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Censorship Education

China Tightens Rules For Educational BBSs 304

Posted by Zonk from the appreciate-your-right-to-complain dept.
An anonymous reader writes "China is tightening control over online BBS run by colleges and universities. Educational institutions in China have received direct orders from the Chinese Ministry of Education requiring their BBSs to take actions including access limitation and registering users by their real identities, as well as strict content censorship. The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed."
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China Tightens Rules For Educational BBSs More

China Tightens Rules For Educational BBSs

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  • This just in: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Friday March 18, 2005 @03:54PM (#11978698)
    Oppressive country oppresses.

    • Re:This just in: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:01PM (#11978776) Homepage Journal
      Oppressive country oppresses.

      But the thing that gets me, when I talk to some people from the PRC, is how strongly many believe it isn't oppressive, it's good for the whole of the country and then they have the temerity to point out all the crap the Bush family, the CIA and the State Dept have done over the years.

      Each side of the argument is so familiar with the transgressions of the other and willing to turn a blind eye to their own.

      Whatchagonnado?

      • Re:This just in: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        What really gets me is that in this climate of "The US will fall and get what's coming to it!" rhetoric, some people seem to be cheering on China's rise to superpower status. (some people..not all)

        What will life be like with China as a superpower? Or how about a hyperpower? The Anglo axis of US/UK/Australia is certainly not perfect, but when weighed against China....seems to be pretty good.

      • Re:This just in: (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Drooling Iguana ( 61479 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:18PM (#11978995)
        The difference is that China's currently bad, but slowly getting better, while the USA is currently good (at least relative to China) but getting worse.

        Personally, I'm just glad I don't live in either country.

        • Re:This just in: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cryptochrome ( 303529 )
          The difference is that China's currently bad, but slowly getting better, while the USA is currently good (at least relative to China) but getting worse.

          True... but seriously, the US and China aren't anywhere near being in the same league oppression wise. That some citizens of an undeniably oppressive state (cultural revolution anyone?) believe otherwise isn't exactly convincing.

          Of course, if you want real answers you should ask recent immigrants and their kids from China about it. I'd say the same abou

          • Re:This just in: (Score:4, Insightful)

            by sfjoe ( 470510 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:51PM (#11979337)
            rue... but seriously, the US and China aren't anywhere near being in the same league oppression wise.

            Undeniably true. However, taking China as a cautionary tale and tracking the direction "oppresiveness" in the USA is taking, no one can seriously claim that the USA is getting better. Except, of course, the radical right.

          • Re:This just in: (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:55PM (#11979382) Homepage
            you should ask recent immigrants and their kids from China

            Just like we asked Iraqi expats about WMDs? Just like we asked Cuban immigrants how strongly Cuba would resist if we invaded (Bay of Pigs)? Etc? Depending on the reasons for them leaving their parent country, expats can be among the most biased parties in anywhere.
            • My line of reasoning is that Chinese immigrants in America/TheWest know far more about how America/TheWest actually is than those who have never lived here. Those who have lived under both systems are most qualified experience-wise to have an opinion regarding relative levels of oppression, among other things.

              Granted some who came here were probably trying to escape the chinese gov't in the first place and would therefore be biased, but most Chinese immigrants I've met are either here for an education or
        • This just in:

          Slashdot users who bash the US get modded troll but Bush-supporting mods whose only dream is a future Senate with a 100% republican ratio.

          Slashdot users who bash China get modded troll by hippie Sinophile mods who think CHina or India will be the future superpower and vote Nader.

          Slashdot users who bash both the US and China in same post (and hint that they live in some better "paradise" such as Canada, Europe or Australia") get modded insightful by mods thinking it shows both views of the ar
      • well, if you really got the people by the balls. like REALLY have them by the balls you can tell pretty much anything you want as the truth, and people will believe you! you can tell them any crazy crap like the great leap. and what's best, you can afterwards tell that it wasn't your fault that there wasn't enough food.

        that's what CONTROL is.

        if gwb had real control you wouldn't see him monkeying around, you'd only hear about the new scientific breakthrough that he single handedly made.

