Twitch is Reportedly Blocked in China After Government Crackdown - MMORPG.com News

SBFord

Twitch is Reportedly Blocked in China After Government Crackdown - MMORPG.com News

The Chinese government appears to be blocking Twitch in most of mainland China according to Abacus News (via GamesIndustry.biz). The app has also been removed from the Chinese regional App Store. This follows an earlier censorship of Facebook, Google, YouTube (fully blocked) and Steam (partial block) and comes on the heels of a freeze in the approval process for new games. Recent regulations have been making it increasingly difficult for the gaming industry outside of China.

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SpottyGekko

The Trade War is escalating, it would seem...

JeffSpicoli

blueturtle13 said:

wow that is crazy

Think that is crazy, try googling china social score or chinese social credit. Scary stuff.

SBFord

thunderC said:

blueturtle13 said:

wow that is crazy

Think that is crazy, try googling china social score or chinese social credit. Scary stuff.

No shit......wow........

https://www.sciencealert.com/china-s-dystopian-social-credit-system-science-fiction-black-mirror-mass-surveillance-digital-dictatorship

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

WalkinGlenn

SpottyGekko said:

The Trade War is escalating, it would seem...

Has nothing to do with a trade war and everything to do with the Chinese government wanting Chinese money to stay in China.

Quizzical

WalkinGlenn said:

SpottyGekko said:

The Trade War is escalating, it would seem...

Has nothing to do with a trade war and everything to do with the Chinese government wanting Chinese money to stay in China.

Which is the reason for unfair trade practices, and hence a trade war.

dhtx74

why are you people acting so shocked, have you forgotten China is a communist country, this is what they do has been and always will be this way, their gov. controls everything. what people need to be shocked about is some small portion of people from western countries wants that, they have no idea. this has NOTHING to do with trade war.

Elendengel

dhtx74 said:

why are you people acting so shocked, have you forgotten China is a communist country, this is what they do has been and always will be this way, their gov. controls everything. what people need to be shocked about is some small portion of people from western countries wants that, they have no idea. this has NOTHING to do with trade war.

Actually, it has nothing to do with them being Communist and everything to do with them being authoritarian.

Iselin

Elendengel said:

dhtx74 said:

why are you people acting so shocked, have you forgotten China is a communist country, this is what they do has been and always will be this way, their gov. controls everything. what people need to be shocked about is some small portion of people from western countries wants that, they have no idea. this has NOTHING to do with trade war.

Actually, it has nothing to do with them being Communist and everything to do with them being authoritarian.

Exactly. Like this would have never occurred to Hitler, Mussolini or Franco if they had the tech to do it lol.

Even Nixon would have loved to have gotten his hands on something like this and I bet Trump is watching it with a lot of interest

Quizzical

Elendengel said:

dhtx74 said:

why are you people acting so shocked, have you forgotten China is a communist country, this is what they do has been and always will be this way, their gov. controls everything. what people need to be shocked about is some small portion of people from western countries wants that, they have no idea. this has NOTHING to do with trade war.

Actually, it has nothing to do with them being Communist and everything to do with them being authoritarian.

China stopped believing in Communism as an economic system around the time that Mao died.  That's why they're not still dirt poor like North Korea or Cuba.

For a while, they were basically a dictatorship with term limits, as a political system somewhat akin to what Mexico had before they moved to real elections in 2000.  But as often happens in systems where there are term limits without robust systems to enforce them, China's current dictator has decided that he wants to be dictator for life and abolished term limits.  It remains to be seen if anyone can or will stop him.

It's very common for countries to want to restrict imports to try to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.  Pretty much all countries try to do that on at least some products.  The point of free trade treaties is get both sides to agree not to do it on except for their highest priority domestic constituencies that they want to protect.

d_20

thunderC said:

blueturtle13 said:

wow that is crazy

Think that is crazy, try googling china social score or chinese social credit. Scary stuff.

The New World Order with "Chinese Characteristics" which is actually the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) -- whether they are actually "communist" or not doesn't matter. And don't forget the cameras hooked into the facial recognition AI, etc. And all the big companies falling over themselves to tap into that market trying to conform to the standards of the CCP. Why wouldn't these kinds of systems of social control spread elsewhere? This is just the tip of the iceberg and hard times ahead for all to be sure.

Grunty

Wizardry

I recently read some article that had some good inside information that in China there is some new big shot that is in direct competition versus these other biggies like Google and Twitch and Steam.

Me personally,i feel it is long overdue,things are getting out of hand,like way out of hand,Twitch is becoming more of a soft porn site than anything legit or gaming.
Young girls are doing like the older females,trying to sell sexism to make money,so if this is more the reason then good for China for trying to get this planet back into some sensibility.
I noticed big time in the last year,tons of young Asian girls vying for money on Twitch via soft porn...sexism.

There also used to be a mildly strict venture into Twitch sponsorship,now they toss around partnerships like candy at Halloween.I also would not doubt for one minute that millions of dollars are going through Twitch unchecked,not claimed.
As to the SOCIAL credit system...roflmao,hello,come out from under the rocks please.
What do you think the FBI has been doing for years and profiling and Facebook tied into everywhere to make it even easier for the FBI.
Every single citizen in NA has a credit score and there are cameras all over the place now including at your bank machines.

