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China Shuts Down 17,000 Internet Bars
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Nov 21, 2001 12:11 PM
from the cheaper-than-carnivore dept.
from the cheaper-than-carnivore dept.
Astin writes: "According to this article, Chinese authorities have shut down more than 17,000 Internet bars for failing to block Web sites considered subversive or pornographic. Out of the 94,000 Internet bars in China, 17,488 have been shut down and another 28,000 were ordered to install monitoring software soon. Of the 27 million Internet users in China, about 4.5 million rely on these bars. Foreign news organizations fall under the category of 'subversive'."
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China Shuts Down 17,000 Internet Bars
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Re:Well yeah.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They did try to revolt once (Score:5, Interesting)
A short summary of the Tianamen "incident" of 1989:
Originally it was a popular protest by students to restore the honor of CCP Secretary Hu Yaobang after his death. He was sympathetic to the growing democratic movement and was forced to resign (dishonorably) in 1987.
The request was denied and a hardline editoral was published which led to further protests.
As the movement grew larger and larger, and more and more out of control, it was moralized by the advancement of anti-corruption in the government. So they could be said to be disruptive for a morally correct reason.
The protests turned into a series of hunger strikes, and sympathetic protests in many other major cities.
The protests grew stronger and stronger, leading to the paralysis of the cities' normal operation.
During all this the CCP was split on the proper action to take. But they could tolerate such disruption only so much, and were fearful that this activity would grow so much that it woud lead to another cultural revolution.
By the time the cities had been "occupied" for more than a month, hard measures were decided upon.
The students were asked to peacefully leave, but they refused. During the month of protest their movement had become more and more radical, any moderate protest leaders had been driven out and removed from positions of power.
The government greatly wanted a calm ending to this movement but could see no other recourse but to forcefully remove the protestors, which turned quite ugly due to the radical nature of the protest by then and an overreaction by the army.
Any sort of pro-democratic spin on the movement was *only* added as part of a positive spin to win support and demonstrate that they (the students) were justified in their activity. But it was really more anarchy than democracy that the movement was representative of.
The CCP, whether through indecision, fear of bad press, or other factors, was incredibly patient with the protest. Can you really imagine any country allowing its cities to be occupied by a hostile, anti-government protest? Check out the story of the US reaction to the WTO protests in Seattle.
But don't just listen to me, go to your local library and check out some books on the subject. The excellent "Tianamen Papers" just came out last February, which documents much of the party actions that I've just described.
Now you've twisted _my_ arm (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to be greatly afraid of "disruptions". No, don't tell me -- cultural revolution, right? Well here's a thought. The cultural revolution could not have occured on the scale it did if it wasnt for the (in)famous groupthink with which the Chinese are still struggling. By avoiding criticism, suppressing discussion, punishing "incorrect" reasoning, the Chinese strong men are supporting this tendency. They are promoting tribalism and so endangering their society.
Frequently, when speaking with ethnic Chinese, I hear such phrases as "We chinese do/say X..", instead of "I think". In a recent NYtimes report on AIDS, the author of a popular internet diary was interviewed about his recommendations for govt. AIDS policy. He felt the need to preface his remarks with "Well, I am only an individual, so I'm not qualified to judge.." My question is, who the hell _does_ judge policy, if not human beings? It is this fear of being the nail which sticks out, this sense of doing what your neighbor does, which has turned china into a giant gasoline pool, waiting for a spark. In an open society [amazon.com], individuals may go crazy, but the culture as a whole remains sound. Instead, the authorities whom you are defending have chosen to live in a closed society. They always fear the smallest flame.
In the US, we did have violent demonstrations in Seattle, they were publicized, debated, and no revolution, no mass bloodshed. In china it's forbidden to even mention Tiananmen square, secret police prevent people from assembling there on anniversary dates, professors fear for their jobs if they bring it up. The justification is fear of "disruptions", but few dare to ask why such a small spark can set fire to a whole nation.
Instead of ritually defending the CCP, or "we chinese" as a nation, those who truly care about the health of society should attempt to promote freedom of speech, of criticism, of protest. Strive towards open government and an open culture. This will provide channels to dredge the lake, and chinese human beings (as opposed to "The Chinese") will finally be able to speak for themselves without fear of commiting "incorrect" criticism.
Re:They did try to revolt once (Score:5, Funny)
"Stirring symbol of human spirit difficult to wash out of tank treads."
Re:Well... their laws are their laws... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people may not have a choice, but be careful when you say that the Chinese people don't support what the government is doing. There are a billion Chinese people. Telling a Chinese girl that she's "one in a million" is like telling her that there are 1,000 girls that look just like her.
When half a million students go downtown and shout angry slogans and act up, that's one half of one percent of one percent of their population. That's an insignifigant little piece of dirt. And believe it or not, a good majority of that billion people, the truly "Silent Majority" in China, watched those kids get run over by tanks with the same satisfaction we reserve for watching the Klu Klux Klan get pegged with glass bottles on T.V.