      • Re:This just in: (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Acius ( 828840 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:45PM (#11979285) Homepage
        That sounds about right. Most people from most oppressive countries live pretty well most of the time. If it were not so, the governments wouldn't last very long. Honestly, even after these countries are "liberated," you're going to get a lot of whining from people about the good old days.

        A great example of this is South Africa. My family is from South Africa, and I still have many relatives there. If you'd told us twenty years ago that there were hit-squads, constant uprisings, military actions against blacks, and frequent prison torture, we would have had a tough time believing you. Even people who had just visited South Africa from abroad would have probably contradicted you. It seemed like a pretty nice place! Of course, in retrospect, all these things turned out to be true [doj.gov.za], but we didn't hear about it. We just went to work and went to school and never really crossed any of the invisible lines we didn't know were there.

        Similarly, I can happily recommend that you go visit China sometime. It's a pretty nice place, most of the time, and you could probably even live there quite comfortably. Quite a few of my friends have been there and they enjoyed the trip. You'll have to look really hard for even the slightest signs of your being oppressed.

        But that doesn't mean that everything's OK.

      • Re:This just in: (Score:4, Interesting)

        by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:55PM (#11979388) Journal
        This didn't start with Communism. Chinese civilization has a long history of pursuing social order. The intensity with which Western countries tend to defend and rationalize individual liberties would confuse many Chinese from many historical epochs. To them, an authoritarian regime which makes these sorts of dictates is the norm. The Communists are simply the latest in a long line of rulers to do this.

        • Re:This just in: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by hey! ( 33014 )
          Well, ruthlessly efficient government had it all over the most common ancient alternative in the pre-enlightenment world: ruthlessly inefficient government. Take the Romans; they had a certain flair for flamboyant and outré acts of cruelty, but they were too efficient to apply them indiscriminately. Pretty much if you didn't do anything that had the potential to affect tax revenues, it was your own business.

          All in all Roman despotism -- then Muslim despotism after that, were vastly prefrable to the

          • Re:This just in: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by cryptochrome ( 303529 )
            They are trying to foster economic growth, but the social changes that will cause is certain to destroy the sense of stability which is their reason to exist.

            Too true. There's a lot of justified fear and worry over letting an autocracy like China become a superpower. But the path China is taking is economic, and that comes with certain conditions. The WHOLE REASON China is doing so well economically now is because they have a key resource the developed countries don't have - a seemingly endless supply
      • As the ol' mentality goes, my country, right or wrong.
    • Oppressive country oppresses.

      Yeah, but what kind of wussy Fascists are they if they aren't going to hang the dissenters?! "I like my [Fascists] - evil. You know, straight-up, black-hat, Tied-to-the-train-tracks, soon-my-electro-ray-will-destroy-metropolis bad."

  • Same ol', same ol' (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @03:57PM (#11978730)
    It seems these days that when I read about China censorship, it's merely a continuation of policies that have existed for years.

    What's remarkable to me is that the admin group refused and was merely dismissed. A couple decades ago, I'd expect them to be jailed at the least.
    • while you make a good point, what makes you think they were "merely" dismissed.

      Dismissed is a fairly broad word in a PR sense.

      What puzzles me, is what makes them think they had anything to gain by refusal. There are so many subtler forms of 'mutiny' when in a position of limited power.

      Regardless power to them for standing up for what they believe in.
      • Hmm. You may be right that "dismissal" is the new euphemism for being jailed or killed. I'll have to be careful about how I use the term should I end up working with Chinese contractors.

        On the other hand, if I tell them the last programmer was dismissed due to the poor quality of their work, it might increase their enthusiasm considerably.
        • Hmm. You may be right that "dismissal" is the new euphemism for being jailed or killed. I'll have to be careful about how I use the term should I end up working with Chinese contractors.

          I thought the word for that was "termination".
    • They're just dismissed for now. After a month passes and this is no longer news, they'll start going "missing."

  • I'm simply not supprized (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DavisNet ( 558626 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @03:59PM (#11978751) Homepage
    This cannot come as a shock to any one who even casually follow the Chineese record on free speach.

  • Tragic (Score:5, Funny)

    by proteonic ( 688830 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @03:59PM (#11978752)
    Tragic, tragic, really..

