China Arrests Thousands In Internet Porn Crackdown 204
Clandestine_Blaze writes "Chinese police have arrested 5,394 people — with another 4,186 criminal cases in the works — in one of the largest crackdowns on Internet porn in the country. Even more arrests are expected in 2010, according to the Ministry of Public Security's website (In Chinese or Google translated into English). According to the Reuters article on the crackdown, one of the justifications was that the pornography was 'threatening the emotional health of children.' From the English translation of the Ministry of Public Security's website linked above, it appears that certain provinces are also offering 1,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan rewards, per person, for reporting illegal websites to the government."
I'm ever so thankful (Score:5, Insightful)
God bless the USA.
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:3, Insightful)
"No liberal or leftist government would attack the consumption of adult pornography. (Nor would they even care.)"
Socialist crackpots have defined socialism and communism as good, hence by definition nothing bad is part of it.
If a state does bad things, the state is not a socialist state, hence it cannot be used as a negative example for any purpose in discussions about socialism.
If a person does bad things, the person is not a socialist, hence he cannot be used as a negative example for any purpose in discussions about socialism.
If a society has bad things in it, none of these bad things accrue to socialism. In fact, pointing out this fact is so important that if a guy sits at home in a socialist state and tells his children that socialism is bad, then this must be sought out and eradicated. Untruths about socialism cannot be accepted even in the most private corners. (Cue Norway, where the Socialist Left party announced that the state is better than parents at raising children most of the time).
Maybe someone has drunk too much of the totalitarian-perfectionist idiot brew.
What happened to the whitelisting system?? (Score:4, Insightful)
um... wasn't there a slashdot report about whitelisting of all foreign web sites, so that no external porn would get into the country?? did someone in the chinese government forget about the concept of a) mirrors b) home-grown porn, then?
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:5, Insightful)
The basic reason that the Chinese do not allow porn is that they believe that it demeans women. This goes back to the revolution, in which women were eager to participate to get some basic equality with men.
How's that working out for the women in China? Here in the West where porn is legal (for the most part), we have Germany with a female prime minister. Great Britain had a female PM also. The US has had multiple female VP candidates. We have numerous female in cabinet positions. A woman currently is the leader of the House of Representatives. Another is running DHS badly. Another woman heads the state department. That's the public sector. In the private sector we've had countless female CEO that I'm not going to bother listing all of them.
Are there any signs women are equal with more men because China does not allow porn? I'm not terribly familiar with the internal governing of China or who runs their corporations. I'm amazed I even know where China is on the map.
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would've thought porn and prostitution is more important than ever now that there is a massive gender imbalance brewing in China. Way too many girls being aborted in the past, so there is an excess of young men.
As for porn not being allowed because it demeans women, isn't that the basic premise that applies all over the world, universally? Yet porn exists anyway, and is consumed by many who (hypocritically) claim to be protecting women. OK, now that's opening a whole new other can of worms.
Re:I'm ever so thankful (Score:1, Insightful)
Your country has its own equally insane legal idiocies. Go count how many people you imprison for possession of marijuana.
Re:I'm ever so thankful (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
As the wise Dr. Cox once said: “I am fairly sure that if they took porn off the Internet, there would only be one website left, and it would be called ‘Bring back the porn’.”
Re:I'm ever so thankful (Score:2, Insightful)
At least there is HOPE that marijuana laws will CHANGE in the US. Some states are already setting precedents. We just need to get the damned Federal government out of it!
Darknets (Score:5, Insightful)
In some corners of the world it is time to get serious about crypto and darknets. If the chinese government is not careful, their attempts to suppress pornography may lead to the creation of networks which will ultimately bring them down.
On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Socialist crackpots have defined socialism and communism as good, hence by definition nothing bad is part of it.
If a state does bad things, the state is not a socialist state, hence it cannot be used as a negative example for any purpose in discussions about socialism.
Similarly, capitalist crackpots have defined the free market as good, hence by definition nothing bad is part of it.
If a market produces bad outcomes, that market is not a free market, hence it cannot be used as a negative example for any purpose in discussions about capitalism.
Untruths about socialism cannot be accepted even in the most private corners. (Cue Norway, where the Socialist Left party announced that the state is better than parents at raising children most of the time).
Similarly, untruths about capitalism cannot be accepted even in the most private corners. (Cue the United States, where the Republican Party regularly announces that the individual is better than the state at doing everything all the time.)
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:5, Insightful)
You've drunk the Kool-Aid. I've lived in China for years, and I've heard a few westerners speak exactly as you do.
