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Crime The Internet Your Rights Online

Chinese Internet Addiction Boot Camp Prison Break 177

UgLyPuNk writes "A group of inmates at the Huai'an Internet Addiction Treatment Centre decided they'd had enough of the 'monotonous work and intensive training.' Working together, they tied their duty supervisor to his bed and made a run for it. The 14 patients, aged from 15 to 22, hailed a taxi to take them to a nearby town — but were uncovered when the driver took them to the police station instead, suspicious of the identically dressed young men who were unable to pay the fare."
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Chinese Internet Addiction Boot Camp Prison Break

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  • First post! (Score:5, Funny)

    by somersault ( 912633 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @07:56AM (#32494722) Homepage Journal

    First I escaped Slashdot Addiction Camp, and now this! What a perfect day.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @07:57AM (#32494726)

    Instead of playing WoW, are they just living it now?

  • by Skarecrow77 ( 1714214 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @07:58AM (#32494728)

    but shouldn't 14 people in a single cab still be considered somewhat suspicious on it's own?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @07:59AM (#32494738)
    Who's the tank and who's the buffer?
  • Hurra! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @07:59AM (#32494742) Journal
    Achievement Unlocked: "Prison Break"!
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Achievement Unlocked: "Prison Break"!

      Achievement Unlocked: Return to Sender

  • Punishment? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zwei2stein ( 782480 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:01AM (#32494766) Homepage

    Lat time I read about it was how some "patients" were beaten to death. One wonders what will happen to escapees ...

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by RTFA ( 697910 )
      "Game Over"
    • Treated to tea and cookies?
  • by Drakkenmensch ( 1255800 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:06AM (#32494812)
    Expect the chinese government to spin this into a positive light for their work camp by "teaching teamwork and on-the-fly improvisational skills".
    • It's even easier than that.

      Kids escape "help centre", dutiful cab driver takes them to authority. Harmony is restored.

      The spin is easy on this, it's probably why we're hearing about it.

      • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

        I know that I am supposed to think "Oh wow, they have internet addiction camps, how horrible" though... how is that any different from "Vice" laws here in the US? We punish Vice too, just different ones.

        -Steve

        • There are plenty of "teen boot camps" you can send listless kids to in the USA.

          Same concept, different culture. The difference might be that after such an event in the US there would be some kind of investigation or public inquiry.

        • how is that any different from "Vice" laws here in the US?

          The State, a nominally accountable entity, does so, after due process of law. Who recourse do these detainees - some of whom are adults - have when they are kidnapped and abused by a private enterprise?

          • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

            Abuse is abuse, regardless of who does it or how much process they put around it. I see little to no difference here. Vice is vice and punishing vice is punishing vice. Its wrong no matter who does it, and wrong no matter how many people vote for it, its wrong no matter how many silly people in silly blue costumes and black robe costumes decide it must be done.

            • If I'm tracking you right, you're arguing (in a vague and unfocused way) against the criminalization of "vices". Implicit in this is that "vice" means "stuff I like to do and should be allowed to do if it weren't for those stupid prude sheep criminalizing it."

              Every crime represents something someone would like to do. Otherwise, you wouldn't legislate against it. So every outlawed act is depriving SOMEONE of the "right" to do something.

              Perhaps you're thinking of something more nuanced, like the old argument

              • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

                Well the problem with having a somewhat nuanced and non-mainstream ideology is, that its very hard to talk about a lot of issues without going into a long diatribe about basic values and ideas and well... nobody wants to do that in every single conversation just to get a point across.

                I am almost, but not quite, a pacifist. Not really, I fully believe in self defense, and the defense of others (who want to be defended, certainly if you jump in the middle of a boxing match to 'defend' someone you are not a he

            • Dude. Dude. Step away from the bong.
      • Harmony? Isn't that a planet? Somewhere in the same sector as Tranquility?

    • by qoncept ( 599709 )
      Probably smarter to spin it as they were so addicted they commited crimes to get back online.
    • by Shrike82 ( 1471633 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:24AM (#32494994)

      Expect the chinese government to spin this into a positive light for their work camp by "teaching teamwork and on-the-fly improvisational skills".

