Slashdot Mirror
Forget MTV, I Want My Internet!
shystershep writes "Teenagers in China are apparently pretty serious about getting internet access. This article on the English version of the online newspaper Xinhuanet details gang-type activity to get around China's ban on persons under 18 entering internet cafes. I may get a little cranky if I don't get my daily net fix, but I've never beat anyone with a fire extinguisher because of it (not that I remember, anyway)."
I really have to wonder to myself if the chinese govt has yet come to the realization that their constant drive to block/censor anti-govt internet content only leads to more anti-govt feelings of the people.
China has a very checkered history of human rights abuses. While some may argue that this isn't exactly a human rights issue, it certainly is cause for concern. Every country which has attempted to control its citizens access to information has failed or is failing. Look at what's happened in the middle east. It's the same as what's about to happen in China. There will be an information revolution eventually because the Chinese people are hungry for information. The government can't hold out forever.
I don't think this will lead to an Internet version of Tiannamen Square, but as more and more people find ways around the restrictions imposed upon them, the aging government will eventually relax its restrictions. This process is inevitable anyway. The current rulers are getting old and will die. Today's youth is poised to take over, and I can just imagine what a nation of over a billion people is capable of once they taste freedom!
.
Read my journal and s
XI'AN, May 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Staff members of an Internet service chain in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province in northwest China, resigned Saturday over retaliatory assaults they had suffered for barring minors.
Local police said Sunday they have stepped in to investigate an assault that happened Friday night at the Sanfuwan Outlet of the Hongshulin Internet Cafe Chain, which staff said was among a series of attacks by young people at the cafe.
One of the staff, surnamed Chen, said he stopped seven or eightteenagers about to enter on the morning of May 6 because some of them looked very young. Chen asked to see their identity cards to verify their age. The teenagers refused and threatened to beat anyone who "dared to check identity cards." They tried to force their way into the cafe but were stopped.
Amid recent campaigns to crack down on illegal Internet cafes and to ban people under 18 from entering, Internet cafes in China have been ordered to check identity cards of guests before they are allowed in. Otherwise Internet cafes themselves will face harsh punishment varying from a fine to closure.
According to Chen, a group of some 16 young people broke into the cafe on the night of May 7, two guarding the door and two taking over the reception desk and telephones to prevent reportingto the police. The rest began to beat and punch Chen, some striking him with aluminum rubbish bins and fire extinguishers. Security guards of the cafe were also beaten.
In an interview with a local newspaper, Chen showed the injuries to his back, head and face. His nose bridge bone was almost broken.
According to Chen's colleagues, it was not the first such retaliation assault at the outlet. In their resignation letter, they listed many beating cases because of stopping young people. Their bicycle tires were deliberately damaged many times. Some even launched an online assault to the cafe's server, cut the broadband line, input junk programs into computers and poured mineral water into displays.
To tighten security at the cafe, the local police station helped the cafe employ four security guards in April, but it proved not enough to prevent such assaults.
The police have started investigation into the case and vowed to track down those responsible, said Tian Yuming, a senior policeofficer.
China has shut down more than 8,600 unlicensed Internet cafes for admitting juveniles since February. To bar minors from Internet cafes, local governments across China have been ordered not to approve any Internet cafe operations in residential areas or within 200 meters of primary and high schools.
The Chinese government has launched a nationwide check on all Internet cafes from February to August to halt the entry of minorsand to prevent access to detrimental information through the Internet. Enditem
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Most people i know don't bother with TV too much anymore, they sit on the net at home, chatting on MSN and IRC, etc. Most things that people want thesedays for entertainment (Movies, Games, Music, Literature etc) can all be found online.
Arbitrary age restrictions like these, especially over something as innocuous as information, are plainly bullshit.
;)
How would you old farts like it if we put an age cap on viagra?
Don't think we couldn't do it
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Please remember the source when discussing this; Xinhua is the state news agency, and will print whatever they are told. The last "cafes are evil" story they ran was about a couple of kids who used the internet for 48 hours straight, and then sat on railway tracks to recover. El Reg has a decent write-up on the subject. You don't close 8600 internet cafes for "safety reasons", you close them because the population is suddenly aware of their alternatives.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
From the Headline: Net cafe staff quit over retaliation from barring miners
Those miners probably would've dirtied the keyboards anyways...
aLL tHe GreAt peOpLE aRe DEaD. i'M nOt feeLiNg tOO GoOD eiThEr..
Indeed..Read this story for instance. The thing is, I don't think the Government there really cares if teens are using it to look at porn or not, although the crackdown on cafes earlier was supposedly to stop this sort of activity.
Any sort of information being freely disseminated by sources other than approved ones is seen there as a threat. I am simply stating a fact, not blindly bashing the Chinese government. They don't like news/information to come to the masses from sources they can't control.
Just think, if these stupid kids started beating the shit out of someone with actual power and authority, China might eventually have democracy. This is how revolutions are started, people. One small seed, one small desire to look at something that you can't look at, and eventually the opressors start feeling the heat.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Execution for doing so may persist for a while though.
No internet for you unless you put in your ID number.
7 18 496&req=
http://www.interfax.com/com?item=Chin&pg=0&id=5
What was it you said about having nothing to hide?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
So now the have gangs walking around trying to get their internet and assault security staff from checking their ID.
Probably not very intelligent to mess with the staff of an internet cafe.
I wonder how hard it is to get internet access by just dialing up or using wardriving/company internet access in China...
Xinhua (New China News Agency) is not necessarily a reliable source of independent reporting or information.
Since the tragic Internet cafe fire in Beijing in 2001, the central Government has been increasingly active in demonising the internet. This is just an extension of that on-going propaganda war.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
You're right, this is "not" a human rights issue. It is about the same as requiring people to be 18 to get a driver's license. Just because some 16 year olds want one, and beat up the vehicle licensing staff to get one, does not mean they should get them.
