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Chinese Force Mass Closure Of Net Cafes
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."
Serve alcohol at the Inertnet cafe and the problem is solved. No controversy either
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
I suppose it's only a matter of time til the chinese government learns what most people already know. If more than a few people know a piece of information, then it's pretty hopeless to try to contain it.
Now if only the RIAA/MPAA would learn this lesson.
Because it's important that we limit, as much as is possible, our children's exposure to information, education, technology, or anything else that might shape them into better, more productive members of society.
China: The Biggest Red State.
In other news, the Chinese goverment are a bunch of commie bastards, SCO are liars, and Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop market. Seriously though, this kind of reporting is good. People tend to forget about this kind of stuff unless they're frequently reminded.
China, for all the hype about markets opening up their society, is still a totalitarian communist country. I'm not surprised that they've cracked down on the cafes; I'm surprised they exist at all.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
We will impose our elitist totolitarian regime on you because of the Children! Won't you think of the children? (Thud) How about now? (Whap) Now? Good!
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
We all hate what the Chinese government are doing to their population, but all you admins out there, think about it. Their censorship technology is the best in the world, and it would improve production if it was implemented in USA companies. How would it improve production you ask? It will, for example, keep people from reading Slashdot all day.
At least the ban for inet cafe close to elementary school. In Argentina we have a similar situation, there are a lot of inet cafes because hardware is very expensive since peso devaluation and Internet conection is also expensive. Most inet cafes are used to chat using MSN and IRC and playing FPSMPG (like Counter Strike), so boys hang around for hours there instead of studying. It is very cheap, because there are a lot of inet cafes, it cost about 0.35$/hour, that is cheap even for us. Boys mostly plays and some MSN, and girls go just to chat via MSN.
I am giving a basic computer course in an elementary school (9 to 12 years old) and they are asking me to teach them just to chat, even before learning how to type!
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
I was in Beijing last summer, and the one thing that struck me was how our American media promotes an image of an evil tyranny in China. (While it is true that most freedoms - as we know them here - don't exist, it isn't the spawn of evil its made out to be.)
;)
I had no problems accessing the Net from my hotel - albeit an intl. dialup connection - and even visited a few Net cafes. Most people I spoke to said the Internet was great but that we Americans don't realize that what we may want or consider a "great freedom" here in the US is not considered as important in the rest of the world. (Alright before you start going berserk and start spewing off about basic human rights, consider that we have made many, many mistakes in the past and it took us time as well to reach a state where we consider these freedoms as our rights; give 'em time!)
Anyway, my point being, Internet was completely accessible except for a few sites that seemed to be proxied out at the Net cafes - Slashdot being one of them!
The main causes given for the closures is locating a Cybercafé right next to a school and allowing minors free access to pornography. What chance do you think a Cybercafé would have to continue trading in the EU, US etc. if it was found to be a magnet for truants and/or providing unfettered access to pornography to minors? They also restrict violent games to certain age groups, which is different to the age requirements we have on our computer game boxes, how exactly? Doom 3 is rated "18" in the UK for example, and companies can be prosecuted for breaking that restriction and selling the game to a minor. The same goes for logging all outbound access - you'd be insane not to log everything if you were running a Cybercafé in the event someone launched a cracking attempt from your premises.
OK, I do have concerns that these logs are going to be "auditted" by the Chinese government for what they might see as subversive elements, disloyal behaviour or whatever. The censorship of free access to information, even if it *is* pornography, should not be blocked - immoral and illegal should not automatically be the same thing. Still, at least the Chinese appear to understand that restricting Internet content is an internal matter and are making an effort to deal with it themselves instead of trying to ram their legislation down the throats of other nations. Now if only they would let their people have a larger say in what was and was not permitted...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Becuase of the difference in cultural, you American sometimes cannot understand Chinese people. Something we think normal you think crazy. The reason to restrict build net cafe 200m away from school is that too many kids go to net cafes after school and spend too much time on computer games or internet surfing. Many parents complain about this. Another reason for closure is the porngraphy information. Viewing and keeping these pictures on pulic machines is prohibited in China. This is the same in pulic libraries in US.
You seriously have no idea what you are talking about.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Its their country, their rules..
...
Let's take that idea to a logical conclusion:
Sudan...it iss their country, their rules.
Serbia...it is their country, their rules.
We can go back in history and include Cambodia, Nazi Germany,
I guess hatred of America is so strong these days that the Slashbots feel compelled to defend every other government, even some of the most despotic and totalitarian.
You're right, human rights abuses are only interesting when it's new/exciting information .. because it's not about the information, it's all about the topical buzz, the fashionable memes, yeah man. I mean who wants to discuss China's ongoing human rights abuses, that's like sooo yesterday already! What's "cool" today?
China cannot embrace a completely 'open' western style of democracy as trumpeted by the United States, it's an impossibility with their current population numbers and the land predicament that they're in.
China has around 70% the arable land that the United States does yet it has around 4 times the population (give or take). With numbers of people like that and the sheer logistics of feeding them all, a more heavy handed form of 'population control' is needed above and beyond lightly recommending how people do things. This is why you've seen policies such as the 1 child rule and a general aversion to completely opening up internet access to the public. Some would say that this keeps them in a state of ignorance, but honestly we as Americans have absolutely no idea what it would be like to have that many Americans running around.
Imagine this country with say.. 2.4 billion people walking around. It'd be a nightmare and if you think that the government of the US, if faced with the task of controlling and moving society along with that many people around, wouldn't impelement hard core big brother control, you have another thing coming. Free is a great idea when you have sea to shining sea and amber waves of grain, things get a bit hairer when famines could potentially kill HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS people and cause unrest on a scale never seen before by man if the dinner plate isn't filled. Also keep in mind that people are generally stupid and impulsive when they get into large groups (regardless of beliefs). This fact about human behavior has the potential to produce some pretty disasterous results.
People like to point out that India is the world's largest democracy. What they fail to mention is that India also has one of the longest lived and highly adhered to caste structures ingrained into the very fabric of their society. So yeah, they're democratic but at the same time everyone is 'assigned' a place that they cannot move from, so you're back to rigid control of thoughts and ideas in one form or another. The benefit that India has is that their generally effective use of education still bolsters innovation.
China does what it has to do to get the job done. No more, no less. I don't like the fact that they're communist. I don't like that fact that they censor and propogandize everything, but looking at it objectively, I can understand the effectiveness of the method.
I am from Ukraine, and in November, when it was Orange Revolution here in Ukraine, I've read various people comments on bbc.com on that topic (our revolution). While most comments were positive, I remember one comment from china's women; she was very negative and said that people should better care about other things as food, money and such.
May be for china people it's acceptable that your goverment are gangsters and thiefs as long as they give you enouth food. For me, it isn't.
PS. Sorry for my bad English.