Posted on 03/03/2005 4:38:06 AM PST by Crackingham
China has closed 47,000 internet cafes in a campaign aimed at creating a more "wholesome environment" for children.
The country’s leaders encourage internet use for business and education, but have expressed growing concern that it gives children access to violent or sexually explicit material, and have tried to block online criticism of their Communist rule.
The cafes closed in the crackdown had been "admitting minors and engaged in dissemination of harmful cultural information", the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily said on its website.
About 21,000 of the closed cafes might be allowed to reopen after making unspecified changes. It said the business licences of 2131 were revoked.
China has the world’s second-largest number of internet users after the United States, with 87 million people online.
The government said in October that it had detained 445 people for operating websites deemed pornographic, and fined internet cafe operators a total of 100 million yuan (£6.2 million) for letting children play violent games.
Well, people should have the freedom to look at whatever the hell they want on the internet, but I agree with preventing children from looking at sexually explicit and violent material (I know in China "explicit" also means anti-communist propoganda). At least they have half-good intentions with regard to censorship.
Oh sure, and this is the same COMMUNIST China that thinks there should be GLOBAL control of the Internet, because they think the U.S. is too dominant.
The U.S. Government may not have a perfect track record, but they've never shut down 47,000 websites or censored access as do the Imperial Masters of Beijing.
Some of the Chinese who are using the Internet Cafe's are writing BLOGS which are anti-current-government and tell what's really going on. Many are in Chinese. Some add photos so you can see what's going on.
Don't ask me to give you any blog-names, though, I was surfing and didn't save any of them.
Highly Opinionated and glad I live in the USofA.
China's own FCC. The "decency" squads should be very pleased.
Baloney! They want a wholesome enviornment for the Communist Party to enforce iron control on the people.
They also want to have international control of the Internet as a whole.
China charges U.S. monopolizes the Internet, seeks global control
All of these bleatings are efforts to maintain political control, which the free exchange of information on the internet works against.
Move to China.
Decency squads in China can also be read as "bullet in the head" squads.
bump
Well as pointed out, it's "for the children". ;-)
Free trade
All of these bleatings are efforts to maintain political control, which the free exchange of information on the internet works against.Capitalism can thrive for a time under a totalitarian system, but only for a time. Just look at France...
China's Patriot Act.
Pretending to go after pornography for the sake of "the children" is a ruse for censoring anything or anyone who is a threat to the government.
This is the kind of thing Hillary will want to do.
dang I went on a tour of china a few years ago, I posted to FR from Suzhou...where Marco Polo hung out for a while.
The town also had $1 DVDs...complete with the covers. However, for all the movies, they had just copied and pasted snoyosi from random movies...the cover art was right, but the descriptions were for other movies!
That's what they're SAYING...but, we know the true reasons for this...they don't want their people reading about the Regime from "non-approved" sources.
please
Reunification of Tiawan and China? Sure, once they're both democracies and their respective citizens vote for it.
Might as well add red China to the end of the line of dominos.
I'd love to hear PRESIDENT Bush call for a democratic China...I bet he talks about it behind closed doors often and alot. Probably waiting for the Mideast to cool off before he drops this bomb..
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