This is totally different from restricting access to information for adults, which China also does, and wrongly in my opinion. But please don't confuse a gang of hooligans' attempts to get what they want for a serious attempt at helping promote freedom of access to information.
These are not the kind of youth I want to take over. I think they are kind that grow into the people that ordered the Tiannamen square clampdown.
The fear of punishment keeps people from breaking some of the laws. But since the athorities don't have the resources to check up on everything, they have to let a lot slide.
When the central government makes a drice at some kind of crime all the regions have to show some results. However I don't always think that the local athorities put so much effort into it...
On example is the search for pirated DVD movies. Every year China have a big drive to shut down the pirates. They raid shops and warehouses and confiscate tons of pirated DVD's. The week after the same people are back in the same stores selling pirated DVDs again. And the police have nice numbers of how many pirate shops they have shut down. Making the government very pleased.
So sometimes the numbers of how many operations they have shut down, might not mean so much, since it's hart to tell if they mean permanently or just temporarely.
The spread of news seems to be a very sensetive area for the Chineese government though, so perhaps they do have as strict enforcement of the law as reported
This restriction is not to limit free speech and free information. No, they restricted the internet to keep all the immature kids off the internet to make China look much better. How many times haven't you wanted to punch someone through the screen? I haven't ever, but I've heard stories.
And of course this won't stop everything, just being 18 won't stop anyone from trollwarring on the internet or in whatever games the chinese play.
Slightly off topic, but does anyone else find it incredibly disturbing that Xinhua and Voice of America are the top article on Google News so often? I accidentally clicked on a Xinhua story the other day and it's very disorienting to be reading about prisoner abuse and see "Mao Zedong, a forever warm memory" in a sidebar.
Midori Linux - the world class general purpose embedded OS core (developed by Mr. Linux, the father of Linux)
Oh well. At least they attempted somehow to credit the developer...
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
In India too, the government banned minors from entering Cyber Cafes, and asked owners to verify the users identities. Worse, people using cyber cafes had to give their address so that they can be verified in case of any problem.
:-) So, that law resides in the book only and I think it was made in the first place to appease certain left elements.
But like many other laws, people realised it was rubbish and thus no one took care to implement it
"In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
In other countries the control and censorship is done by direct action and by preventing people to access the information that might be potentially harmful. I think that this is an culture issue, it's just without any extra twists out there. They just ban it, so they don't have to really manipulate or regulate it.
And other countries have governments that allow people to access all the information, but instead put their efforts on manipulating the media indirectly to counter/soften the effects of unpleasant information or to draw attention from real problems to other things. This includes everything from feeding falsified information to advertisement-like careful timing, repeating, double meanings and so on.
Same shit, different implementation. Close your TV and your Internet, there's nothing to see here.
-el
This is proof that the Internet is, nowadays, the most powerfull media to allow for Freedom of Speech. If it wasn't so, why would the Chinese government be so worried about the Internet's influence on their citizens. I recall that this issue does not only affect minors, as there is a nationwide content barring scheme in China.
But if there's on thing that History teaches us is that no matter how harsh laws and enforcement are, there's no stopping for Man's will to be free.
I'm not trying to defend communism here, but the ideology behind communism does not imply totalitarian governing methods.
;)
The fact that most communistic governments has resolved to said measures is a sad fact that just proves that communism doesn't work
The only places communism truly works, are in anthills and termite nests.
The new hotness: Wi-fi rickshaws baby!
I'm an American in China ATM (college student, school trip) and they offer i-net access in the hotel. I'm posting here (and am surprised) and can check my mail on AOL but I can't get to my university's website (www.muohio.edu) or contact that mail server at all. (or get on my VPN at the universtiy) Why would that be blocked? Bah. So my point is that they're fighting this hard and they're still not going to get the Internet proper - they're stuck behing the great firewall of China.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
sometimes you need to take radical measures i guess, beating people with a fire extinguisher .. dang ..
-=[the machine masters the grim and the dumb]=-
Their goal is to shut down the internet cafes before they all reach 18.
Huh?
In my travels through China I've used a lot of Internet Cafes. Often it was hard to find a seat because, they're so popular.
When I did, I often found that I was the only one 'using' the Internet. Everyone else was immersed in on line games (ok, they probably played over the Internet as well). Apart from the occasional chatter I was the only one using a browser.
Regards,
X.
I think Sony entertainment China should change their tagline to: "EverQuest, so good you'll maim and kill in order to maim & kill online!". Seriously though, isn't it time the chinese people did something about their draconian government enforcing such strange laws? I can understand some laws they have enforced (such as the laws preventing overpopulation (whether these laws work i don't know) this is nothing more than trying to keep the population dumb and uninformed. What the chinese youth should do is rebel against the government, and NOT the innocent internetcafe owners who are even more fearful of the government than they are. If only they could get organised (if only they had internet, heh) better.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you. This is a human rights issue. If the government can control the information that flows to the youth they can control everything. The Chinese government is denying the right to access information to the youth of China so that the only information those youth will have is government propoganda. Yes, youth are more impressionable than adults so you could argue that they need to be protected...but the only the that the Chinese government wants to "protect" them from are ideas that are unflattering to the Chinese governemnt. If thats not a human rights abuse, what is?
--HC
So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
What Marxist theory advocates is a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. This does not mean a 'dictatorship' in the sense of a small group of people telling everyone what to do; it comes from Marxist theory of the state, and is counterposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and before that the dictatorship of the aristocracy (in feudalism) and before that the dictatorship of the slave-owners (in ancient society).
The point is that in Marxist theory the state itself is by its very nature a class dictatorship; it is the instrument of one class against another, or several others. In a theoretical dictatorship of the proletariat, because the vast majority of the population will have become proletarians as a result of capitalism (peasants gradually becoming rural proletariat as well), the dictatorship of the proletariat represents almost the entire population, i.e. like the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, it is democratic *within* *itself*, representing the interests of those who run it. So a dictatorship of the proletariat would be a democracy representing everyone except the leftovers--the bourgeoisie, and possibly the peasantry, although in practice, an alliance with the peasantry was made out of necessity if nothing else.