    Well, I'm off to but cheap clothes and electronics!

  • Admins with backbone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rightcoast ( 807751 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:00PM (#11978758) Homepage
    It really took guts for them to stand up to this, and I wonder if there will be fallout for them the rest of the world will never hear. It says they were merely dismissed, but can you trust that infomation?

    • Re:Admins with backbone (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:16PM (#11978977)
      Sure the reckless CCP government will do whatever they like to punish those who dare to stand up to them by any means.

      When SARS striked at the beginning, the central CCP goverment and Canton Province officials tried hard to hide every details about it. A group of brave people, including Yu Huafeng and Cheng Yizhong, made noise about the frightenning facts. Eventually, the government retreated by high pressure from inside and outside of the poor country.

      But when everything settled down and people forgot about SARS, the government tried and prosecuted those peole for obviouly rediculous excuses. Mr. Yu Huafeng, one of a handful brave Chinese intellectuals, is still in jail.

      I myself, a shameless Chinese coward.
    • By dismissed they mean: their heads were dismissed from their bodies...
    • Yes, you can. They are almost all student volunteers. It's not their day job to maintain the BBS. They refused to change the software, issued a final notice to the community, and dismissed themselves. The site is probably still up and running internally, but I doubt that anyone would want to use it now.

  • I don't see how they can do it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DanielMarkham ( 765899 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:01PM (#11978778) Homepage
    How can you possibly control the actions of billions of people? It just seems all so silly and 20th-century.

    With the net on everything from watches to cell phones and jackets, and the myriad of procols available (especially with tunneling) it just seems like closing the door after the horses got out.

    • It's easy. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bigtallmofo ( 695287 )
      Just have 500,000,000 of them watch the other 500,000,000 of them. (And vice versa).

      Done and done.
    • Firewalls+total control of the information infrastructure+ willingness to do anything necessary+trusted computing (well, that last one is a comin).

      You may not be able to shut it off completely with the current level of technology, but you can block it off to 99+% of the populace that use electronics. With all the evolution in computers lately, it is essentially an arms race between blocking those who want access to all info outside the great fire wall and those who control the fire wall and are trying to

    • Re:I don't see how they can do it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bwy ( 726112 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:19PM (#11979005)
      How can you possibly control the actions of billions of people?

      To start with, you build the world's largest army, and then don't let the 1 billion citizens own guns.

      • You mean like the army of the Soviet Union? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by absurdist ( 758409 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @08:13PM (#11981122)
        And no, I'm not passing on the idiot slashdot meme. The Soviet Union had one of the largest standing armies in the world AND a disarmed citizenry. When the population became completely fed up, none of that mattered any more; the government fell like a house of cards regardless. The same thing will happen in China and/or the US when the dissention reaches critical mass. As long as enough people have bread and circuses, however, they're willing to overlook little things like other people's rights.
    • How can you possibly control the actions of billions of people?

      Well you see, the Chinese Ministry of Love is responsible for the identification, monitoring, arrest, and torture of dissidents, real or imagined.
      They are also responsible for making every Party member love the Party.

      Thank you George Orwell.

  • No Chinese Left Behind (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:02PM (#11978789)
    > Educational institutions in China have received direct orders from the Chinese Ministry of Education requiring their BBSs to take actions including access limitation and registering users by their real identities, as well as strict content censorship.

    Validated identities are required for anybody in a school in order to protect our children from those who might attempt to infiltrate our schools and victimize them. Content "censorship" is nothing more than ensuring they're not exposed to content that they're not ready for. Hell, I'm an adult who likes b00bies, and I was kinda grossed out by Janet's.

    Oh, wait, this is China we're talking about. The totalitarian state. Umm, censorship is bad, mmkay?

    > The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.

    "miss". So that's how they're spelling "appear" these days. Man, these kids and their SMS/TXT speak.

  • Politics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:06PM (#11978849) Homepage
    The Communist Party should be glad that there are still people who care about politics, even if they have "wrong" ideas. Unlike many of their fellow citizens and party members, who only care about getting rich.