      Also, since they didn't beat up the cab driver, steal his cab, take it for a joy ride and kill a hooker with a baseball bat it's clearly proof that these camps are combatting video game addiction too...

  • So, people claim that these kids ain't addicted or have a problem. But they assault their supervisor and have one most of the most ill out escape plans in history. Really, what was their destination going to be? Home? Their parents send them there. No money. Well HOW ABOUT WALKING THEN? No, lets hail a cab (more likely a bus service with 14 people but I guess Americans never heard of public transport) with no money in camouflage gear...

    The Three Stooges could not have done it better.

    This does for the proo

  • Age 15-22? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xaxa ( 988988 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:07AM (#32494816)

    What's the age of [whateveritscalled] in China? i.e. Why do over 16/18 (?) year olds need to "escape"? Pressure from the government, or parents, or honour, or something else?

    • Re:Age 15-22? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cosm ( 1072588 ) <thecosm3@gmai l . c om> on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:17AM (#32494930)

      What's the age of [whateveritscalled] in China? i.e. Why do over 16/18 (?) year olds need to "escape"? Pressure from the government, or parents, or honour, or something else?

      I think the word your looking for is "oppression", and the answer is "any".

    • What's the age of [whateveritscalled] in China? i.e. Why do over 16/18 (?) year olds need to "escape"? Pressure from the government, or parents, or honour, or something else?

      There are adults in rehab facilities in America. Not for Internet addiction, but drugs, alcohol, sex, and other things. In many cases, it's an involuntary commitment.

  • Uh... 22 years old? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:10AM (#32494840) Homepage

    So, in China, you can pay a private firm to kidnap, lock up and abuse an adult, and if they escape, then the police will return them to the kidnappers?

    So, do you just get to pick any adult, and is there a menu for the particular abuse that you want them to be subjected to? The mind boggles at the possibilities.

    • by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:25AM (#32494998) Homepage Journal

      Sorry, but 22 can be a child as can 28, well dependent or child take your choice.

      Like any law we have here, it opens doors for new expansion to other laws basing some of their rules on previous. Recently health care laws were changed to designate that adults up to 28 are dependents to their parents if so chosen. How is this different than the story in China? Someone is paying to put these children/adults/dependents into these camps to get them back on the road to a productive life. Reading the article the government seems to support their usage but I cannot tell if they pay the costs.

      Your really reading far too much into the story. China already locks up who it wants so your scenario exists in the standard method - government oppression. This story is about parents or guardians voluntarily placing dependents into the care of a business whose job is to correct behavior. We have those in the US too. No need to tin foil hat this.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

        22, 28, what does the number have to do with it?

        Uh, legal adulthood? I live in a civilised country, not China or the US, so I'm not sure why you think pointing out equally nobbed up US laws would be a compelling argument.

        You're really reading far too little into the story. The (alleged) motivations behind the kidnappers is a strawman - would you support Scientology's right to kidnap, hold and abuse adults in order to "correct behaviour"? What matters is that victims are being held against their will by

      • You laid out the problem perfectly while blowing completely past it:

        If the legal age of adulthood is 18, and the legal age for dependants gets increased above 18, and the parents want them to be dependants (so they can exert control) and the 18 year old wants to be an adult... What happens?

        Essentially, all it would take to get out of this prison would to be to claim your adulthood.

        However, its in China, and not in America. But if they had similar laws, that would be a problem.

      • by mea37 ( 1201159 )

        Yeah, I think you're missing a few key points.

        "Recently health care laws were changed to designate that adults up to 28 are dependents to their parents if so chosen."

        At a minimum, you're playing fast and loose with the definition of "dependent" and glossing over the fact that a person cannot be coerced into dependent status at that age.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by DrgnDancer ( 137700 )

        Saying that "Parents can choose to leave their kids on their Health Care plan until they are 28" is nowhere near the same as saying that kids are legal dependents of their parents until they are 28. An 18 year old is legally an adult in all ways that matter. They are not allowed to drink and gamble in some jurisdictions, but those are considered additional privileges above and beyond majority (stupid in my opinion, but legally and logically defensible). At the age of 18 you can choose to do whatever you