This then leads to the withering away of the state as such; if we see the state as being a representative of class interests, and the state now represents the only class, and is a weapon of repression against the tiny minority (Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, etc.) who would like to restore the old system, then once the new society is consolidated the state as a class dictatorship is no longer necessary, and withers away. This doesn't mean government withers away, just class dictatorship.
Don't criticise something you don't know anything about.
It's about a band of teenage criminals who'll pound the shit out of anyone not bowing down to their requests, whatever it would be.
Internet access is just a coincidal background of this story.
Well, they're "trying" to deny access, but everyone knows how well telling a kid that you "can't do that", or "you're aren't allowed to look at that" works. They just get even more curious about what they're not allowed to look at.
The only method for control is to make stuff not even available, without anyone knowing what they're missing - and that's just not practical in China right now.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
The dictatorship was supposed to be carried out by the working class , not by the state.
go read for yourself
did you get Marx confused with Lenin?
I think the chineese gov' gave permission to the newspapers to publish this on purpose.
It look like a hideden message : "See how the young internauts are bad ? They'll kill you ! You HAVE to keep them out of your internet café !"
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Do people honestly think revolution anywhere is going to come without violence? I mean yeah an internet cafe' is not exactly the type of place to inspire rage, at least not in me, but anything can become symbolic to the oppressed.
I've spent the last 4 months traveling throughout Asia and am currently in Shanghai, China.
China is the only place I've ever been, which inludes about 100 countries and 6 continents, where I've actually been physically assaulted by a street vagrant. The kid was about 14 and begging for money. He saw that I gave his much younger brother some Yuan coins and approached me.
He stuck his hand out, and I pointed to his little brother as if to say, "I already gave your little brother some money." He then starts punching me in the stomach. Not hard enough to hurt, but not soft enough to not be annoying, either. He kept this up for 3 minutes while I was waiting to cross the street, then he followed me across the street, punching me the entire time.
A fast, well-placed elbow to his temple made him stop, but the Chinese in general are quite aggressive.
Now, people who have never been to China and have no idea what it's really like but who don't like what I just said, this is when you mod me down. Wouldn't want you to miss an opportunity to flout your ignorant righteousness.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
I think there is lots of things that these teenagers could do to gain wider access to the information they desire without attacking the poor souls who work at these cafes.
"Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."
Mohandas K. Gandhi on nonviolence
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
It couldn't be that the US invites critics where the totalitarian regimes, every arab one for instance, control media and always pick one scapegoat to point the finger at. Please, there is essentially zero drive to control what's fit to print over the arab and muslim world. The US abdicated what people around the world seem to think is a responability to make sure everyone can run to their lexus in slow motion in malibu. They didn't try to control the presentation of the US image in the middle east. And the totalitarian regimes sang the blame america song night and day. Small wonder that the whole region doesn't know any better.
Tell you what. I don't care why those people are fuckwits. It isn't my fucking problem. I DO care that they murdered 3,000 of my countrymen. That is my business. They are my fucking problem. And my vote controls who's finger is at the ready to turn them into shadows. And some way, one day, that WILL be THEIR fucking problem.
Little bitches want to sing the Blame America song, it's all good by me. I just want to give you an occasion to remember it by.
What a moron, around the middle east anyone can freely say anything they want about the US, and if they did the same about their own government they just disappear in the night, but the US is the problem. Give me a break. I could get more insight trepanning. I guess it's all America's fault people in North Korea are resorting to cannibalism, and that China sends the refugees back. We really are bastards.
and i read this in the media..
"The embedded process was supposed to give government a better handle on what journalists were doing, but now you have this whole rogue operation of civilians with digital cameras who have access to things the media don't," he said.
they didn't say the name of the chinese government official who said this.
Come on guys...
Refusing kids in cyber cafes has nothing to do with censorship... It is just a [unneeded] protection for minor. That's all...
And, by the way, I am living in China and I may say that a lot of children have access to the Internet and all the crapy websites hosted abroad :-P
Also, they don't have to wait until 30 years old ( or is it 21??? lol ) to have a glass of beer in a pub.
China is not so bad...
Cheers!The West is not so good...
" I don't think the Government there really cares if teens are using it to look at porn or not"
If that's true they can mandate a pr0n portal as a homepage on every browser and only ban girls.
Karzan's explanation is on-the-spot. If only those criticising Marx would read Marx every once in a while, such explanations would be superfluous, but unfortunately, even the /. audience seems to consist of people who are happy to parrot their high school history teachers, their parents or other 'authorities' when it comes to politics.
In China, a socialist revolution never took place. Mao's army, upon seizing a city, proceeded to ban unions and strikes, and left the police force that defended the old regime firmly in place. To call China a communist country is to show a complete lack of understanding of socialist politics.
Study Trotsky's work if you want to fine-tune your understanding of the travesties of socialism that were found in the Soviet Union, and elsewhere, after, say, 1925.
Whenever there's an article about China on Slashdot I always see so much clueless information being tossed about...
Here's some information from someone (a Westerner) who's lived here for around 3 years.
First of all, I guarantee you the children that did this did it because they're fucked up little shits. They certainly weren't doing it because of some freedom of information ideals. They were probably just pissed off cause they couldn't get on to play their MMORPGs and chat online. No matter if China's internet regulations are right or wrong, beating a guy over the head who's just trying to keep the store in business is not the way to change government policy. If anything, it just reinforces the opinion of the public that internet cafes are a bad influence on the young. Even my father-in-law, who is quite educated and a well respected school principal, thinks net cafes are evil places. Once when I told him I wanted to go check my email, he took my wife and I walking around town until we came upon a net cafe that didn't look too evil. It's a good thing I never told him I used to stay up all night in net cafes playing Starcraft with my friends while studying in Beijing!
