Chinese Force Mass Closure Of Net Cafes

Posted by Hemos on Monday February 14, 2005 @02:10AM from the need-to-guard-rights dept.

Chien Andalusia writes "According to this article from the BBC, the Chinese authorities closed 12,575 net cafes towards the end of 2004. Due to the expense of computer hardware, net cafés have become very popular in China in recent years. The laws governing such cafés are very strict, especially in relation to minimising the amount of exposure children can get to the internet. For example, no net café is allowed to open within 200 metres of a middle or elementary school. The article also briefly discusses other restrictions imposed on Chinese net cafés."

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Re:Sigh, Freedom of speech out the window by luvirini · 2005-02-14 02:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

Well the point of the restrictions is not really to stop those who do their best to circumvent things. Instead the point is to keep the public at large ignorant. Every society will have it's dissidents, but it is only when a significant proportion of people get dissident that real problems occur for those ruling. That is what the government tries to stop.