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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 US govt has yet come to the realization that their constant drive to block/censor percieved anti-US content (in the middle east) only leads to more anti-US feelings of the people.
They have high ambitions if they want to prevent any teenager from using the internet. Communism vs. Free speech?
More like Communism vs. Kids with fire extinguishers.
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
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..
It's like the Beastie Boys said, "you've gotta fight! for your right! to party!"
Sometimes that requires the use of fire extinguishers.
A blog about stuff.
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.
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."
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.
$10 on the kids with fire extinguishers.
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.
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.
This is almost certain to get me modded troll, but what the hell, i'm not posting AC just because people don't like the truth.
Current Capitalist societies lean no more prevalently to Freedom than do communist ones. The much vaunted freedom of the western world is an illusion. Internally to the United States this can be seen with the careful "arrangements" between the Democrat and Republican parties for electoral boundaries that effectively ensures that neither party can become overshadowed by any other political force.
External to the US the same holds true due to factors of economic and military dominance.
Most of the reason that large parts of the rest of the World are inimical to the United States is due to the entirely correct perception that the US is a dominant force in the arena of capitalism and has no moral qualms about using that dominance to subdue any alternate memes.
The United States Government (and other "Capitalist" Governments) are authorities - and with that status goes Authoritarianism. A choice between A & B is not a choice at all when A & B have the same opinion of subject X, and I disagree and want to vote for C, who represents my opinion.
The citizens of the United States really need to get over this "Land of the Free" bullshit and realise that their government is just as tyranical, expansionistic and controlling as any other.
You may now proceed to Mod me Troll.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
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.
Sir I salute your honest post, and will willing take the fall for you, as I'm sure I will be marked troll/flamebait for agreeing with you
After 9/11 there was a section of America wondering "Why do they hate us so much?" (The rest were busy hoping anybody who hated u so much was being sentenced to permanent time in Abu Ghraib..). Anyway I'd like to propose a reason why "they hate you so much" - it's simply hypocrisy. America - to the outside world keep preaching equality , justice, huma rights, democracy e.t.c. But you drop all that bullshit in an instant if the dictator come around to your side and starst kissing your ass. This foreign policy causes a LOT of resentment. If you really stood for Democracy and the rule of law why would u support Pakistan(Dictatorship) over India(Democracy), Saudi Arabia(Theocracy), and let human rights abuses in China go by in a flash, but highlight them in the rest of the world. Be consistent. A dictatorship is a dictatorship, whether it kisses American butt or not. Plus Dictatorships have the nasty tendency to turn against you when they get bored - i.e. The Taliban (who are/were a CIA creation, designed to kick Soviet Russian ass) and Iraq as well (in the Iran/Iraq war). So as an appeal to Americans, please vote out this monkey of a president, and make sure you pressure the other guy and make sure he's more bothered about local jobs than foreign leaders.
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