Another thing people are forgetting is that this stuff is all dealing with internet cafes. It has nothing to do with what people do in their homes. Families are still free to have high speed internet in their homes no matter what age their children are. And anyone who is going to risk looking at censored information is probably going to do it from their own home. Almost all of the internet cafes are locked down to prevent users from messing with any internet settings, so it's not likely they'll be able to use proxies in the cafes anyway. In your home it's quite simple to go through a proxy. The people who really want outside information can get it easily enough. It's just the masses, who don't really care anyway, who can't get censored information.
Another thing, I always see people talking about how China's got so many laws against things such as pirated software, movies, music, and brand names but doesn't do anything about it. There's fake brand names everywhere, even in official franchise stores. And I can only recall one time that I saw official copies of movies and music for sale. Official software is easy enough to find, but nobody actually buys it. Anyway, my brother-in-law is the Secretary (not secretary) of the Consumer Affairs division of the Public Security Bureau in a large city, and I've asked him about this. They all know they could walk into any store and confiscate at least 95% of their goods, but they don't. If they did, stores would be going bankrupt all the time. If they tried selling official products most of them would go bankrupt too since nobody can afford to buy their products. So, should China protect the income of rich foreigners and bankrupt it's citizens, or should they protect their own and look the other way? It's a pretty easy decision, and most people forget the US did the same thing to England regarding copyrights not too long ago.
Sure, every once in a while there will be big crackdowns, and their real purpose is just to show investors. "Hey look, we're protecting copyrights! Come do business here!" More business investments in the country helps the economy, obviously. But everyone here knows the busts are for show. And most stores will be warned ahead of time so they can hide their products.
Bah I already wrote more than I thought I would...
If anyone actually read that whole message, congrats.
Do not anger the worm.
I think the poster you reacted to is right. These are exactly the kind of people who grow up to be dictators or the tools of dictators. What after all is a dictator? Someone who supresses others with violence and intimidation to get what they want. Exactly what these criminals did.
China has a law. It is a law not many others would agree with but then the US, so called bastion of freedom, has laws many others would not agree with. The previously mentioned ban on cannabis, somewhat legal in say holland and tolerated in most western nations, can get you a long time in jail in america. Would a gang rading a goverment run canabis plantation (for medicinal use) have the same kind of sympathy?
The only things these criminals have achieved is play exactly into the chinese goverment hand. They claim kids can't handle the internet and they have been proven right. After all throwing a fit and beating everyone up is hardly a sign that one is a responsible adult right?
Think of it in the same way as the "keep canabis illegal" crowd who uses every canabis related death as a sign of its evil (while totally forgetting that these deaths pale when compared to say alcohol related deaths).
I am not trying to defend the ban on internet access for minors (despite the bad joke that this would make online games a lot more enjoyable) but these kids are not protesting it. They are no more then any criminal who with violence breaks the law. No serious human rights defender would want to be associated with them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Xiahua may not be the most reliable info source... On the other hand, I want to point out some interesting cultural difference to fellow ./ers.
First, the teenagers are not necessary "seeking information" in internet cafe. They are not likely to be the politcal dissent kind that most are thinking about. Or else, they will try to be as low key as possible. The "illegal" info can also be porn, mp3 etc. The most usual activity is PC gaming.
Second, video arcade (internet cafe nowadays) can be a real trouble spot for the teens who don't want to go home at midnight. Car is not that accessible in most Asian countries. Flats are small. Teens need to find a place to have their first cigarette, need to have a place to get together with their in-group...
Quite naturally, fist fights and gangster problems are quite common in this sort of environment... The nature is a bit similar to a bar without alcohol. Even Hongkong under the UK colonial control (before 1997) need to impose similar rule for the video arcade, ie no children under 16 are allowed to enter standard video arcade. Quite a few secondary friends had got beaten up/ money taken by the gangsters in the video arcades when they were young (sneaked into of course)...
Curb the free internet access is of course one of the communist party's agenda. But, the very real teenage problem should not be overlooked either.
These kids are more closely related to the looters and other proviteers that turn up in times of trouble.
America has got gangs who "protest" the laws on drugs in the US and they use violence too. Are these your revolutionaries? Or just simple criminals?
Don't mistake someone breaking a law for someone protesting a law. I know the world likes to romantize everything but the mafia was not defending the freedom of americans to drink for instance. They were just criminals breaking the law.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I remember well that Dole's Presidential ...?)
...
campaign against Clinton seemed to sputter
away into nothing; he lost the election;
and then became the Viagra "poster child".
(coincidence, you say
Greenspan no sooner gets married to some
babe 30 years his junior, but his solid
economic policies went to crap
There should be a law against politicians
and beauracrats having unlimited access
to Viagra (and the other "performance
enhancers". They cannot make articulate
decisions while under the influence (too
much loss of blood flowing to the brain...)
Of course, that COULD BE the real explaination
why the Bush administration (collectively)
can't seem to plan a war (and aftermath)
worth a diddly (,or the economy, for that
matter.)
Some people in the administration act like
they have a compulsive addiction to this
stuff, as they are always walking around
in front of the cameras like they have a
perpetual "woody".
National Academy of Science and FDA should
do a combined study of the negative effects
of these drugs on rational thought processes
of politicians and beauracrats.
As far as I know, all societies make rules governing the behaviour of their youth that don't apply to adults. Denying young people (define "young" as you like, take 18 for this example) access to voting rights, driver's licenses, gun licenses, adult videos, etc is not a breach of human rights. It is a recognition that it takes a certain degree of development for the safe and effective exercise of the behaviours in question.
The Chinese government probably does want to restrict access to unflattering views of themselves, but to say that imposing a lower age limit on access to the internet is a human rights violation trivialises the concept of violating human rights.
There are a lot of other actions of the Chinese government that deserve scrutiny and opposition; look at their policies towards Tibet and Taiwan for example. Forbidding access to internet cafes below a certain age is, IMHO, comparable to requiring children to be 11 to get a library card, or 16 to get a driver's license.
All of the above does not apply at all if they try to restrict it to all of their citizens. Then it becomes a restriction of liberty, and then I would oppose it.
