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diff --git a/socpol/freeswcovid.7 b/socpol/freeswcovid.7 deleted file mode 100644 index 5b8bd0d..0000000 --- a/socpol/freeswcovid.7 +++ /dev/null @@ -1,148 +0,0 @@ -.Dd January 1, 1970 -.Dt freeswcovid socpol -.Os Runxi Yu -.Sh NAME -.Nm freeswcovid -.Nd On Free Software, Education in China and the COVID-19 Pandemic -.Sh DESCRIPTION -.Pp -I am a secondary school student from Shanghai, China. This email -discusses the problems I discovered in the Chinese educational system, -in terms of students' right to freedom in computing and options to -control the COVID-19 pandemic from the standpoint of a person living in -China. -.Pp -When COVID-19 broke out in 2020, students were required to watch lecture -videos produced by the city's education department for twenty minutes, -then join the Tencent Meetings room to discuss in their own class for -10--15 minutes. -.Pp -Watching the videos wasn't an issue for me. Our apartment has cable TV, -where the videos are broadcast; there was also a website that played the -livestream without JavaScript. However, Tencent Meetings presented a -problem to me. -.Pp -At the time, I run Arch Linux. (Currently, I run Hyperbola -GNU/Linux-libre, a Free Software-only distribution, which would have -made this even harder.) Tencnet Meetings, claiming to support "all -operating systems and platforms", only supports Windows and macOS. (I -wonder how they passed the resolution to display that statement, I -believe that they have many programmers who use GNU/Linux.) (As of -October 2021, a classmate noted that there is a "Linux versuon".) -School required Tencent Meetings, therefore I went through a hard -process to setup QEMU running a Windows 7 virtual machine---I believed -that 7 would be slightly better than 10 in terms of privacy, though as -always with nonfree software, I can't really know for sure. It was -slightly unstable, which is an annoyance, for example the connection -from the Windows audio server to pulseaudio would stop working from time -to time, but it was acceptable. Though my setup was okay (in the -perspective of my school), it left me in a psycological crisis about -education and freedom. More on that later. -.Pp -Offline classes resumed in May 2020, as most of China has minimal cases -of COVID-19. This freed me from using a proprietary -non-privacy-respecting bloated piece of software in a virtual machine, -but it did not free me from teachers' requirement to use WeChat (think -of it as the equiv of WhatsApp in China), Xiaoheiban (A proprietary -classroom information distribution system), or other pieces of nonfree -software. -.Pp -Similar to the beliefs stated in the GNU Education project, I believe -that schools and educaion are a means of sharing information and -knowledge. I understand that meeting software and lesson management -software are used as means of distributing knowledge, rather than the -knowledge being distributed themselves. However, I believe this doesn't -lead to the argument that the mandate of proprietary software usage is -just, for three reasons as below. -.Bl -enum -.It -There are always going to be curious students who wonder how the -trchnology works. Proprietary software denies them this right. -.It -The usage of proprietary software when young may implant dependence -on it in the future. -.It -Education is a right and a responsility. Mandating nonfree software -in education adds unjust responsibilities on students. -.El -.Pp -Point 1 and 2 are explained well in the Education section of the GNU -website, therefore I am not going to focus on them. Focusing on the -third point: -.Pp -Under laws of almost all countries, citizens have the right to an -education. Traditionally, this involves going to school, meeting -teachers and classmates, listening to classes, taking notes, passing -exams (I have strong opinions that exam systems ought to change to -better represent individual talents, but this is out of scope of this -memo.) and finishing homework. Students loose a slight bit of their time -and freedom of movement (as in, it's not easy to move to a house 100 -miles away from school), in exchange for being educated. -.Pp -However, with schools requiring the use of nonfree software, in effect -students are required to give up their privacy, and digital freedom, -both crucial rights in modern society, as the effect of needing to use -nonfree software. The right to education has effectively turned into an -exchange for other basic rights. This is not acceptable. -.Pp -Furthermore, in countries like China, 9 years of education is mandatory -for children. I understand this law as a means to the goal of creating a -knowledgeble and educated society, which is good. However, when -mandatory edication mandates nonfree software, it deduces to "children -are required to use nonfree software". So, being a child here is pretty -unlucky, because there goes your right to privacy, your independence, -and your freedom, because of a law that's supposed to help society. -.Pp -We need to stop using nonfree software in education. -.Pp -In th beginning of this email, I mentioned COVID-19. You might be -wondering how the Chinese government fully put the pandemic under -control in just 5 months, which is seemingly impossible if all you know -is how the US dealt with this situation. -.Pp -The answer is that the Chinese government is implementing strict contact -tracing. This is extremely easy because of the prevaliance of -survillance. Many would argue that this is a benefit of survillance, -which I believe to be true. However, no comparisons were given between -losing privacy and increasing the risk or infection. Briefly inspecting -this idea in my head, it's really hard to think about---privacy and -freedom is important in the long term, at the cost of many lives in the -pandemic. The lives of these dead are gone---they lose not only privacy -and computing freedom, they lose their lives, which costs them their -opportunity to pursue their dreams in this world, and they have no -freedom of choice, speech, etc as they aren't alive. Once again, this -is hard to wrap my mind around, therefore I would especially like to -invite the community to discuss this. -.Pp -The contact tracing system used is not Free Software. At first I didn't -understand why (except for the explanation that they want to profit from -harming citizens which is hopefully just a hypothetical -"explanation"), but I noticed that the authenticity and accuracy of -the system may be affected if users are allowed to modify their -software. This seems to be the core of some problems with regards to -software freedom---here, the user is not running software to complete -their tasks. Rather, it's the government's way to maintain public -safety, therefore I believe that whether users should be able to modify -software in these conditions is up to discussion. Back to the point, -since a green-code proof from the system is needed to get in a lot of -places, a person basically needs to use proprietary software to live a -normal life (to get into coffee shops, for example). -.Pp -In the US and other countries, things aren't that good either. For one, -the pandemic isn't controlled well. As a consequence, a lot of places -require negative COVID tests to do stuff. -.Lk https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreplanet-discuss/2021-08/msg00008.html A thread on the LibrePlanet mailing list -discusses this issue, as a lot of these tests require nonfree software -on users' phones. Note that this thread spans several months long, as -it is a hot discussion, so look in the september and october archives -too. The thread explains the implications clearly, thus I am not -discussing it here. -.Pp -Additionally, I heard that some US courts require Zoom for online cases, -therefore it seems that a person' right to judicial justice comes at -the cost of digital freedom. I can't confirm this, but if that's true, -I'm truly disappointed at the judicial system, even though I'm not a -US citizen. -.Pp -I am looking forward to a freer society, or at least one where the above -problems get solved. |