        • The law does require health insurance companies to treat children under 28 as dependents. Just like the federally set alcohol age and the new credit card law require retailers and banks to view people under the age of 21 as mentally incompetent. So while 18 maybe the standard of legal majority for most things (certainly not "whatever you like"--you have to wait another lifetime before you can run for president), the government can move the border of "adulthood" at its pleasure, and even pre-teens can be "tr
          • You are either deliberately or ignorantly misunderstanding what makes someone an adult in our society. The health care law provides parents and children the options of continuing a voluntary dependency past the age of 18. If the parents chose not to pay for a (adult) child's health care, or the (adult) child chooses not to accept the parent's health care (either because they have better or simply want to be "independent") they may do so. This may result in the (adult) child being fined when the mandatory

      • Recently health care laws were changed to designate that adults up to 28 are dependents to their parents if so chosen.

        I'm pretty sure you can't just chose to have a 28-year-old be your dependent. There's usually some sort of requirement that they actually be dependent on you, such as living in your household. The reason that you can have a dependent that's over 18 (and therefore legally an adult) is that most college students, and many recent graduates, do not yet have enough income to establish their own household.

    • Yes, it's all fine because you have to be related to the person you want kidnapped. Obviously if you could just get anyone bundled into a rickshaw off the street and subjected to prison-like conditions then that would be wrong...
    • So, in China, you can pay a private firm to kidnap, lock up and abuse an adult ...

      Huh, you know, it's funny, until your post I have never associated this with Park Chan-Wook's OldBoy [wikipedia.org] (South Korean film).

      ... and if they escape, then the police will return them to the kidnappers?

      That's where they differ -- even the demented revenge plot of Oldboy couldn't dream that up.

    • Compared to civilized countries like the U.S. where you can only pay a private firm to kidnap, lock up and abuse children.

  • This sounds like a great basis for an MMO! Addiction Camp Online or maybe World of Addiction Camp. It'll have a lot of grinding. You'll have to put some serious hours into it. But it'll all pay off when your character breaks free of his/her internet addiction and starts living a social, outdoorsy life. And you can do it all from the comfort of your bedroom!
  • I wonder what their sentence will be? I hear in the addiction boot camps they use to get shock treatment [1]. So I kind of wonder what will be the punishment for this act? [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/14/china-electric-shock-internet-addiction [guardian.co.uk]
    • So I kind of wonder what will be the punishment for this act?

      You are forced to play Barbie Horse Adventures for 14 hours a day.

      • by karnal ( 22275 )

        I helped my niece play this game, getting her through some of the parts that were frustrating her. Five minutes would have been more than enough.

  • by Tisha_AH ( 600987 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @08:32AM (#32495086) Journal

    I imagine a boot camp with scenes reminiscent of the conditioning in "A Clockwork Orange".

    No! No! No!, not Ludwig Von.....

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by psnyder ( 1326089 )
      Ludwig "van"

      "von" in German denoted nobility at the time. The Dutch "van" in Beethoven's name did not, however he tricked the Austrian courts during his custody battle for his nephew, Karl, into thinking he was born from nobility and tried the case in a court for noblemen.

      He later let it slip that he wasn't nobly born and the case was transferred.
  • and considering the reality of china, where the state treats everyone like a slave, i can understand why so many in china would be addicted to video games. i would be too if i lived in china

    there exists in china the lives of the rich in the coastal cities, who are able to afford some degree of freedom

    but for the rest of the country, the majority, you have some sort of nightmare where the worst excesses of communist authoritarianism combine with completely unbridled capitalist rapaciousness, to produce a distinctly modern chinese breed of hell on earth for the poor in china. the state has no problem abusing you and propagandizing you, and the corporations have no problem working you like a mule, and will bribe the corrupt state authorities to get away with it

    it really is not surprising that some workers are committing suicide in flocks:

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-08/foxconn-says-personal-issues-not-wages-led-workers-to-suicide.html [businessweek.com]

    modern china is a brutal corporatist authoritarian nightmare, the worst of communism and capitalism, mushed together as a hybrid schizophrenic hell

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

      modern china is a brutal corporatist authoritarian nightmare, the worst of communism and capitalism, mushed together as a hybrid schizophrenic hell

      Somewhat verbose. Modern China is joining the industrial revolution [wikipedia.org], just a couple of hundred years late to the party. It's not like what's happening there is unprecedented.