I live in South China and it is true that most web cafe use is for IM-ing or gaming. The majority of users..? Kids. I hardly ever see anyone my age (24) or older in a web cafe. I have never seen any attempt to enforce a ban on under-18s, obviously because that's where 90% of their income is from. It may be the case that people care about this law in Beijing (or want people to care about it) but I see no evidence of it in the South. On another topic, the "great firewall of china" is a bit of myth because with the simple use of a proxy I have found nothing to be inaccessible.
you are right on. what many here don't realise is that the ban is mainly to curb gaming and gambling in these cafes amongst teen gangs.
:-)
the great internet wall exists but like the real great wall is not very useful to a serious "barbarian" (user) intend on penetrating it
Try freenet for a while. The anonymous P2P network. Very much a tool for freespeech. Allows anyone to post material without fear of being found out. Now try looking at what is actually there. Child porn and copyright infringement and frankly a whole lot of perfectly legal stuff.
Not exactly the kind of stuff Amnesty International is fighting for eh?
If you see the internet as simply a tool for playing games or accesing porn (as china would like to do) then putting an age restriction on it is not that insane. No more insane then an age limit on driving, drinking, smoking or indeed riding a rollercoaster. Kids who raid liquour stores are not freedom fighters.
If the story is true then this plays right into the chinese goverment hands. See the evil internet turns kids into thugs. We must restrict access more!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Naughty teens. Freedom of information not that difficult. Piracy is all most can afford.
If I promise to be a good boy can I have some better karma?
But this guy probably has.
http://www.beta-7.com/blog/
Yeah, and Money for Nothin' and Chicks for Free...
to justify its push to further control and restrict internet Cafes.
At first, it was a fire in Beijing. Now, Internet
Cafe's have to pay hefty fines for even the smallest fire code violation (e.g. $500 if a single plastic trashcan is found).
Next, a story was heavily publicized about two teenagers who fell asleep on a train track after a couple days of gaming (of course, they got killed by a train). This story was taken to further clamp down on Internet Cafes. E.g. permits where given close to Schools or residential areas, and the Cafes had to close down over night.
This story is probably just pushed to justify the next wave. Maybe a police officer in front of every Cafe to "protect" it from the mob?
On the other hand, the Internet is used more and more for grass roots activism. Human rights organizations count about 50 or so Chinese that are currently imprisoned because of statements they published on the net.
---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
Most of you Westerners just don't get what it is like to be Chinese. I am one. I may not exactly live in China, or speak Chinese well enough, but I guess it's always an inescapable part of Chinese culture.
Chinese culture emphasises filial piety, almost blind faith of authority, etc. I don't know if Confucianism came because of the influence by the Warring periods (where, due to pure greed, Chinese armies attempted to seize control of all the states and unify them); or something else.
Don't ever forget that Chinese culture, as NatGeo once put it, looks to the future with one foot firmly in the past. It's something that we are sort of proud of. (I also remember the various Dynasties variably as periods of plunder, unrest, and corruption.)
Why does China insist on the one-China policy with the Republic of China? It's not because, I believe, of evil people; it's an almost blind faith to the belief that all Chinese belong in one nation. In Mandarin, Chinese is called Zhongguo - Zhong being "central" or "most significant", or something along those lines. Is there a United States of Besterica? They'd probably be trying to take Singapore - where I live - too, if there weren't such a large proportion of other races.
They were so eager to claim HK from the British, and have been generally not-so-militant about it (there is still incredible press freedom in HK). Why? Because authoritarianism isn't as important as housing all Chinese into one China.
My Chinese teacher once said - these types of people are a rarity in Singapore - that if you're Chinese and have nowhere to go, guess which country will welcome you with open arms.
What am I trying to say? That authoritarian control that you Americans resist, yes, that is not a good thing, but it has come about due to the influence of Chinese culture, not because of evil people. You people do not exactly understand *why* authoritarianism exists, choosing to see it in only a romantic, black-and-white, good-and-evil thing.
George Bush junior - not the best example of a good man, I guess - once said "there ought to be limits to freedom"; indeed, that's one of the most insightful things a man can say.
BUT Gandhi was fighting a democracy. A country with human rights laws (not very good ones and not always obeyed ones but at least there were laws). A country with a free press.
So the english goverment could not easily get away with gunning down a peacefull protest (not that is wasn't tried) without running a lot of risk of it being found out and it causing a backlash at home. In short the english goverment was tied down and then a peacefull protest can work.
A peacefull sit-in can work if the police officer ordered to break it up doesn't want to use violence (or is under orders not to use violence). If on the other hand he has orders to kill then.... Well we seen it in china a few years ago. Or america during the vietnam riots. Or the segregation riots in the US.
So "Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man." Should really be amended with,"Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man when used against civil man."
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"This article on the English version of the online newspaper Xinhuanet (...) but I've never beat anyone with a fire extinguisher because of it (not that I remember, anyway)."
What we have here is a state-run newspaper talking about kids trying to do what the state doesn't want them to do. Do you think the state will paint a rosy picture of them?
You'd have better luck getting the RIAA to admit that P2P really isn't all that bad.
In Orwell's Animal Farm the pigs at publically denounce alchohol, before they themselves become corrupted by it - but they still forbid other animals to drink. Perhaps the same is true of China - at first denouncing the internet, clearly the government must use it for administration / communication between departments - but they still control access to their citizens. Just a thought.
Nonviolence, Gandhi ..
/.
You are on the right track, everyone should stop and refuse to use the internet now to protest again controlling the internet in China.
They will get what they deserve when they no longer can read our comments on
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
How dare anyone on slashdot dissent from the groupthink approved ideology. In other news all problems can be sovled with hugs, technology, or coca-cola, pick any two.
Funny observation. There's a hour long look at why the Muslim world hates us where an American professor travels through the islamic world and talks to them. When he gets to a Malaysian boarding school, one of the girls, who hopes to study in America, said she hoped Bush would win the 2000 Presidential election because he's Christian and Al Gore was a Jew. She knows this is "true" because she read it on an arabic web site. Yes yes, and that's Americas fault too.
