Depends how good their camera person tracking system is I guess, and whether police have direct access to it. I think propaganda might sometimes exaggerate how well these things work to make people believe the state is more capable than it really is.
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
31 points (94.3% liked)
No Stupid Questions
47921 readers
1167 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Cameras don't prevent crime. They don't prevent accidents. They're at most used to find afterwards what happened.
By the time a cop would decide to bother and check the cameras, and find you in the footage, and trace your steps through the various cameras, you would have been back on your own already.
The ideas that cameras are a matter of security for the people is propaganda. They are here to destroy privacy and allow the elimination of opponents and dissidents, they don't really care about crime. Doesn't mean that cops would never use them for other purposes, but they definitely don't care as much as you think. And of course, caring isn't the same thing as being able to do anything in a reasonable time.
Well I think this is a bit contradictory. Dissidence is merely one form of crime from the state's perspective. So it is somewhat effective at reducing behavior the state will punish, though not completely effective obviously.
Now I would agree that the harm here is not worth it. If you had a completely trusted authority that only used it in a responsible way for serious crimes then it could be useful but I don't see how that could happen.
It's not contradictory as I was talking through my perspective, and not through the perspective of a fascist government.
And it's not just a matter of trust, but of privacy. Even if you fully trust a friend, it doesn't mean that it's fine for them to be watching you at all times.
Well I'm just saying that the elimination of "criminals" does reduce crime in a sense. I personally don't think it's a very ethical means of doing so but it is effective.
If I trusted my friend so deeply that they would not judge or harm me in any way I wouldn't mind if they saw my whole life. But that's a lot of trust that isn't very realistic, especially for a detached and unaccountable government.
Yep
Cameras do not make the society free of crime.
Cameras do not make any kind of freedom.
Cameras just help the powerful people to keep their power.
Yep. A rich and powerful person's kid is kidnapped? Yes -- they'll be able to find them instantly.
A poor person's kid is kidnapped? Well, good luck with that.
Itβs because the pedophile class are the people behind the cameras
Well... The people who own and control the surveillance can still kidnap to their heart's content.
I mean as a 2nd child born in violation of the policy... π
(I heard some stories about kids being kidnapped by state-sponsored people and trafficked to get them forcibly "adopted" to prospective parents somewhere else, and also the whole international adoption thingy, cuz they targed families that had more than one child... allegedly... who even knows for sure...)
Edit: But nowadays, ironically, they have population crisis... π
China is a big place. Saturation with security cameras is an urban thing.
Also, something I've learned in America is that people make a lot of noise about keeping kids safe, but that's all just smoke. I can't speak for China, but in America children are the least valuable humans, in economic terms, and they get prioritized accordingly.
China is a big place. Saturation with security cameras is an urban thing.
Yea that incident was in Guangzhou, I assume nowadays its probably filled with surveillance cameras.
Also, something Iβve learned in America is that people make a lot of noise about keeping kids safe, but thatβs all just smoke. I canβt speak for China
China might not have guns and mass shootings, but domestic abuse is an issue that the law doesn't really touch on, especially is its more covert like verbal abuse or even physical violence if it didn't cause serious harm...
Especially if its not a spouse-on-spouse thing but its a parent against a child...
Like there are things that would trigger a CPS investigation in the US that in China they wouldn't do much about, cuz its just treated as "discipline" and its "family matters" and legal system isn't touching this.
I think my parents fear of CPS is why once we arrived in the US, they stopped with their um... ahem "disciplinary actions" against me.
(Also maybe cuz I got older and can sort of fight back??? Maybe π€·ββοΈ)
(I actually cant even remember a specific instance of my mom hitting me anymore... must been a repressed memeory by now, but I'm pretty sure it happened)
Also teachers have meter sticks to hit kida with...
Okay its not a beating, but I remember like you had to put your hands out and then the teacher slapped your hands with the ruler...
Dont remember what for... maybe "behavior problems"?
Or perhaps poor grade is also one of the things... idk, memory in 1st and 2nd grade isn't exactly flawless...
But corporal punishment seems very acceptable in China...
Saw a movie recently about Taiwan's education system (not the main story, but the backdrop of the plot, main movie was about Taiwanese Americans moving back to Taiwan), and in the plot, the parents encouraged the teacher to use the ruler thing as a form of discipline... wtf... that was actually the thing that jogged my memories...
(The point being, same culture, even being politically divided and with a different government, the culture is same... adults just get to do whatever as "discipline")
According to World Population Review, about 109 countries publicly report missing children statistics and China is not one of them. I don't think that's any indication of not having missing children, rather that they're apathetic to the entire concept.
It depends if the cameras have enough image definition and are tied to an AI database.
Extrapolating from American technology, it is likely years away from China being able to implement this on a national scale. Even if they did, it would likely roll out starting in government buildings and transit stations first.
I doubt that a system is set up like that in China, but I could see that kind of system being built in the near future.
its likely capture footage of an event, but someone still probably has to actually report the kidnapping before anything gets started. Its the same idea with allthe traffic cameras im china, it doesnt really prevent people from necessarily speeding immediately, rather around a camera, people will start to slow down, and they wouldnt really chase down someone breaking a traffic law unless youre breaking them over and over again.
basically it wont directly prevent the action itself, but it would be used to confirm/disprove alibis much easier, thus may make people second guess an action more (but not necessarily remove it altogether)
So? What did you find out?
OP is asking a question, not writing an article.
My bad, thanks
?