      • oh really? (Score:3, Interesting)

        did Victorian England have legions of party workers censoring every little post on internet forums and tracking those who were too uppity? did Victorian England have absolute authority and control over the media?

        the industrial revolution gave birth to communism and capitalism in its modern forms. China has adopted the modern forms of communism and capitalism, and then went through the industrial revolution. Combine that with a throughly Chinese obsession with learned bureaucratic efficiency (it's not hard t

        • I think you're distorting the picture a little bit. What you describe is true, and in the way that you describe, but not to quite that extent. You say that the majority of Chinese are becoming slaves. My wife's family consists of peasants, mixed with professionals who's parents were peasants. To some extent they are slaves, but they were slaves before, and in many ways its getting better. Moreover in a few ways they actually have more freedom than Americans. Money worship appears to be getting worse i

          • so unimportant, you can have all of the financial growth you want, but people's quality of life won't improve (except if you are rich)

            the giant irony is that the communist party (in name only) is recreating the social conditions which led the revolution which created it in the first place. if the average guy on the street has no rights, i don't care how hypercapitalist you are, all of that pursuit of profit just means there will be a few more rich in shanghai

            either china delivers on real improvement in peop

            • Are you Chinese? If not, do you actually know very many Chinese people? Your world seems somehow theoretical.

              There are far more than a "few more" rich people in China. A very large portion of the country is richer, even while a very large part is still impoverished.

              Do you actually know what Chinese people want? Very few I've met think the way you do about human rights. To some extent that's their tragedy, for the reasons that you outline, but its not as if the system they live in has been imposed by an

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by snerdy ( 444659 )

      Video games can provide an escape from reality. They can also be a unique tool for understanding the world.

      These two statements are also true of any media you can name, or which will ever be invented -- books, magazines, newspapers, movies, music, theater, dance, whatever.

      • the interbalance in the game between military strength, economic strength, strategic resources, domestic tranquility, and scientific research is compelling and "can also be a unique tool for understanding the world" as you say

        that being said, i was a fucking addict. its hard to say the same thing about books and magazines. the timesuck represented by the "just one more turn" impulse, and watching the sun rise when you thought it was evening: that's addiction, and its dangerous, and its real

        stop making excus

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      considering the reality of china, where the state treats everyone like a slave

      Please, stop. Just stop. Don't post about China any more because you have Z-E-R-O idea what you're talking about. The state does not treat everyone as a slave.

      distinctly modern chinese breed of hell on earth for the poor

      Oh, come ON. Things are better in China, for everyone, than ANY TIME IN THE FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF CHINA'S HISTORY. Ever since Deng Xiaoping hijacked the people's revolution onto the capitalist road, eve

      • assuming you are posting from china, try criticizing it for once

        oh you wouldn't dare would you? what would happen to you if you criticized the regime politically from within china?

        but ignore me, i'm obviously just a propagandized westerner

  • Am i missing something here?
    I may be off topic, but is not the whole point of this to get them OFF the internet...
    you would think after treatment, just stay off the internet, then you get out, no?
    If the treatment is for 1 month, bide your time, then leave for good behavior then
    almost become like a secret agent, using the internet only when you really need to...at a friends house etc...
    not to alarm your parents....I think it is more about disciplinary action...i do feel badly for the kids though if there
    is a

  • Now that's a yellow cab!
  • by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @09:46AM (#32495864)
    If you thought boomer's children were being coddled, wait until you see what happens in China. With the one-child policy in place three decades now, each child has six adult relatives to pamper them. Therefore many rarley learn important life skills like cooking, laundry and dating.
    • The other side effect of one-child-per-family is a pronounced bias towards the birth of males. So you have all these spoiled-brat men used to their mommy waiting on them hand and foot who have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting laid. That does not bode well for future stability.
    • Even in many parts of Asia without a one-child policy, culture (and also some economic factors) often dictates that 3 generations (parent, child, grandchild) live under one roof.

  • Where is the work addiction camp? foxconn factory? no wait that is slave camp.

  • 22 year old = reeducation camp? Does posting some stuff on line that china does not like make you end up in a camp like this.

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