Wasn't R-Kelly's recent case thrown out because of a police officer's lack of experience with child pornography, the officer was not qualified to sieze evidence related to child porn due to lack of such experience, something like that. I wish I had the article with me, but there were 2 public cases cited besides R-kelly's
In the future if broadband could be provided at low cost from Low Earth Orbiting Satalites it would be nearly impossible for governments to control their citizens use of the Internet (unless they controlled the satalites). If the chineese teenagers were capable of acquiring the correct hardware it would be very difficult to restrict or censor their Internet usage in anyway.
It could even be possible for such a teenage to make money on the Internet and pay for his Internet service (with a service like PayPal) without the government ever having any knowledge of the financial transactions.
Grrrrr... don't bother me, I'm thinking.
It would be very like Communist governments to fabricate stories to support there ban on teenagers useing the internet. They can now say that Internet use in the past promotes gang activities...ya, sure.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Communism is far leftist, radical, while Fascism is far rightist, reactionary. However, one could argue that the political spectrum is more of a circle, as if one goes too far to either end, it loops around.
Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany followed the ideologies of Communism and Fascism respectively, and took seperate paths in both economic and political development. While the Soviets pretty much did away with all private enterprise during the Civil War of 1917-1920, only to reimplemenet it again to a limited extent in Lenin's New Economic Policy out of necessity, Nazi Germany continued with its capitalist economy. The Soviets created an entirely atheist state, while the Fascists, at least on the surface, made good with the Catholic Church, as can be seen in the case of Mussolini. Women were treated as more or less equals in Soviet Russia for purposes of employment, whereas the Fascist nations wanted women to serve a domestic duty.
The term you're probably looking for to describe the Chinese government is "Socialist," as the economy it created is a mixture of free enterprise and state enterprise. Clearly, the CCP is not fascist, because they are too leftist in their approach, totally lacking any conservatism in their ways, often attempting to literally destroy the history of the nation in order to exert control. Although this may sound absurd, women are actually supposed to be seen as equals in the eyes of the government. Is that Fascist? Definately not.
I think the problem with much of the USA-related rhetoric that's thrown around is it's mostly hyperbole -- too severe.
The States absolutely have a huge problem with its foreign policy. Too much mucking with foreign government's leading to terrorism, leading to yet again more mucking with foreign goverments.
The size of the domestic government has grown too much. The pendulum has swung too far with the advent of legislation like Patriot and DMCA. There sits a severely mentally impaired justice secretary. The President has the leadership qualities of a piece of cardboard.
But to say the US is Authoritarian is just too severe. You cannot compare the Chinese government and the US. By comparison to communist China, the USA is certainly the Land of the Free.
Do they block internet content? Have pro-choice folks been shot protesting in front of the white house and Supreme Court? Do you register with the government before going on vacation? Will the secret police come to get you in the night because your neighbor told the authorities about your anti-Bush discussion at the block party?
Authority certainly *does not* equal Authoritarianism. Nowhere in the West do we see the kind of tyranny that exists in Korea.
And yes, the voting/party system is screwed up and manipulative in America. But again -- that makes freedom an illusion? If the people of the USA got their collective heads out of their asses and elected a qualified, effective, third party to a major office, would the incumbant demo-plican stage a military uprising to stop the election results? Have the police ever visited your home for voting for another party, including the socialist party? I don't think Mary Cal Hollis has ever been imprisoned for what she believed.
I think all pleads/"Wake up America!" arguments I hear fall on deaf ears because of their extremity. You will not convince people to change their government by saying that it's just as bad as al-Qaeda. You will not convince people to change their government if you try to say that they're liberties are as restricted as the Chinese. It's not an apt comparison, and it turns most people off. Identify the problems for what they are, don't label them with such exaggerated terms.
In my humble opinion, the Chinese are prisoners of their government -- the Americans are prisoners of their own c complacency. But that does not disqualify them as free people, and it does not make their government Authoritarian.
"All your [smack!] internet [bam!] are belong to [bang!] us"
Yes, the Chinese gov't did give its permission to publish this article as it's in the government run newspaper. Xinhua is the press arm of your favorite local despotic ruling party. As to their motives, I will never presume to know what irrational men (or women) are thinking.
I will say this, when I was in Beijing there was a huge complex of internet cafes just outside the South gate of Beijing University. We called them the flying fish (feiyu) because as students we could only read the pinyin and not the characters. Anyway, for 4 months I went almost everyday. I skipped a week while traveling. When I got back, they were all gone. We are talking about two blocks of cafes (it was massive). The reason? A communist party official touring the area thought the cafes were too Western. Granted, this was about the time that the U.S. spy plane landed on Hainan (sp) Island. The Commies are terribly conflicted. They want economic growth so they can skim off the top, but they have no desire to be responsible to the people. I give them 10, 15 years, tops.
Now, what I don't get, is how they can see how someone can "look younger". Orientals look like they're 14 until they're 20, then they look like they're 20 until they're 40, then they look like they're 40 until they're 65 and then they look like they,re 125.
how about the age limit on pr0n then ??
If only we could go back to the good ol days when someone getting stone involved figuring out what to do with the body.
The only reason anyone has to get a library card is because there is a finite number of books in the library. There is plenty of internet to go around for everyone, however.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
You're right, this is "not" a human rights issue.
So just because a person is under 18 they don't have human rights? Why are children the only minority group that it's politically correct to discriminate against?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
When will people realize that limitations put on anything that otherwise comes natural to humanity ultimately results in conflict, most often of the violend kind.
And I'd say that homo sapiens is hardwired for net access.
However, that's the chinese government's way of saying: "we're too old and outdated to just give in to your new way of life, young punks, and if we give in too easily we'd lose face. You need to fight for it if you want it otherwise."
Mostly, I think, the government's attitude is "I don't really care what you do, as long as you admit I'm in charge."
