Teen Killed At Chinese Internet Addiction Camp 334
eldavojohn writes "Sixteen-year-old Deng Senshan was tragically beaten to death by three of his instructors in an internet addiction camp in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China. Reportedly it was for not being able to run fast enough. An article in the Wall Street Journal says that, 'China's netizens have played a key role in drawing nationwide attention to recent cases of deaths in prisons and detention centers, so it should be no surprise that they are up in arms over the fate of one of their own. Many questioned the fairly new diagnosis of "Internet addiction" as a mental disorder.' You may recall electroshock treatment being banned from use on internet addicts in China. According to Xinhua, more than 100 juveniles remain in 'treatment' at the camp, which has stayed open. Perhaps for Senshan it would have been better to let him endure his cruel affliction instead of having his parents pay over $1,000 to have him beaten to death?"
Re:Upshot (Score:1, Informative)
Internet Addiction? What a Farce. (Score:3, Informative)
I can only wonder if there have been other deaths in this program that did not make the news.
Probably. What I can't believe is that no one seems to be questioning the assumptions of this nonsense (or if they are, the media in its usual incompetent or complicit way is ignorning it): that internet addiction even exists, period.
The very concept is farcical. Like "television addiction", there may be people whose lifestyles are too sedentary, whose lives center more on the couch or computer than most of us are comfortable with, but come on! As Ricky Gervais said when discussing obeisity: "this is not a disease". It's a lifestyle choice, and one that certainly does not deserve incarceration or treatment of any kind, much less lethal abuse!
This whole thing reminds me of the quacks using electroshock therepy to "cure" homosexuality", as has been done in Utah and China in the 1990s and perhaps even more recently. Bigotry dressed up as outreach treatment, only this time its Geeks instead of Gays.
What's next...curing an unruly kid of their addiction to oxygen by putting a pillow over their face and making them go "cold turkey"?
Infinitely absurd and moronic, all of it.
"I was a Chinese Internet Addict" article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:this happens in the US too (Score:3, Informative)
Re:er...uh...okay (Score:2, Informative)
By your argument, the Chinese murdered children at random because they underengineered some school houses in an earthquake-prone region. What about New Orleans, where our government, with a gajillion times the resources of an impoverished Chinese provincial town, failed to construct adequate levees in a similarly disaster-prone region and exacerbated the loss of life with inadequate relief efforts? Should I even mention the TVA coal ash spill [dailykos.com]? While we don't have the level of political repression the Chinese government perpetrates, we had our fair share of coverups and misinformation surrounding both of those incidents. Please stop throwing stones--you're going to get our glass house shattered in short order.
Bringing the conversation back on topic, what happened was a tragedy and, in my humble estimation, could have happened anywhere in the world. The amount of abuse perpetrated in our nursing homes, for instance, is appalling. What caught my eye is that they even have camps in an attempt to address the issue of "internet addiction"--have you guys seen this elsewhere, or is it as Chinese a phenomenon as "fat camps" might be an American one?
Re:er...uh...okay (Score:3, Informative)
And now you're criticizing me for purchasing Chinese products? What the hell does that have to do with this?
Many of these products (and/or their parts/ingredients) are manufactured in prison labor camps where many more than one person has died. Not that I disagree with your rant, in general, but you should know that by buying Chinese products you are supporting a system that has killed many more than the unfortunate individual in this article. As such, your outrage over this death seems somewhat suspect, somewhat like a person's who condemns the death of baby seals, but sees no trouble having cows killed so he can eat.
Re:Meet the new China...same as the old China (Score:3, Informative)
Who cares if someone thinks you're gay?
Anyone who's a decent human being IMO doesn't give a shit what other people think about their sexual orientation. I'd stand up for anyone who's getting the shit beat outta them.