Sex, China, the Internet and Free Speech
Ryan, Lost Laowai #1, has written on the new Chinabounder post and like him, “I can hardly wait to see where it all leads.” It’s akin to the thrill one gets from watching two bad guys in a cheesy Hong Kong kung-fu flick duke it out, only better because the audience can interact with and influence the main characters.
The larger story in all of this is the long-term effect the internet may have on ideas about free speech. From Ryan’s blog:
Reading through the comments you immediately get a sense of the array of feelings towards this topic. What I don’t get is how those from ‘free nations’, that (cough) know better, can argue that what he’s doing is wrong. I mean, has life in China actually made me more sensitive to the whole ‘free speech’ ideology?
I left the following comment on his blog:
Hey Ryan,
I too was a little surprised at many of the comments on Chinabounder’s new post that seemed to suggest that the commentator either didn’t “get” the concept of free speech or just downright rejected it.
I remember reading Roland Soong’s translation of Zhang Jiehai’s xenophobic fury last summer and coming to Roland’s comment:
If you call Chinese women dumb cunts and Chinese men limp dicks, should you get away with it? Are you in any position to circumscribe their reactions?
Assuming the first question is rhetorical and the answer is “no”, it seems that Roland doesn’t “get”/believe in free speech either. Well, fair enough. Roland is Chinese. Different culture, different history, different values. To be clear, when I say “free speech” I mean that you can say anything you want as long as it is not inciting violence against others, and do anything you want as long as it does not break the law and “get away with it,” ie., not be the prey of an internet lynch mob or deported. Does having sex with consenting adults and writing about it online break Chinese law? If so, when will A Zhen and Muzi Mei be arrested? Furthermore, is mob “justice” allowed under Chinese law?
However, living in an increasingly global world, where communications between people all over the world take place instantly over the internet, and people the world over have different ideas about the meaning and/or value of “free speech”, it is obvious that the answer to Roland’s second question should be thought out in advance of opening one’s mouth.
Jeremy Goldkorn has an interesting opinion on this, a sort of realpolitik philosophy:
If you speak in a public forum or publish anything at all on the Internet, do not be surprised when people who are hostile to you find it and react. When it comes to information, the global village is a reality, and many of the neighbors are very intolerant.
I guess it’s time to stop being surprised.
Tags Free Speech, China, Internet
