And she does not sing “Poker Face”: it’s: “Liar’s Face”
China is getting paranoid, obviously bureaucrats realize some people are really upset with “certain issues”. Like the milk scandal, the new-rich, the astronomical greed by the real estate sector (read: those who have the right guanxi), worker’s exploitation (slavery is sometimes a better word). Too many things people are not supposed to talk about.
One can wonder if they will succeed to stem the flow. The clever people find a way around the New Great Wall. But others are happy to remain uninformed as they only care about playing computer games and … discovering carnal pleasures.
See here part of article dated 12 February 2010, “Innocent websites suffer in Beijing’s anti-porn push” by Stephen Chen in the SCMP:
More than 130,000 websites have been closed in the mainland’s crackdown on internet pornography, although less than 12% of them were actually pornographic.
The figures, buried in a Xinhua report meant to hail the success of the anti-porn campaign, prove a long-held suspicion that the central government is using pornography as a pretext to suppress Web freedom.
Since December, the Communist Party’s Central Committee has ordered the country’s state-owned internet service providers, such as China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom, to examine every website on their servers, an anonymous senior party official in charge of cyberspace told Xinhua.
The official said the telecommunications operators sniffed through more than 1.8 million websites. By Wednesday, more than 136,000 had been shut down.
Among them, “16,000 contained pornographic or sexually explicit contents, and among these, 11,000 were accessible by mobile phones”, the official was quoted as saying.
Porn-free websites were shut down because they were not “officially registered”.
Mainland internet regulations require websites to apply for a government certificate before opening to the public. The process is time-consuming and often abused by corrupt government officials. For years, many small websites, especially non-commercial ones built and maintained by individuals, have skipped the registration process.
At about the same time that the anti-pornography campaign was launched, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced an amendment to the registration regulation. An individual citizen who did not have a business licence or government approval was no longer eligible to register.
MAC and IT
IT, telecom, Macintosh
New sad clampdown on Chinese Internet
The bureaucrats are continuing their clampdown on the Internet in China to kill any unwanted postings. The trend is not new and I always said the country is trying desperately to close down the media since several years. They must be scared like hell as many citizens do not take the injustices anymore. Corruption and bad governance are the cancers in today’s China. By killing – or trying to – the Internet, they can only make it worse. The Internet is also a business tool. Once more, the Chinese bureaucrats shoot themselves in the foot and fail to address the real problems for their citizens. What they don’t realize is that many Chinese get fed up and find new ways around the restrictions.
Since day one I said I would never base my server here in China and never register. That was and is the right decision.
See here a comment from the SCMP
New internet curbs a step in wrong direction
article (part) by LEADER on Dec 16, 2009 – SCMP
The internet is a boundless frontier of business, education and recreation opportunities. The central government has curtailed those benefits by seeing it as a threat. The decision this week to stop individuals from having their own websites damagingly restricts possibilities. Not only are users’ ideas and opinions further censored, but an important outlet for entrepreneurial skills has been shut off.
Only businesspeople and government-authorised organisations can now register new domain names. Individually owned websites are steadily becoming inaccessible. Authorities say the measure is to curb pornography and copyright infringement. It is more likely yet another step to silence perceived dissent. Unwittingly, users are also put at an increased disadvantage to their counterparts elsewhere.
Most of the world’s websites have been established and are operated by individuals. Many are for pleasure and convenience; through them there is communication with relatives and friends and a sharing of images and thoughts. But a good number are also for livelihoods and to supplement incomes. Careers and businesses grow from them – opportunities that would otherwise have been limited or non-existent.
Far away in Pinggu County
I started writing this on 20 August, had to stop because the Internet was lousy and my laptop is an antique (if on the Internet). So here comes the report, a bit late.
In my quest to write my book (Don Quichote fighting windmills comes to mind), I try to disappear from time to time to be a recluse. In August that led me to a place at the very end of Pinggu County, near the border with Tianjin Municipality. I was in a tiny village (1 road basically) that sits next to the dam of the nice Haizi Reservoir (Jinhai Park) that is said to deliver BY PIPELINE water to Zhongnanhai.
Near the dam there are some impressive guesthouses, mostly from Chinese organizations.
Was there for nearly one week and did not see one single foreigner – only a small invasion in the weekend of Chinese tourists who go there to enjoy the local cuisine, all prepared in primitive but interesting wood-fired woks (with a lot of smoke…). The dishes are varied, a little “Dongbei Cai”, fish, porc and other meat, all in a rich sauce and cooked for a long time. Tastes good, maybe not too good for yout cholesterol, but one has to enjoy sometimes.
I was treated very well in my guesthouse (“Du Yue Shan Zhuang”) where I had a small room – with Internet (better than in Beijing that time!). Food was great, so was the air. All the locals were very friendly and starting knowing me – the funny foreigner jogging up and down the dam, listening to his iPod (music and my Chinese lessons).
Ate too much but did write quite a lot. Nice experience, also to see more of the real China, far away from crazy Beijing. I miss Pinggu right now.
Unreliable Internet tools
The silly goons blocking a whole range of websites don’t give a damn about serious business. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, plus plus are blocked. They don’t realize that those sites are more and more used for serious business. Chambers of commerce, Rotary, associations etc. use those sites to put up instructive videos, link clubs and interests, announce activities, give last-minute information. Many people use gmail or hotmail, then suddenly they can’t go there. Others put pictures on Flickr. Gone.
Putting all those obstacles in our daily work is counterproductive.
The government wants to attract companies to set up their regional headquarters here? Great location! High speed Internet going nowhere. If I can call my ADSL “high speed” of course. Rather a (Chinese) bike than a sports car.
Of course, one can argue that the sad events taking place in Xinjiang justify those extreme measures.
Green Dam story: “delayed”
On 30 June the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said that China will delay mandatory installation of the controversial “Green Dam – Youth Escort” filtering software on new computers, because some computer producers have demanded extra time for such a massive installation. According to the MIIT’s previous announcement, all computers produced or sold in China were scheduled to have this software pre-installed starting July 1. But the MIIT will continue to provide a free download of the software and equip school and Internet bar computers with it after July 1. The MIIT will continue to solicit opinions to perfect the pre-installation plan. The software is designed to block violent and pornographic content on the Internet, to protect minors. It could also help parents control how much time their children spend online. The MIIT says the pre-installation will not be compulsory, as the software can easily be switched off and uninstalled by computer users. It will not track the online activities of users or collect any information about users. Accusations about privacy invasion by the software and concerns that it would create a block in information flow, which have been raised by a few overseas media and institutions, are groundless and irresponsible.
(Source: news.qianlong.com / SinoFile)
OK guys, let’s wait and see…