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China Hits Internet With Secrecy Rules

Posted by emmett on from the state-secrets dept.

MetalHead writes "Anyone running a Web site in China may be interested in this story." You should check this out even if you don't run a Chinese site; it's yet another case of a government cracking down on news media.

3 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Annoucement from Rob Mao-alda. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    Henceforth, all moderators will be hired from the Peoples Republic of China. All current moderator points have been revoked. All new moderators will come from this pool of Chinese agents.

    Moderation catagories will now be:
    Dissenting -1
    Dissenting -1
    Dissenting -1
    Dissenting -1
    Stealing American Nuclear Secrets +1

    Please return to your normal browsing.

  2. China is playing with fire by remande · · Score: 5
    Per that article, the Chinese government has two overriding needs: to keep their tight control over China and to embrace the Internet for economic gain. IMHO, these goals are mutually exclusive.

    Sometimes, you can walk a fine line between two opposing needs. There is a happy medium where each need is satisfied. I believe that there is an "unhappy medium" where neither need is satisfied, and the government is actually at risk of losing the Internet opportunity as well as their own control over their people.

    The Internet is not about technology. It's been around since the sixties, and the Web could have been invented in the seventies. The Web is about community; the technology only gives us an opportunity to meet, and that's where the magic starts. Strict control over a portion of the Internet immediately renders that portion useless.

    I think that the only chance for the Chinese government to survive in its present form (and, frankly, I'd rather it didn't) would be for it to close off the Internet entirely to its people, and to ignore it as an economic opportunity. I feel that anything less would destablize the Chinese government. The nation would not collapse, China would still exist, but it would have a new form of government.

    If the Chinese government allows access but try to control it, they will destroy their own power structure and lose an economic opportunity simultaneously.

    --

    --The basis of all love is respect

  3. Re:It appears that most Chinese are fine with this by gorilla · · Score: 5
    All throughout school we've been taught why communism and oppressive governments of countries like China or Cuba are "bad". They gave us logical reasoning that led to the conclusion that these things are...evil.

    The schools I went to never had such brainwashing. Is the state of education in the US really so bad? Don't answer this, I probably already know the answer.

    China & Cuba definatly have bad things going on in their country. The US definatly has good things going on. Also, C&C have good things, and the US has bad things. To say that the things which you consider important are the only important things shows incredible arrogance.

    In most of the rest of the world, a government which executes minors, has a huge percentage of it's population in jail, mainly for minor drug offenses, and denies it's sickest citizens health care would be considered inhumane, yet as that is what you are used to in the US you don't consider it "enlightening" to learn this.

    The US has a long history of meddling in the affairs of other nations, from the United Fruit Company's affairs in Central America, to Vietnam and more.

    This is not to say that only China & the US have governments which abuse their powers. Every government does, from the smallest to the largest.

    Open Your eyes, and see what your government does wrong, this is more important to you than what happens on the other side of the planet.