There are two major forces at work here:
1. Propaganda, nationalist extremists, and a strong feedback mechanism between the two.
2. Historical revisionism.
That mysticism argument goes something like this:
"Oh you can't possibly understand Chinese culture; It's too complex for you, and even if you learned Mandarin, read every book written in Mandarin, you still can't understand because you weren't born Chinese"
The reality is quite simple to understand. China is crashing into the modern world and as individuals try to make sense of it all, the national identity is in crisis. From the top down, there comes authority and an appeal to history, nationalism and racism.
From the bottom up, comes sexual revolution, and rejection of tradition, as well as some reflection of authoritarianism that came from the top.
Basically you're just generalising, and generalising sucks because it gloms everyone together, then stamps all over individuality.
Ps. I didn't find Chinese girls and guys ;-) in the least bit conservative about sex.
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:5, Insightful)
The basic reason that the Chinese do not allow porn is that they believe that it demeans women.
And China's deification of Mao, who preferred young women (we'd consider him a pedophile) didn't demean women? (The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng)
How about the one-child policy, which causes Chinese to prefer male children, to the point where female children are abandoned or "accidentally" killed? You'd think that would demean women.
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:3, Insightful)
While I suspect we are in ideological agreement, I think citing female politicians as a sign of a country's empowerment of women isn't a terribly hot idea because I can name a couple of contrary cases: Pakistan and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the Philippines with presidents Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Both countries are very restrictive of their women - although they are both in the grip of different religions.
Itsa Dumb Chinese Gov't Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. Don't jail people for a speculative theory. If they have solid proof it "undermines women", then you have a semi-case. But right now it's merely arm-chair guesses from up on top.
If China really wants to help women, then do something about the "last name" problem where sons are "valued" more because they carry the family last name when married. That's a huge and real stigma problem.
And if you jail everybody for porn, then you waste resources that could be spent on real crimes.
Insightful? what? (Score:5, Insightful)
So now we define words based on what the crackpots think they mean?
Parent is using a straw man fallacy: setting up a false premise that is easy to knock down with the subsequent argument; banking on others to accept the false premise.
Patriotism and Nationalism (2 different things) often suffer from attempted hijacking by crackpots seeking to redefine them.
For example, in the USA socialism has been misunderstood for over a generation and the crackpot definition is currently mainstream. "Keep the government out of my medicare!" etc.
Besides, this left/right paradigm is for simpletons and the poor reasoning that results aids the political parties. So, the misunderstanding is perpetuated. In addition, many people are willfully ignorant when it comes to politics (there is no stigma of shame like there is with illiteracy.) A far more realistic model is TWO DIMENSIONAL: left/right + top/bottom. Check it out: http://politicalcompass.org/ [politicalcompass.org]
I reiterate:
So now we define words based on what the crackpots think they mean?
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
Libertarian crackpots are just as guilty. Whoever modded the parent down was probably one of them!
Ask them why the USA's free market in health insurance sucks so much and they'll say "it's just not free ENOUGH". Even though every country with health insurance that WORKS has way MORE government involvement.
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:5, Insightful)
So female politicians leading a country isn't empowerment of women?
The upperclass has always operated under different rules from general population. We've had queens, emperesses and princesses going back forever in both the west and the east. If female politicians leading a country were a sign of general female empowerment then women have not been repressed since at least the days of Cleopatra.
What pray tell is empowerment of women then?
Economic and social parity with men in the general population.
It is ironic that the parent was modded troll (Score:2, Insightful)
whereas its parent, which is a comment that stands exactly on the same distance to the right of the spectrum, is modded insightful.
since both comments employ the same approaches but from the other side, this only implies that the moron who used the mod point on the parent has modded it down with political bias. appalling to see such low quality brains exist among us.
Britain: 5,394 arrested in Internet song crackdown (Score:5, Insightful)
WHITEHALL, Beijing, Friday (NTN) — British police arrested thousands in the Digital Britain drive against Internet file sharing throughout 2009, officials said, which critics say is being used to tighten overall censorship.
The British government has run a highly publicized campaign, “Digital Britain,” against what officials said were banned file sharing of Lily Allen songs, overwhelming the country’s Internet and “threatening the emotional health of children.”
Lord Mandelson said late on Thursday that the crackdown on Internet file sharing had brought 5,394 arrests and 4,186 criminal case investigations in 2009. The announcement on the Digital Britain website said the drive would deepen in 2010. Police would “intensify punishments for Internet operations that violate laws and regulations. Strengthen monitoring of information,” it urged, “Press Internet service providers to put in place preventive technology.”
The ministry did not say how many of the 5,394 suspects arrested were later charged, released or prosecuted. The anti-file sharing drive has also netted many sites with politically sensitive or even simply user-generated content, in what some see as an effort by the government to reassert control over new media. The ruling Labour Party worries the Internet could become a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.