.... or a better description, oppressive governments, have only one way to stay in power. That is to successfully brainwash every suceeding generation into acception the oppression. And I mean brainwash, mass conditioning, whatever you want to call it. They KNOW that once a person is a full adult, and has undergone a life long societal indoctrination, that they rarely ever become anit-regime, they "go along to get along".
They have been successfully force-morphed into a situation known in psychological circles as a being a victim of the "stockholm" syndrome, where the victim identifies so closely with the victimiser that they become willing in their desire to stay victimised, and cooperate beyond what is rational. This is true all over the planet, all through history. There are exceptions and extraordinary situations where it can be broken, but they are rare enough for each to become important milestones in history. In the US, it was the revolt over what was at the time "legitimate authority", ie, subservience to King George and royal rule and direction. Every single person who took part in the rebellion was by defintion a terrorist, and engaged in "illegal activity", overlapping felonies usually.
One of the main felonies was anti-regime pamphleteering, really the only way to spread ideas that ran contrary to the current group think acceptance of oppression at the time, that and some private and illegal soap boxing. that was it for communications back then, they used what communication was available at the time to spread ideas that were philosophically in opposition to the "approved" brainwashing.
China knows this, they can't let younger people break the mold, internet acccess allows differring ideas to be presented that they can't control as easily. Even with adults there it is highly restricted.
In western society it is somewhat different, but remarkably similar as well, although the differences are more subtle, the results are the same. Generation after generation societally conditioned to accept whatever the status quo is, and to only question to the point that is "allowed" by the regimists. It's done from a standpoint of forced government indoctrination in the schools, from what passes as entertainment, from what passes as the "full complete unbiased news" and so on, reinforced via "laws" that insist on whatever is the current group-think.
You'll notice that as soon as you approach whatever limits that allow for a peek to the other side that governments go absolutely ape squat in trying to nix it, we see it all the time, it only matters in the form of degree really. Chinas with communications are currently move overt, but western governments are getting there slowly but surely as well, they just have to do it in baby steps that are small enough to fit inside a brainwashing model that allows for new ideas of "legal" oppression to be accepted by the preponderence of their particular citizenry as "normal".
The education of a human being should be a right, if it isn't already. Information is the core of education (there's other things too). The Internet is one source of information.
If there are other equivalent sources of information available, then the Internet is not a right. Learn from books like I did. But, in China, the Internet is pretty much the only source for some necessary information, so it's wrong for kids not to have it. The government does not have the right to keep their population in ignorance.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
dude, the government requires people to be at least 18 to drive because driving can kill people, and who wants a adolsent at the wheel? its not the same thing.
But let's outsource anal creampies to India. I still need to see the cum bubble out of a chick's asshole, and I need to know that it's real. It's a me thing.
While it is deeply unfortunate that the people working at the café who were just doing their jobs had to suffer, this does not come as much of a surprise. Injustice incites violence. Democratic countries have seen tremendous violence over the injustices they have commited (US civil rights movement, the IRA, etc) and the same is bound to occur in totalitarian countries. I understand restricting a minors access to information is nothing compared to what was inflicted upon Ireland by Britain or upon minorities in the US, but it only one part of the larger injustice commited by a criminal state. It is wonderful that kid's are forming organized resistance to the injustices of thier country at such a young age, even if their specific actions were misguded.
I started driving when I was 15, I'm 24 now, never been in an accident, never gotten a ticket. If i hadent been able to drive to work, I probably would have joined a gang. Or just driven illegally.
...even if it is an inflammatory statement.
There should be one qualificatino though. A "disarmed society" would be ideal IF EVERYBODY was disarmed. Infortunately the world is far from an ideal place so long as someone, somewhere makes weapons.
In the American case I'd say most law-abiding gun owners are either hunters or those concerned about their personal safety, being US criminals tend to be quite a bit more armed in realation to those in other countries (that's a feedback loop of a different sort).
In the case of China, you have a population that is completely disarmed and a government (a REPRESSIVE one) that is VERY armed. The Chinese police force is not independent from the government ether, so it is not just there to enforce the law it is used as another weapon to protect government power. When a government cannot be voted out after all, the only possibility of regime change is a revolt so force is the most effective way to maintain power.
I'd say that in this case it is a relevant point. Teenagers are emulating their government because they see it gets what it wants through force and intimidation. This aggression is directed at regular citizens (the internet cafe owners) because the govenrment is much too powerful (and armed) to overpower when your weapons happen to be rocks, bats, fire extiguishers or whatever. The shop owner can't defend himself, but the policeman can shoot them on site.
Business owners/operators in China won't pressure the governmet to change the law because they value their new-found economic freedom too much to risk losing it. Government won't accomodate their every concern and if they put up too much of a fuss they'll lose their business at least, or at worst be imprisoned for subversion.
So what is the best solution? How do we cut off that "feedback loop"? I could not live in a society that is completeyl disarmed while its government is armed to the teeth. I'd also be a bit nervous living in parts of the US where it seems any old nut can get himself a gun.
It'd be really nice if all the weapons in the world cold e destroyed, but that isn't going to happen...if all gons were destroyed, people will make use of other items as weapons. So Of the two "evils" I'll take the US one thank you very much. I'd probably temper that with laws that do not restrict ownership but instead govern BEHAVIOUR in the intrests of public safety--and those laws should be enforced effectively. Deer hunting with automatic weapons? I think not! Loaded, concealed weapons on posession in public, urban areas? Not the best idea. Hunters, target shooters, security and police personnel, any personal firearm safely stored in the owner's home? The cost of messing with those situations for outweighs the potential safety concerns.
I've run into this is France, Italy, and England, so it's not unique to China. I think that gaming is the killer app for internet cafes. Lots of people can get the internet at home, or can borrow a friend's connection for free. People who can't won't spend that much time in an internet cafe; how much time do you really need to check your e-mail? But gaming, that's a social activity, and that gives a lot of people a good reason to plunk down the bucks to spend a few hours in an internet cafe.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Do they block internet content?
