China Rewards Porn Snitches

MinimeMongo writes that the "Associated Press reports that China's police ministry on Sunday handed out rewards of up to $240 to people who reported pornographic Web sites in a campaign to stamp out online smut...The online crackdown is part of a sweeping official morality campaign launched this year on orders from communist leaders."

Comments

Counterproductive?

[Doc Ruby]

Porn is an accessory to masturbation, the safest sex: no STDs, no conception. With China facing ongoing crises in both those human conditions, isn't porn the State's best comrade?

Could be a bad thing

[mtrisk]

Could be a good thing if it ultimately puts another thorn in the side of spammers who promote those pr0n web sites. Could be a bad thing if it is nothing but pure censorship.

A government that excuses its actions by acting as a sort of parental figure, is a corrupt government indeed. Human beings are critical thinkers, thank you very much, and it is an insult to the intelligence of a Billion+ Chinese if China's government thinks it should "protect" them from "harmful content" so that they don't "harm" themselves.

I know that's not the real reason, but seriously, who does China think it's fooling?

Re:yes, and the actors aren't even people!

[HeghmoH]

Forcing porn to go underground (anybody who thinks that outlawing it is going to stop it needs to be less naive) will certainly improve conditions for porn industry workers, in much the same way that forbidding drugs and prostitution has made life so much better for junkies and whores. Making it so a porn actress can't go to the police when something happens will certainly make her life so much better.

Re:apropos

[tarunthegreat2]

You know, the stereotypical politician is meant to be a Used-Car salesman. And frankly, I'd rather have a whore for president than somebody who is as naive as Bush...yes you heard me correctly - I'd rather have a sell-out like Kerry than somebody who actually stands for what they believe in - like Bush. I believe that ruling the most powerful country in the world means that you have demonstrate some flexibility. This is isn't frikkin' Little League, where there is Good and Bad, Right & Wrong. There are lots of shades of grey, and they all need to be dealt with in their own way. Most Americans don't want to look into the causes behind the 9/11 butchers, but the fact is that they were idealists too - true believers to their cause and look what they accomplished. The same goes for Lenin, Mao, e.t.c. When your politicians are selling out to the highest bidder, that's when you know everything's ok in the world. If they start taking up causes, and preaching The Right Way & The Wrong Way or With Us or Against Us policies, that's when it's time to be afraid.

Re:control

[pnatural]

Look at a person like Bush - apparently his thinking has been something like this:

Get baptised [sic] or 'born again' or whatever is the cheap and easy way. Now you're a good person - a 'Christian' full of the Holy Ghost.

It sounds to me like you hate Bush and are working backwards from that to deem his faith lacking or in some way not sincere. You also seem to be working from the specific to the general, which is sometimes called a Fallacy.

My guess is that you already hate Christians or Christianity, because later you say this:

you can be a hedonist and highly moral, you can be a Muslem [sic] or a Communist and highly moral; whether you can be a Christian and highly moral is another question, which I can't answer, since I'm not one.

So your logic is:

hedonist == Potentially Moral
Muslim == Potentially Moral
Communist == Potentially Moral
Christian == Unknown because you're not one

So either you actually are a hedonist-Muslim-Communist and you can attest to all of them, or (perhaps more likely) you don't really understand Christianity, but realize full well that it's okay to vilify and hate the religion in the USA. My guess is the later, but either way... whatever... your assertions are baseless. But don't let logic stop you from posting to ./ !!