Ever notice how Google and others try to convince you to give up your cell phone numbers as well?Better security lmao yeah right.

yiboweng

LOL.... People are so naive.... The internet is the new War territory. Only China has it is OWN copy versions of " Facebook, Youtube, Google, Steam, Twitch ". The internet already dictate half of people's life and it will as well shape people's mind. If a country let other country's have full territory on this, it will lose the control of the country's direction. If over 50% of the people are sway by the social of the completed different country. The latter country might as well wedge an war against a nation using the nation's own people. Look at Philippine, look at South Korea. Not even Russia has the determination or the mind to take on actions like China did.

Quizzical

Wizardry said:

Every single citizen in NA has a credit score and there are cameras all over the place now including at your bank machines.

One difference is that in the United States, a poor credit score doesn't get you shipped off to prison.  Another is that criticizing political officials online doesn't get you a poor credit score.

Octagon7711

I was going to say something about shadow governments and the 1% manipulating nations but never mind... it's getting late and I've had way too much to drink.

blamo2000

Usually I am all for free markets and against government censorship of anything - but I would vote yes for any bill that made it illegal for people to watch videos of other people playing video games outside of televised ranked competitions. Why? I hate it. That is it. No legal reason or any sort of substantive or reasonable argument. Good call China.

KaliGold

Maybe a Chinese official took one look at the IRL channel and saw it as soft core porn?

Blueliner

Wizardry said:

I recently read some article that had some good inside information that in China there is some new big shot that is in direct competition versus these other biggies like Google and Twitch and Steam.

Me personally,i feel it is long overdue,things are getting out of hand,like way out of hand,Twitch is becoming more of a soft porn site than anything legit or gaming.
Young girls are doing like the older females,trying to sell sexism to make money,so if this is more the reason then good for China for trying to get this planet back into some sensibility.
I noticed big time in the last year,tons of young Asian girls vying for money on Twitch via soft porn...sexism.

There also used to be a mildly strict venture into Twitch sponsorship,now they toss around partnerships like candy at Halloween.I also would not doubt for one minute that millions of dollars are going through Twitch unchecked,not claimed.
As to the SOCIAL credit system...roflmao,hello,come out from under the rocks please.
What do you think the FBI has been doing for years and profiling and Facebook tied into everywhere to make it even easier for the FBI.
Every single citizen in NA has a credit score and there are cameras all over the place now including at your bank machines.

Ever notice how Google and others try to convince you to give up your cell phone numbers as well?Better security lmao yeah right.

This might be the single most ignorant thing I have read all week. Congrats

Akulas

So, it's illegal for chinese to watch little 14 y/o girls talk about fish tank maintenance while playing factorio. Got it.

timeraider

yiboweng said:

LOL.... People are so naive.... The internet is the new War territory. Only China has it is OWN copy versions of " Facebook, Youtube, Google, Steam, Twitch ". The internet already dictate half of people's life and it will as well shape people's mind. If a country let other country's have full territory on this, it will lose the control of the country's direction. If over 50% of the people are sway by the social of the completed different country. The latter country might as well wedge an war against a nation using the nation's own people. Look at Philippine, look at South Korea. Not even Russia has the determination or the mind to take on actions like China did.

The idea behind it is though that if everyone has the same sites, everyone has the same information. Having country-exclusive stuff makes it extremely easy to dictate and brainwash the most of the population (Think north-korea)

Vrika

WalkinGlenn said:

SpottyGekko said:

The Trade War is escalating, it would seem...

Has nothing to do with a trade war and everything to do with the Chinese government wanting Chinese money to stay in China.

That's called a trade war. Both parties try to use their government's power to increase exports and decrease imports so that more money would flow into the country than flows out of the country.

Arglebargle

America had decades of prosperity based on cheap communist labor.  China used this to bootstrap themselves up.   The exchange of knowledge and know how from this may eventually be viewed as akin to the metal scrap dealers of the 30's, shipping iron to Japan that eventually came back in bombs and battleships.  

Twenty years after Tiananmen Square, many young Chinese have no idea what went on there.   Used to think that the Star Wars premise that everyone 'forgot' the Jeddi was scriptwriter's BS, but not so anymore. 

Things like Twitter, unfettered social media, even games with unchecked chat; too little oversight on it for their apparat.   Control and oversight, because ruling China is like riding the tiger....

If I was younger, I'd be learning Mandarin.

Drakolus

SBFord said:

thunderC said:

blueturtle13 said:

wow that is crazy

Think that is crazy, try googling china social score or chinese social credit. Scary stuff.

No shit......wow........

https://www.sciencealert.com/china-s-dystopian-social-credit-system-science-fiction-black-mirror-mass-surveillance-digital-dictatorship

Blocking twitch, Owellian Social Scores? Pshaw, hold China's beer because they go even harder.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-many-people-are-imprisoned-in-xinjiang-china-government-documents-2018-5?r=US&IR=T