Beijing Police To Launch Animated Web Patrols 228
Reader geoffrobinson notes an AP story on a new initiative by the police in Beijing to put a visible police presence on the screens of Chinese citizens. Starting Sept. 1, little animated cop figures will wander across the displays of users of a baker's dozen of Chinese Web portals. The program is set to expand by year's end to all sites "registered with Beijing servers," according to the report. The point of the anime-like figures seems to be to remind citizens that their Web usage is being monitored, not to actually implement any further monitoring themselves.
Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)
xeyes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Tibetans now require state permission to reincarnate:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newswee
Good ol' PRC, always expanding the frontiers of policing.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So (Score:4, Interesting)
(Most Chinese people under 30 don't know about the Tianamen Square protests -- Those that do don't really hold the event in high regard, as the student protest leaders are rumored to have had passports/visa's and transportation to get out of the country after the protest was held.)
Americans like the idea of revolution, but when it happens for real, good people die.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolu
Bad Link (Score:5, Informative)
It was launched by the Communist Party of China's Chairman, Mao Zedong on May 16, 1966, officially as a campaign to rid China of its "liberal bourgeoisie" elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle. It is widely recognized, however, as a method to regain control of the party after the disastrous Great Leap Forward led to a significant loss of Mao's power to rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and would eventually manifest into waves of power struggles between rival factions both nationally and locally.
Many people did die, but the net result was that some people who already had power got more, and some people that had power lost it (and frequently their lives).
Re:Bad Link (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you grossly understate things.
I've personally met more than a handful people in China who simply refuse to discuss the Cultural Revolution in any detail at all. They wont even document their experience in writing. It's still too painful for them.
Re:Bad Link (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The cultural revolution was another one of Mao's 'mad' policies in which he felt his *own* commanders and party officials, intellectual advisors, etc etc were becoming corrupt and to stop this, he ca
Change in the air (Score:2)
Americans like the idea of revolution, but when it happens for real, good people die.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolut ion/)
Mao and his cronies called it a revolution, but it was really a purge. A revolution replaces the people in power, a purge helps to keep them in power.
The Chinese government knows this, and freedoms will come, but it's going to take time. Generations. Not weeks.
Yea, when the last communist party official becomes a billionaire, but then how would they keep a democratically elected governement from taking all of their ill gotten booty? OK, they'll just stay in power until they get thrown out.
The Tianamen Square protests, were just protests, sure they came close to starting a revolution, but too little of China k
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is it really funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it really funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perception of Freedom (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people believe that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want so long as you don't hurt anyone else. Given that definition, the US is far from a free country.
As an example, explain how drinking alcohol is considered fine and smoking weed can land you in jail. (despite stacks of research proving that pot has less negative effects than alcohol does)
Not to mention Guantanamo. Those aren't ci
Re:Is it really funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would they suppress someone who's helping them by demonstrating that the opposition are nuts?
Try doing something *against* them, and see if you get suppressed :P
Re:Is it really funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
In China? No, you just disappear. Maybe the government did it. Maybe the mafia did it because you owed them money. Maybe you ran away with a girl. Maybe you're escaping after committing a crime. That's why they do it that way - people go missing all the time, and nobody can be sure which ones were government work. It makes it very easy for people to believe that the government isn't actually doing anything wrong, and that's part of how they convince the citizen that he's free.
Realistically though, the Chinese government does not tend to do anything about the kind of behaviour you describe. They don't actually care what you do - they just pay attention to the effect you have. Anybody who creates an effect that they don't like tends to disappear. Ineffectual people are left alone.
Mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)
Just as a general comment on this thread, not @ you asuffield, is that those of you who yammer on, constantly, about how much freedom we have in this country would be better off looking after it, rather than boasting about it. Especially because the boasting makes you looked pretty damned foolish to some people who have perhaps considered the issue a little more objectively and at least made an effor
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A Russian and an American are discussing the merits of their governments.
The American says, "We have full freedom of speech. I could stand on a soap box all day and yell 'The American government sucks, and the American president is a criminal' and I would not be arrested."