China is extremely conservative. That's what happens when your survive the Chinese Cultural Revolution [hawaii.edu], when young people rose up, took control, killed all the skilled doctors, lawyers and artisans, and ran loose across the countryside committing mass murder. The Chinese people on the whole have had enough radical change for two lifetimes. They are a product of their history, just like us.
A lot of Chinese Americans I know roll their eyes when they hear about the "Concert(s) for Tibetan Freedom". Held in stadiums on the very land from which we marched millions of Native Americans across the Trail of Tears to their death, it seems to them to be at best hypocritical and at worst pure vanity on our part to assume that the Chinese government is so very different from our own.
Be careful throwing stones on behalf of the Chinese. They are a proud and strong culture, they outnumber us, they have seen wars so terrible that our country can only imagine. They have had tiny revolutions that lasted longer than our entire country has been in existence.
I'm not approving the action; I'm saying you should weigh your opinion and your ignorance together carefully first.
Re:And the surprise is...? (Score:4, Offtopic)
Be happy if you live in the US (Score:3, Interesting)
Normal Students? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Some youths will submerge themselves in Internet bars for long periods, playing unhealthy games and adversely affecting their development as normal students."
If porn and video games do not make for normal students, I dare say that there has never been a normal male child, ever. Sex and games occupied most of my time while I was a student.
And I'm plenty normal. Just ask my psychiatrist.
Talisman
Fear the Net (Score:4, Troll)
The government wants to encourage the Internet's growth as a commercial medium. But Beijing fears its other use as a forum for political dissent.
Now let's revisit the second sentence:
But Washington fears its other use as a forum for terrorist activity.
So, Beijing mandates NetNanny, and Washington mandates Carnivore.
Yep, sure am glad I live in a society completely unlike China.
Re:Fear the Net (Score:4, Redundant)
Your comparison is wrong. Carnivore is not an idea of censorship, it is an idea of monitoring. These are 2 seperate things. You can view all the porn you want, just some guy in the FBI will know about it. There is no constitutional amendment for "privacy" and although it's a nice thing to have, no society *ever* has had the level of privacy that some of you privacy fanatics want. Again, move into the mountains of Colorado without running water or electricity and carry a shotgun... you'll get PLENTY of privacy.
While we can argue carnivore all day long, as we have on several occasions, it's nice to see that people still think the U.S. is such a bad place to live. I mean, there are plenty of other places to go. If you don't like it here, move. While our government monitors your Internet activity to protect the people, other countries like Somalia don't even have a real government. Maybe you should move there where it is "less restrictive" on your rights as a human being.
Online Heroin (Score:5, Funny)
There's a great quote from this article:
a Web site published opinions expressed by Communist Party leaders that excoriated the effects of "online heroin" on its masses, particularly on its youth
If the Internet is "online heroin", slashdot is "an online jet-powered crackpipe burning a two ton ball of primo Detriot crack, laced with LSD, PCP, Ecstasy, and some weird shit we've never seen before".
In the US, This Would Be "Illegal" As Well (Score:5, Interesting)
My friend and I recieved, on one occasion, a visit from the local police department, concerning that children had acceess to our machines and that our machines could be set to display objectionable content. The woman who had filed the complaint did not actually see objectionable content or had an experience where her child did, she merely voiced the possibility that it could happen.
Police seem to take this sort of stuff seriously. I'm not sure why it's any surprise that a government particularly against free speech would have a slightly more aggrevated reaction.
Here's what the Chinese Government's Rules Are (Score:5, Informative)
Taken from http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/english/sandt/ne treg.htm [usembassy-china.org.cn] :
Section Four -- No unit or individual may use the Internet to harm national security, disclose state secrets, harm the interests of the State, of society or of a group, the legal rights of citizens, or to take part in criminal activities.
Section Five -- No unit or individual may use the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following kinds of information:
(1) Inciting to resist or breaking the Constitution or laws or the implementation of administrative regulations;
(2) Inciting to overthrow the government or the socialist system;
(3) Inciting division of the country, harming national unification;
(4) Inciting hatred or discrimination among nationalities or harming the unity of the nationalities;
(5) Making falsehoods or distorting the truth, spreading rumors, destroying the order of society;
(6) Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material, gambling, violence, murder,
(7) Terrorism or inciting others to criminal activity; openly insulting other people or distorting the truth to slander people;
(8) Injuring the reputation of state organs;
(9) Other activities against the Constitution, laws or administrative regulations.
Section Six No unit or individual may engage in the following activities which harm the security of computer information networks:
(1) No-one may use computer networks or network resources without getting proper prior approval
(2) No-one may without prior permission may change network functions or to add or delete information
(3) No-one may without prior permission add to, delete, or alter
materials stored, processed or being transmitted through the network.
(4) No-one may deliberately create or transmit viruses.
(5) Other activities which harm the network are also prohibited.
