave radio to pick up global broadcasts. (unless they're jamming that frequency somehow) That doesn't make it any less bad. Personally, I have yet to own a phone with internet access.

Having access to Google Maps... there's a Starbucks (and Panera) basically next door. Granted the area isn't all that walkable and "next door" is still kind of far without a car.

The thing is, attendance at Liberty is non-compulsory. I'm sure it does feel like China to the more worldly of its student body, but there is no law compelling them to attend there. (Maybe family is, but that's different story ;)

I think it is very inaccurate to portray the environment and "conditions" at Liberty as a microcosm of the US, let alone as an apt comparison to the people of China being kept in the dark by their government.

Oh, I wasn't necessarily agreeing wholeheartedly with the comparison, just that some of the things we take for granted on HN aren't so simple or ubiquitous as they can be made out to be by people who know what they're doing.

It is inaccurate to call it a "microcosm". That's why I noted the error and corrected my post 4 hours ago.

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