The Russian replies, "That's nothing. I could go into Kremlin, call a press conference with invitations to all the communist party leaders, and announce 'The American government sucks, and the American pr
Re: (Score:2)
No shit, Sherlock.
Where's that "Well, DUH" moderation category when you need it?
Where's the "Redundant" moderation category when you need it ? Oh ! It's right there !
Re:Is it really funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is though, that while the average chinese has become steadily more and more free lately, the trend in USA has been the other way, you guys are significantly less *free* now than you where a decade or two ago.
You require government-permission if you want to take pictures of a group of more than 2 people for over 20 minutes in Central Park, using a tripod. You are not allowed to talk about certain kinds of knowledge, like for example even that de-CSS exist. Your government maintains it can legitimately keep people imprisoned indefinitely while giving same neither the rigths of a POV nor the rigths of a criminal. You cannot bring something as trivial as a can of coke with you on a plane. You have to walk trough metal-detectors and accept answering questioning to be allowed to enter public buildings. You're not allowed to take apart objects that you own to figure out how they work. (not generally anyway) and if you *do* figure out how they work, sharing that knowledge with others may be a crime. You've been falling steadily on "freedom-of-press" rankings for the last decade, you used to be near the top, these days you're under average for a western democracy. "Free speech zones" (no comment needed)
USA is still in pretty good shape, certainly miles ahead of countries like china. But you're on the wrong track. You need to wake up.
Re: (Score:2)
but freedom ain't an "on/off" kind of thing, it's a "more/less" kind of thing.
Yep, that much is true, but little big brothers that march across your screen are pretty much an on/off thing. American freedoms deteriorated largely due to a set of "emergency" type laws set by one administration, and some of them are most likely going to be revised or even removed in the next year or so because that's how free countries work - people discuss touchy things on media and politicians try to get elected by mixing truth with lies concerning how these things are going to happen. With china and
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the "emergency" part was seriously meant, the laws would come with an automatic expiry-date. "This law expires automatically in 3 years, unless extended by congress", but
Re: (Score:2)
I guess I should be flattered -- I would've thunk that having english as my third language made it rather obvious from my writing alone that I'm not, but I guess not.
I'm Norwegian. Which is completely irrelevant by the way.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I really don't see it as relevant whether I criticise erosion of civil rights in the US, the UK, or anywhere else in the world. I oppose this erosion equally wherever I see it happening.
Re: (Score:2)
When you have to draw comparisons with China in order to say that a country is in "good shape", it's time to put it out of its misery. It's like saying "Yeah, so he kidnaps somebody every few years, and one or two of them died, but at least he's not shooting random people in the street every day".
There is no such thing as an acceptable level of oppression.
Re: (Score:2)
I was just pointing out that this is COMPLETELY besides the point, as my point wasn't about the relative positions of the two countries at all, but about the relative *DIRECTION*.
Freedom is being lost in the USA currently. That is worrisome. It is worrisome regardless of if you are more or less free than a
Re: (Score:2)
In capitalism you are as much free as how good lawyers you can hire and as healthy as how good medical care, food and recreation you can buy.
In absolutely pure capitalism, this is close to the truth. So it's a good thing we ain't got that in any country on earth. There needs to be some elements of socialism mixed in with the capitalism to get a good end-result. Much of current politics is about finding the correct mix.
Urge to amass wealth is not consequence of greed as much as it is the consequence o
Re: (Score:2)
In any case, my point wasn't that the US is in such a bad position. You're not.
My point was, you're moving in a bad *direction*.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I still think it's justified to say it's improving though. First, China is a lot more open than it used to be. Sure, there are draconian internet-filters and arbitrary shutdowns of in-china sites that the government doesn't like. But being on the internet at all is still, by itself, a huge step forward, as we all know a *LOT* of stuff leaks trough even the most paranoid of filters.
Chinese are now able to start and own businesses, which didn't use t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You need not worry; by all available evidence, the Chinese government is doing its level best to keep its citizens from being reminded of the Tiananmen massacre.