In public buildings, or libraries, yes
Have pro-choice folks been shot protesting in front of the white house and Supreme Court?
No, but it's not that uncommon nowadays for protesters, including peaceful protests, to receive less-than-kindly treatment from law-enforcement officials.
Do you register with the government before going on vacation?
No, but unless you plan on jogging to your vacation spot you're still being tracked. Try crossing a border or taking a plane without being tagged in some fashion.
Will the secret police come to get you in the night because your neighbor told the authorities about your anti-Bush discussion at the block party?
Thanks to the Patriot Act and friends, nobody would know if you did. If your neighbour knew, he'd face jailtime for revealing such information, and you are no longer guaranteed a lawyer and/or speedy trial
From what I see, China's human right's violations are becoming much more visible. In fact, the government is often quite candid about much of what they do or expect from citizens. Seeing as they believe their actions are right (and by some standard they are) there is no need to hide them.
The US government, on the other hand, knows what it is doing is to some degree wrong, or at the least that it wouldn't be widely accepted. There is a lot of cloak and dagger going on. Bills pass hiding in other bills, favoring corporate interests. The same for privacy/rights-killing bills hiding under anti-terrorist sentiment. And if you think that nobody has been arrested without a lawyer or gag order... I think you might want to pay more attention to the world around you.
Not even.
It's quite obvious that the Chinese under 18 crowd are upset because they are being denied an opportunity to join the growing hordes of adena farmers.
Hopefully some Lineage 2 playing moderators bump you up +1 funny.
(Go read the official Lineage 2 forums if you want to hear all about the Chinese companies paying players to farm money in the North American Lineage 2 release.)
Darn it. I thought this thread would have some juicy details about the new Red Flag Linux distro....
I saw this documentary last night: Children of the Secret State. The Chinese return escaped North Korean refugees back to North Korea to be shot.
Eat at Joe's.
but it ain't my point. Restricting people based on age from certain things is something every civilization has done. Blaming the chinese for that is unfair. This does not make it right in either way. Both the ban on internet or banning based on age. I just wanted to show that in the west we too have things banned for no very good reason.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Exactly. Apart from the conspiracy theories about the Internet being labeled "bad" in China, this is what the Chinese government are trying to outlaw. Cyber cafes in China are nothing but glorified arcades. Children use the Internet as an excuse for research purposes, and turn around to fire up CS or whatever game they fancy.
No, you're distorting what I said.
What I said is that restricting the freedom of children under a certain age from taking part in certain activities, viz, driving, watching porn, voting etc, is not a human rights issue. This is not at all the same as saying that children don't have human rights, only that they are more restricted in their behaviour than adults because they are (rightly in most cases, unfairly in some) thought to be less responsible/capable/intellectually able.
As far I understand, and this is a debatable issue, human rights relate to universal norms of treatment that are supposed to apply to all people. This does not mean that all people, all of the time, need to be given equal freedom to exercise all kinds of behaviour. Don't you think children of 5 need different treatment under the law than teenagers, and teenagers than adults? It is a complete straw man to suggest that the "magic" phrase "human rights" allows you to say that any group of people whose freedom is restricted are having their "human rights" violated.
Being unjustly imprisoned and killed violate human rights, not letting teenagers into an internet cafe does not. Even if it is an unjust prohibition, and I think it is a bit daft to try and keep 16 year olds off the internet, I don't think it qualifies as a human rights violation.
Looks like he got a couple troll, and overrated mods to me. Maybe your perception is skewed?
The USA may have more political freedom than China, but social freedom is just as restricted. All of your points only show the political freedoms of the USA, which have very little effect on the day to day life of people. Scandanavian countries have much greater social freedom than the USA, and social freedom is what is felt the most by people.
Now, it is logical to initially think that this is an effort to limit free speech or what have you, but really, its more of a health concern for young people. Internet "cafes" in China are definately not healthy places. They're about the equivalent in seediness to a bar here in the US. From what I have seen, small children were playing computer games for hours on end in a dark, hardly sanitary environment. For children, its almost like an addictive drug, compelling them to lie, cheat, and perform other dishonest activities just so they could get more computer usage time.
I'm suprised this was not brought up yet. Children can still access the internet (or whatever of it that has not been blocked by the great firewall), just not at internet cafes.
There has to be a population base that stands to lose if a dictatorship exercises power arbitrarily. IIRC, none of the countries that have a per capita GDP over $6,000 that made the transition to democracy have reverted back. Iraq's per capita GDP is now around $2,900.
My point is that it doesn't always take a benevalent dictator. Although there was a clamor for George Washington to assume the title of King, there were even more people who were against it. Washington did set a great example by leaving after just 2 terms. Sometimes it just takes enough people willing to oppose a dictatorial regime for democracy to take root. A group of barons looking after their own rights forced the Magna Carta on King John and that was a big step towards individual liberty and against the arbitrary exercise of power. If enough people have something to fight for, they probably will.
As for assault rifles and RPGs... private owners can and do posess these items in the U.S. (the latter illegally, but that's never stopped anyone.) If it ever comes down to war against our own government, the same political rules will apply. Voters won't stomach bloodshed like we endured at Gettysburg. If it gets ugly, stick a fork in the President, cause he's fuckin' done.
And you're very astute in observing that it will likely be "some rogue element of the Army" that finally overthrows our government. As Che Guevara wrote, "triumph will always be the product of a regular army, even though its origins are in a guerilla army." Having served in the military, I tend to believe that even the comfiest armchair Generals would think twice before obeying an order to put down a citizens' rebellion.
Tells me any type of prohibition that goes smack against the needs and wants of the common population is skin to the ministery silly walks. Before you criticise the chinese ask yourself are the politicians over here in europe and the US gonna stop your access to good, wholesome narcotics like coke, cannabis, heroin, peyote etc. ? In the eyes of chinese officials they are the same? And why can't a decent human being age 27 get cigarettes or alcohol in some alabama jurisdictions? How about OUT OF SYNC !???