Britain has banned a number of popular websites and Internet services, including Wikipedia. NewsTechnica passed without comment, however.
Re:I'm ever so thankful (Score:4, Insightful)
If God (the moral agent) does not exist, then there is no concept of "wrong", right?
No. Wrong. Go back and retake Ethics 101 and learn that there are many, many ways to arrive at a more or less workable "moral code". And no, the "religious dogma as authority" path is seldom one that reaches the level of "workable", having almost invariably, a built-in "us versus them (who are less than us)" way of thinking.
Re:1000 Yuan (Score:3, Insightful)
and unfortunately the dollar could soon be the same way.
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:1, Insightful)
How about the one-child policy, which causes Chinese to prefer male children, to the point where female children are abandoned or "accidentally" killed? You'd think that would demean women.
How dare you say that! Are you anti-choice?!
Re:hahaha yea ha ha ha (Score:1, Insightful)
'socialist crackpots'. this is the first phrase in your post. it renders your post SO credible and respectable that it goes beyond calculation..... without knowing any other country other than your own america, which you believe that the best country on earth because YOU WERE TOLD IT TO BE SO, you are totally devoid of any knowledge about how europe..... excuse me, but mr. mccarthy, your time has passed. success of european countries and the recent unimaginable SCAM that your corporate world has pulled off...
I bow to your credibility and respectability. Oh wait, I am actually European and have never lived in the US. This does not mark you as an idiot AT ALL, because as a liberal, progressive and educated European you could never be a judgemental and ignorant stereotyper who jump quickly to conclusions about people based on their country of origin. Certainly not if they were African anyway, but maybe American?
it was decided that it was inalienable right of swedish women to be topless on beaches and pools ... this was one of the biggest recent issues in sweden.
I thought it was how the Sweden Democrats, a self-described nationalist (in the National-Socialist Hitlerian sense) party who believes that cultures should belong to a single country, got 7.4% of the poll votes, up from 4.9% 3 months ago and 0 some time before that.
Or how the racist Salem march got delayed by the police because they had to root out the storage crate of metal batons that progressive liberals had stored in the forest, together with a stack of gas masks to supplement their black scarf face covers.
Of course, as Swedes the leader of your biggest party is Mona Sahlin, who has said some great things about your country: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mona_Sahlin
[Norway] is another show of ignorance. children have no worries there. it doesnt matter whether they are raised or not even. work,
Funny, I remember a case where four 15-year old girls beat up a 14-year old girl they had bullied from some time and locked her in a shed, then approached an immigrant with finger language to make him an offer, after which he followed them to the shed and raped the girl and paid the four 200 NOK for their helpful service as agreed. And where a young Norwegian girl in an immigrant neighbourhood told about how she wished she was still a virgin, so that she wouldn't be bullied as much and seen as a worthless and dirty whore by those she lived amongst. Of course, since there are no problems in Scandinavia, these must be stories I have made up just to be silly. Please, tell me how they are all lies about the great and safe Scandinavian countries.
and the recent unimaginable SCAM that your corporate world has pulled off globally,
Was it America that screwed over the Swedish governments boosting government salaries to the level that could only be sustained in a credit bubble? Was it America that forced you to give crazy credits to the Baltics? And of course, states that do not believe in America at all, like Venezuela, have done much better out of this, or? The problem with having a lot of rage but locating the sources of problems in the wrong places is that after you destroy those sources you still have the problems.
excuse me, but mr. mccarthy, your time has passed. success of european countries
Don't you think I wish this more than anything? If a country decides to move in a socialist direction, and does so without violating the human rights of individuals when doing so (including the human right that is property rights), and they all become better off in the end and live happily, do you think I wish death and plague upon them? Apparently that is truly your view of your evil political opponents which you fight in all your Good Fury.
The problem is that I don't think this actually works, because the process is bad (cue Chavez' love for journalis
Re:China is not a Left Wing or Communist State. (Score:2, Insightful)
I would have to say that treating womens sexuality as a treasure owned not by her, but by her family and society, which is what you're really talking about here, is typically just another way of demeaning women. Pornography, prostitution and promiscuity (how alliterative) are fairly divisive issues even among feminists. Some feminists take an absolutist approach and insist that a women's ability to choose to participate in such is a form of empowerment, whereas others see some or all of those things as demeaning and damaging. Frankly though, I don't think feminists from either camp would actually agree with you that China's porn crackdown is really about defending the rights of women. My personal point of view is that the social harm from such things is almost always less than the harm from criminalizing them.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant. The real question is, is anyone being prosecuted/persecuted in this mess for pure male/male homosexual porn. If there's even one, then it puts the lie to your theory that this is all about protecting women from being demeaned.