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by londons_explore 2097 days ago
For a long time, USPS was directly controlled by government, yet was also one of the only ways for people to communicate long distance. Government could easily have made laws like "we will read all your mail", or "we won't deliver mail to political enemies".

Yet that didn't happen. Why are things turning out differently in the internet age?
3 comments
scarmig 2097 days ago
> Yet that didn't happen

The USPS did do exactly that. Read about how abolitionists attempted to spread anti-slavery literature through the federal postal system in the antebellum era, and how the post office decided it would suppress those mailings for being supposedly insurrectionary.

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justsomedood 2097 days ago
A counterpoint is that the telephone infrastructure has been tapped by the US government to monitor even citizens conversations. My opinion is that since it requires fewer people it is easier to do. I don't think the CCP is as concerned with chinese citizens knowing what they are doing like the US seems to
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londons_explore 2097 days ago
> I don't think the CCP is as concerned with chinese citizens knowing what they are doing

If you ask a random Chinese citizen "are you okay with the government listening in to your phone calls?", most people would say Yes. Having the government listen in and having government presence on the streets makes us feel safe, because most of us trust our government. Sure, it has it's issues, but in general, the government acts in our favor, and without it we'd have far lower standards of living.

The US is a total polar opposite in this regard.

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valuearb 2097 days ago
That random Chinese citizen is afraid to say no, and assuming you will report them.
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selestify 2097 days ago
If they are against it, then yes they may likely say no out of fear. But make no mistake, many are for it. Not everyone shares the same values we do in America.
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mike_h 2097 days ago
How many Chinese have you had intimate conversations with about this?
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mike_h 2097 days ago
This is one really important counterpoint. The internet made it more economical.

Another is that in days before the internet, the technology for small numbers of people to cause mass violence did not exist.

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javagram 2097 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws

But also, the government in the 19th century was much weaker than it became in the 20th and now 21st centuries.

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