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Chinese programmer ordered to pay 1m yuan for using virtual private network
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
306 points (97.2% liked)
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It's ridiculous how the crime of using the VPN is just a 200 yuan fine. But the income is considered illegal because of it and they can just seize his entire salary earned, which amounted to just over 1 million yuan.
Tbh, while in this case I think it's egregious because I don't think using a VPN should actually be a crime, I'd love to see that punishment system used in the US.
Imagine if instead of paying fines for illegal stuff and then continuing to ignore the laws, Facebook, X, and other rich people and corporations had to pay back all the income made from doing their illegal activity.
That kind of punishment is used all the time in the USA. It's criminal and/or civil forfeiture depending on the circumstances. But just as in the case in China it's mostly applied on people who can't fight back. Big mega corporation are mostly safe from it. But occasionally it hits rich people.
Civil forfeiture is even heavily abused in the USA because the police department gets to keep the seized money and the burden of proof is shifted. The person who's assets have been seized needs to provide proof of their innocence.
I've heard of it, but have only ever heard of that being used on people who are carrying straight cash, because only drug dealers do that I guess... /s
Like you said, for white collar crime or corporate , I've never heard of it being used.