  • China (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 )
    China have been addressing the "problem" of the internet for a while now, beginning with the block of adult sites and now the censorship of their own countries' sites.

    I guess they are learning from the 80's, when the startings of the internet helped demolish stalinism from Eastern Europe. They know they need to control the content people view to avoid letting their control on power drop.

  • My goodness! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:09PM (#11978889) Homepage Journal
    The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.

    Now THAT is bravery!

    China is a country that will incarcerate your for not thinking what you're supposed to. China is a country that will put a bullet in the back of your head and sell your organs to the highest bidder. These people should be revered. They have true bravery.

    LK
    • China is a country that will incarcerate your for not thinking what you're supposed to. China is a country that will put a bullet in the back of your head and sell your organs to the highest bidder. These people should be revered. They have true bravery.

      "Sell your organs to the highest bidder"? Charming. You forgot to call them the "damn Chinks" while you were at it.

      These guys refused a government directive, and their weak-kneed employer fired them. Good for them for sticking up for what they believe

  • As much potenital as china has (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:17PM (#11978987)
    to become an economic powerhouse (well it is one now), it has a lot of growing pains to face in this century. no doubt they are going to become a superpower, but they have a lot of issues that are going to hold them back. once the people start to get some freedoms, it is going to be hard to stop them from wanting them all.

    right now they are benifiting from cheap labor, what is going to happen when the people decide they want more for what they do? add on the social issues as well and they are in for turbulent times before they are a viable threat to america.

  • A difference? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bird603568 ( 808629 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:21PM (#11979030)
    In my PUBLIC high school, they censora crap load of webpages, ie(slashdot, most wikipedia topics, and duh the porn and game site) Whats the difference between PUBLIC schools doing it and China doing it?

    • Re:A difference? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because this is America, and when we do something bad, it's because we have a good reason (national security, the children, etc). When our official enemies/rivals do it, it's becaue they are evil. Didn't you get the memo?

    • Re:A difference? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Uhm, this is way different. China is enforcing these policies so they can have control over the DISCUSSION content. They also want to know who exactly is authoring content that China would deem 'radical' and dissentful, so they can lock them up in jail. You don't want to be in a Chinese jail.

      Your public high school, on the other hand: It is a school funded by public money. They are just censoring you from reading certain distracting material on the internet. They cannot enforce their policies off scho

    • Re:A difference? (Score:5, Informative)

      by stinkyfingers ( 588428 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:45PM (#11979284)
      It is not in the PUBLIC interest for you to be looking at slashdot, posting to wikis, or surfing porn at school. The community has (in thoery) come to a certain set of agreed-upon standards for Internet usage in your high school.

      In China, the community did not set the standards for Internet usage; the government did. Just because we have free speech here doesn't mean you can surf porn at school.

      I would also like to add that tomorrow you don't sleep through your U.S. Government class. If you've already taken that class, retake it.

  • Different Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)

    by $criptah ( 467422 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:44PM (#11979272) Homepage

    In order to understand why these things happen, you need to find out how people of China think. Using Western standards for benchmarking civil rights of China is not a smart idea because not everybody agrees with these standards.

    I worked with an exchange student from China a while ago. She was a nice girl, but she could never get the freedom of speech (expression/religion) thing. Whenever we talked about civil rights in China, she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else. I could not argue with her. She was raised in a differet atmosphere and that was a big issue between the two of us. She hated many things about the United States and one of them was freedom to say whatever you wanted. Three years of schooling here did not change her one bit.

    Now, I know that one person does not represent the whole country, but this experience gave me some insights on why peoeple may not like the Western way of life.

    • Whenever we talked about civil rights in China, she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else.

      There is nothing inherently wrong with seeing porn, violence and drug use on TV.

      This chinese exchange student thinks western culture has a problem because of what is being shown on TV and made available through other communication forms. We think chinese culture has a problem because someone can be thrown in jail or exe

  • Maybe GWB should lecture the Communist China on the value of freedom of speech and religion. Oh wait!, if he does that, they might not finance our collossal deficit. Better let them be as brutal as they want to their own, as long as they keep loaning the U.S. money.
    If I had my way the U.S. would only recognize ONE China. The one whose government is in Taipei.

