A programmer in northern China has been ordered to pay more than 1 million yuan to the authorities for using a virtual private network (VPN), in what is thought to be the most severe individual financial penalty ever issued for circumventing China’s “great firewall.” The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty notice by the public security bureau of Chengde, a city in Hebei province, on August 18. The notice said Ma had used “unauthorised channels” to connect to international networks to work for a Turkish company. The police confiscated the 1.058m yuan ($145,092) Ma had earned as a software developer between September 2019 and November 2022, describing it as “illegal income,” as well as fining him 200 yuan ($27).
Charlie Smith (a pseudonym), the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a website that tracks internet censorship in China, said: “Even if this decision is overturned in court, a message has been sent and damage has been done. Is doing business outside of China now subject to penalties?”
Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/420019
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Not spelling out the whole story to your satisfaction in the headline is no better than capricious law enforcement giving out penalties for something that shouldn’t be a crime ranging from nothing, to a $27 fine, to confiscating 3 years of income, to 13 years in prison?
The headline isn’t simply just a bad summary of what happened, it’s a gross, intentional misinterpretation of the facts to spread an agenda
Isn’t it illegal because he used a VPN? Seems like semantics.
let’s say you use weeds and weeds is legal where you are, but it’s illegal to drive after using weeds.
Now you’re arrested for DUI. Next day you make to the headline: “Man arrested for using weeds”. Is it the fact? Yes. Do you think it’s all the necessary facts?
Your opinion is based on the assumption that everyone should be allowed to use VPN to do anything. I may agree with you, but it doesn’t change how bad the article is.
I do assume people have the right to believe what they want and to seek life, liberty and happiness
Intentionally misleading by summarizing partial facts is simply evil. Not sure if anyone may be satisfied with this approach, but even if some do, I’m willing to bet they will become unsatisfied if missing part of the facts is actually what they care about.
How is it misleading? Based on the info we have it seems accurate.
“Man’s income of 1m was confiscated due to using VPN for work’ would be accurate.
‘Man is fined 1m for using VPN’ is not.
There’s no evidence (yet) that someone will be fined this much by simply using vpn in China to browse otherwise banned sites.
Chinas court system isn’t controlled by the people. Punishments in China can be whatever the party wants then to be
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I’m not sure if I understand your point.
If you say their law sucks, their LE agency sucks, they freely interpret their laws in prosecution, etc. , I completely agree with you. But if you’re trying to say using vpn to browse internet in China can risk a big fine, which is what the title of the article is saying, I don’t think it’s accurate. News agency should state the facts, not their ill formed opinions.
It is saying that VPN use was the only excuse given by the authorities when he was “ordered to pay” them a large amount of money. While I don’t know for certain that it’s true, I still haven’t seen anything here or elsewhere to contradict that.
You’re just being pedantic… and calling this “simply evil” sounds like satire it’s so extreme
Yes, they fine wasn’t a flat 1m or whatever, but because he earned it while using a VPN on and off(cuz the great firewall periodically blocks github). None of that would of happened if he didn’t use a VPN, so saying that the direct reason he’s in trouble isn’t why he got punished is less honest.
If your complaint is about how the number was determined, perhaps it would be better as “Chinese programmer ordered to pay entire income(1m yuan) for using Virtual Private Network.” Honestly, either headline is fine as long as the details of how that number was chosen is in the article.
That’s just circling around the issue.
The income is illegal according to the Chinese government because he used a VPN to do work, he wasn’t charged for using the VPN directly he was charged for using the VPN to do work, but functionally it’s the same thing.
They don’t like people doing stuff they don’t know about because they’re a draconian oversight obsessed dictatorship.
In fact, the Chinese government probably says his existence didn’t happen and that anyone with memories of him should seek help with a state doctor