Section Seven The freedom and privacy of network users is protected by law. No unit or individual may, in violation of these regulations, use the Internet to violate the freedom and privacy of network users.
During my travels in China... (Score:5, Interesting)
The funniest time was when I went with my wife to her hometown, in southern China. In a city of 100,000 people (which they call a village in China), I was the only non-Chinese person who had been there in over 2 years. People turned and stared at me wherever I went (my in-laws were joking that they should have charged admission to see me). Yet just down the street was a perfectly functional Internet cafe.
These things happen slowly, but they do happen. Don't think for a second that Chinese dissedents can't figure out how to use encrypted proxies or whatever, to get information in or out, just as easily as we western geeks do to get around stifling workplace rules...
:-)
More power to them... (Score:4, Funny)
It seems like the Chinese can't (or don't want to) figure out how to secure a mail server.
Are there any Chinese readers here that can explain this? Anytime I have spam problems originating within the U.S. I have about a 99% chance of getting a cooperative ISP that fixes the problem within a few hours but because of the communication barrier I have no luck pursuing this overseas (generally China).
Short of blocking all traffic from
Re:More power to them... (Score:4, Funny)
Bounce all mail from China with:
"550 FCJHV URTIG HRVCP JRIUA KQWHB - covert channel located, transmitting message block UYMPW"
After enough bounced spam with apparent cryptographic content, the Chinese government will "fix" the relay for you. Or they'll "fix" the relay's administrator.
As a bonus, you can know that the more time the Chinese government's thugs spend chasing wild geese, liquidating incompetent sysadmins, and decrypting random noise, the less time they'll have to oppress their own people.
I'm so glad that I live in the U.S.A.! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Out of the 94,000 Internet bars in China, 17,488 have been shut down and another 28,000 were ordered to install monitoring software soon. Of the 27 million Internet users in China, about 4.5 million rely on these bars."
From a previous Slashdot story:
"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime proponent of censorware, introduced the amendment...Essentially it says that any school or library which receives federal funds to build its network must install censorware. Since these funds are the chief way that poor and middle-income areas bring the internet into public institutions, effectively this means that only rich counties will have the option of an uncensored internet."
I'm so glad that I don't live in China, where the government attempts to censor public internet access.
why Americans so biased against anything non-US? (Score:4, Insightful)
Note to the Chinese (Score:3, Interesting)
Just tell it to translate the page you want to see from Chinese to English (or such), and it will ignore all the non-Chinese characters on the screen. So you'll get the website.
People have been using that to bypass filters at work for quite a while.
-k.
A ground-level analysis. (Score:4, Informative)
First, Internet cafés are ubiquitous, and yes most of them are dimly lit holes with 12 computers sharing one ISDN line, or sometimes a 56k modem. Generally there are no bathrooms, the dimly lit room is filled with cigarette smoke and the whole place is grimy as the bathroom of your local pub. I.e. typical China, outside Beijing/ Shanghai/ Guangzhou. There are of course nice internet cafés in the big cities, like the one in shanghai that proudly displayed the chair President Clinton once sat it to surf the web, but those places are the exception.
Now just like any industry, there's licensing involved and in a Chinese Internet Café that means registering with the Chinese Bureau of Post and Telecommunications. Part of the Café license is the understanding that you'll filter all unsuitable content, which mostly consists of pornography (highly illegal in any form), actual dissident sites (yes they do exist, our government happily cracks down on the same sort of thing here) and yes BIG name foreign media. By big name I mean NY times, CNN, BBC, Washington Post etc. Anything that's local, or my mother wouldn't think of as a news source- i.e. Slashdot, Guerrilla News Network or the Economist, are not filtered at all.
Of course being a big place with a lot of people, regulation of this sort of thing isn't ubiquitous, which means that it's not that difficult to find Cafés that don't filter CNN and what not. They're just officially banned. And of course all bets are off when one uses any sort of proxy. Now the unofficial level of restriction raises and lowers depending on current circumstances. For example when we "accidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy a couple of years ago, the restriction was quite high. Chinese people were pissed at foreigners and the restriction level went up. On the flip side, after the Sept. 11th attack, they had an unofficial moratorium on the restriction of foreign news, which got extended all the way through the APEC conference.
When we hear that the Chinese government cracked down on internet Café's allowing subversive content through, what it generally means is the Cafés were letting in pornography. Most Chinese couldn't give a damn about foreign news, and of the few that do, the number that have the ability to read English is quite small. On the other hand the number of people who would be looking at pornography is quite large.
On average I would even venture to say that the aggregate level of information freedom of PR China is equal to or even greater than that of the United States when one takes into the account the development of intellectual property law. The Chinese didn't even have a concept of property when they opened up 20 years ago, so they sure as heck don't have a concept of IP, something that we're still struggling with, today. Hence buying pirated anything- software, music, movies- is many times easier than buying the officially licensed thing.
None of this is to say that the Chinese aren't being oppressed with regards to their online freedoms; it's just that the oppressors aren't nearly as strict as our own news tells us.