    • If I had my way the U.S. would only recognize ONE China. The one whose government is in Taipei.

      The US did that for nearly a quarter of a century. Mao had even wanted to try to get contacts within the US, but the Red haters were so busy thinking the PRC was just a Soviet envelope with a funny-looking stamp that they missed a substantial opportunity.

      You better read what Chiang Kaishek was doing before the Communists finally kicked his vicious, murderous hide off the mainland. I'm not defending Mao here,

    • Clinton in an unguarded moment in a speach said that China and Japan can't be criticised or otherwise sanctioned much by America because they are financing the national debt.
  • Is China getting softer? My understanding is that such audacity would have earned those people bullets in the backs of their brains...

  • The slashdot summary is full of lies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by northcat ( 827059 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @05:30PM (#11979756) Journal
    The whole slashdot summary is a big lie. Here is a quick summary of what I can gather from the article:
    1. The chat rooms operated by the Tsinghua University have been closed down for non-students and, obviously, students require to indentify themselves.
    2. NO BBS has been asked to get identification from its users. No BBS have been asked to censor themselves (at least not in a new development and not in the context of this article)
    3. Only Tsinghua University has been asked to get identification from its students to access its chatrooms. No other university has been asked to do this (in the context of this article, of course).
    4. New rules have been passed which, according to TFA, 'will hold chat room operators liable for any "objectionable content" on their sites.' So it must be speaking of keeping "objectional content" away from websites of chatrooms or some online forums. And this need not be political content but just things like porn. But keep in mind that TFA is full of opinion [like calling the move an effort "to limit the exchange of ideas on the Internet" and "the Communist Party's Propaganda Department". And it states opinions as facts including it in the same sentences as facts instead of stating it separately. Like "China's most popular online chat room, hosted by Beijing's Tsinghua University, has been closed to non-students to limit the exchange of ideas on the Internet" and "the Communist Party's Propaganda Department has increased its monitoring of cyberspace for subversive trends, the report said." (emphasis mine)] so it's hard to distinguish what is fact and what is opinion. TFA continues to say that " As a result, Weblog portals have discouraged their users from discussing political or sensitive topics." But it's just the editors' opinion and it doesn't have any recent developments to back it up. (Maybe just the old complaints)
    5. TFA also says the Ministry of Education has ' issued a circular on strengthening "political thought" at universities'. Again, you can't tell what is fact and what is the editors' opinion.
    6. Nowhere does the article mention anything about the "dismissal of the admin team of Nanjing Univesity". This might be another article not linked in summary or this might be just a lie by the poster.
    The summary is just one big lie trying to make China look bad, written by someone who hates China. (And it groups a lot of stories together) And even TFA is not very unbiased. Proof that Slashdot has no journalistic integrity or ethics and occasionally spews out complete lies.
    • 1. Not just non-students. They are blocking all the IPs outside the university. That is partly why the students are protesting.
      2. Of course. When everyone's real name is exposed, you don't really need censorship to prevent them from talking against the government.
      3. I don't know about this one so I have no comment. The students there have been required to provide a true campus address when they register on the BBS for quite some time now. It's not anything new.
      4. TFA might be full of opinions, but I w
      • Yeah, you obviously didn't read TFA. And you haven't provided even one source to back up your claims.
        • here [sjtu.edu.cn] are [sjtu.edu.cn] some [sjtu.edu.cn] relevant [sjtu.edu.cn] links [sjtu.edu.cn] . [sjtu.edu.cn]

          All these are in Chinese and I don't have time to translate them (though Babelfish helps a little), and they are from BBSs, so they might not be all that accurate. Also, given current events I'm not sure that these links will continue to work.

          I don't think it is dangerous in any way to post these links here, even if the government is as oppressive as you seem to think. Heck, I'm just helping you get the facts straight.

  • sed 's/[Ee]ducational\ [Ii]nstitution/peer-to-peer\ network/g; s/China/America/g; s/Chinese\ Ministry\ of\ Education/RIAA/g; s/BBS/administrator/g; s/Nanjing/Louisiana\ State/g'


    ... and suddenly this is a very familiar story...

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