As for you, you won't be free until the last libertarian is strangled with the entrails of the last fascist. As long as we keep on letting ideology of any kind to guide our political or economic decisions,
Here's a question... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I'm getting a lot of spam from China, would sticking words that trigger the firewall in my SMTP HELO response automatically block them?
Re: (Score:2)
See Doonsebury's treatment of the war in Iraq.
1984 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:1984 (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Big Blothel is watching Yu" would be most correct. If you make fun of an ethnic group, at least make it ethnically correct...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or "I iz in your intarweb - keeping freedom out of your sitez"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A study I was a part of in college (Score:5, Interesting)
They wanted to see if your data entry slowed/sped up, if your errors increased/decreased, etc. While I don't know what the end result was, I was shown my results and found that when the "supervisor" was in the corner I was less attentive and my data entry slowed.
What if a majority of students/researchers in China are working on their Internet (yes, their) and the "virtua-cop" fucks up their work? I can't imagine that this will do anything but be ridiculous and annoying.
Waste your time on something else, seriously.
Re:A study I was a part of in college (Score:5, Insightful)
Fascinating study! I guess the Panopticon would cause people to just freak out. Maybe the pervasive monitoring in some societies (UK, Hong Kong) is both a symptom AND a cause of the very crime it's meant to monitor.
>>What if a majority of students/researchers in China are working on their Internet (yes, their) and the "virtua-cop" fucks up their work?
The short answer is: the officials don't care. Truly. Government is about control, not service, and it's certainly not measured by the results it gives. That's a very "western" viewpoint. And this government has a particularly nasty (and long) history of killing its own folks.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In TFA this is mentioned as being part of various sites, like Sina.com. Not an independent program. So you'd see it only if you are browsing these portals.
It doesn't mention the technology, but I'd bet it was just a Flash animation. There are plenty of other animated Flash ads to distract you onl
Re: (Score:2)
I'd use Javascript, since that allows you to make the Virtual Oppressors walk all over the page rather than be constrained in a box. Or they could simply use a Sony-like rootkit to put a huge, partially translucent eye on top of everything else on the monitor.
Re: (Score:2)
Testing Hawthorne Effect [wikipedia.org], I presume. The wikipedia page has interesting bits on when it. In a Management class in uni, the conclusion we were taught is the Hawthorne Effect causes productivity to increase when observed, but seems closer to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to me: productivity changes when directly observed or measured, but
Insert clippy joke here. (Score:5, Funny)
-block the sites you're trying to access
-uninstall your proxy software
-report you to the authorities for re-education
-subtly rewrite your search results
Re: (Score:2)
I saw one of these guys hanging around this site (Score:3, Funny)
Paper Cut-Outs (Score:2)
How annoying (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Easy Vista (Score:5, Funny)
conflict with China (Score:2, Interesting)
It appears, with stories like this and many others, not to be the case. China is obviously acting in ways that are not good for people - as defined by Western standards of freedom. Unlike Russia, they do not appear to have the financial decay leading to an eventual collapse.
I've heard people argue that no one will go to war with China - the sta
I'll bite the trollbait... (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, there are raunchy popular novels (printed by half-legal vanity presses) being sold right outside my door. There's tons of (bad) modern art expressing the pain of living in Chinese society, and (bad) rock 'n roll expressing the pain of being young and unloved. Although there are fewer than 100 movies released to theaters each year on the mainland, every film ever made is sporadically available on DVD, from Deep Throat to To Live to They Live. Chinese people can find every sort of approved and forbidden idea under the sun if they're curious, and they're mostly free to discuss it in private. Publishing is another thing, but the Cultural Revolution is over, and you can pretty much say whatever you want to your friends.
China is booming, and the authorities can barely keep it under control. I won't defend their actions (although cartoon cops are hardly the worst things they do....) but the notion that China in any way resembles 1984 is absurd. While the government is sliding from totalitarian Communism towards plutocracy, the people are getting away with everything they can, and it's a lot. I don't hold out a lot of hope that we'll have big D Democracy here anytime soon, but to imagine that this country, or the US, or anyone else would somehow be better off in a Massive 3rd World War is insane.
You are insane.
Re: (Score:2)
China has a sword hanging over its head, and the smarter government officials know this (some have rather candidly admitted as much in interviews with Western media). Not a sword of war, but a sword of population; the crunch of America's "Baby Boom" generation retiring will be looked on with nostalgia when China's recent (late-20th-century) population booms reach old age, and state-mandated population control policies leave too few
Re: (Score:2)
World War 3 (Score:2)
I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
Re: (Score:2)
Last time I checked [wikipedia.org], China has about 130 nuclear warheads, US has 9 960, and Russia has 16 000.
Guess who is going to be obliterated first when the WW3 begins.
Re: (Score:2)
and i personally wonder how much use first strike capability would be given the number of nukes we're talking about.
Re:conflict with China (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever the guy with the fastest missiles hates most ?
Please understand that having 9960 nuclear warheads in no way stops 130 enemy warheads from reaching you. While 130 nuclear warheads is not sufficient to carpet bomb a country the size of the USA, it is quite sufficient to take out large cities, industry, food production and central administration. The end result is likely massive death toll from starvation and plague, and collapse of the USA as a nation, or at the very least its removal from its world power status.
So no, no one dares attack China.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What you describe is entirely unlikely. You act as if the U.S. military would sit back passively while the Chinese spent hours fueling their 130
Re: (Score:2)
c'mon, you've seen zombie movies, you know the drill!
Re: (Score:2)
WWI:
- led to the rise of fascist regimes across Europe and Communism in Russia.
- initiated fiat money and restrictions one's right to earn money (income tax) in the US and Canada
- led to occupation and irrational partitioning of the Middle East
- created a political situation that made WWII inevitable
- inspired the creation of chemical wea
Live free or die (Score:2)
Olympics pledges? (Score:2)
Nah, I guess it is impossible to believe that with the eye of the world on their country, China would continue to hold the world's youngest political prisoner, the Panchen Lama, and kill prisoners so they can harvest their organs. They clearly wouldn't continue to block acc
Awww... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
This is a problem because...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It is possible, that people of china think that the rest of the world lives under the same or even worse circumstances. Besides, it can even give them a warm a fuzzy feeling that all "wrong" people are watched by authorities too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ironic to link to Yahoo's report (Score:2)
Tentacles (Score:4, Funny)
1984 (Score:2)
Remind me again why I should give a shit about athletes who are going to China to help support this bunch of bastards?
TWW
Already done.... (Score:2)
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Funny)
Damn you single trade currency!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They will have the "Terror level" displayed on a flag carried by a little goose-stepping Uncle Sam.
They're doing enough of that in the media. They'd rather let you pretend you are supporting the "land of the free" with some sense of false freedom feeling.
Honestly, at least the Chinese know they're being watched at every step and don't have a government watching them closely but pretending they don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
-- Bill Clinton
Re: (Score:2)
-- Bill Clinton
Re:AT&T, NSA andHomeland scrutiny are the next (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should consider that a country can be fucked up even if it isn't the worst on Earth. Sure, we might be doing better than China based on some criteria, but that doesn't mean there aren't quite a few things seriously wrong. "If you don't like it, leave." No thanks. If I don't like it I'll do what I can to fix it. Pointing out what's wrong is the first step.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One problem that the USA does not have that China does is that the above steps are impossible for a Chinese subject (I hesitate to use the word citizen) to c
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
foreigners, nationals of a co
Re: (Score:2)
Tell me, which government is in the business of rape?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hah! Those aren't the worst of the worst terrorists. Those are primarily innocent people who we can't even be bothered to charge of a crime. We deny them all access to the legal system, lawyers. All for what? The worst crime they are guilty of is being sympathetic to anti-american sentiment! Go figure. We invade their country, destroy th
Re: (Score:2)
Do you maybe want to re-read the story? I don't think you understood it.