China Declares War on Internet Pornography

segphault writes "The Chinese government has shut down nearly 600 pornographic web sites, and arrested over 200 people for distributing "obscene" content. The Chinese government has also started performing covert surveillance of mobile phone text messages in order to crack down on banking fraud and prostitution organized and perpetrated with text messages. Ars Technica has the story: 'With more than 100 million Internet users, China has the second largest population of web content consumers after the United States. Although the Chinese government promotes web use for business, education, and government activity, the communist regime has committed its resources to crushing web sites that challenge government authority, or distribute content that the government considers to be detrimental to society'"

Comments

I believe this is nothing new for china

[manavendra]

For a communist country with a long history of very little respect for civil liberties and personal autonomy.
In the past they have:

1. China: Police Shut Down Gay, Lesbian Event
2. Rampant Violence and Intimidation Against Petitioners - Chinese citizens who petition Chinese authorities for the redress of grievances are attacked, beaten, threatened, and intimidated

Not to mention China's stance on Hongkong's pursuit of democracy...

Re:I believe this is nothing new for china

[Txiasaeia]

Given that Lot thought God would be thrilled for Lot to send his daughters out to the crowd to keep the rowdy neighbors from bothering his angelic neighbors...

And general Christian thought is that Lot was a hypocrite for doing so.

... the wife-stealing, husband-murdering David was the anointed of God...

Widely thought of as a failure of David's, and the reason why he wasn't allowed to build God's temple.

... the mother of Christ was an unwed teenager already engaged to somebody else when she got pregnant...

By the Holy Spirit. According to church thought, Mary did nothing wrong.

...and the wild adventures of Onan who was supposed to commit adultery against his own wife by impregnating his dead brother's wife...

First of all, nowhere in Genesis 38 does it say that Onan was married. Second, there were some very good reasons for levirate marriages to be performed during this period.

...and you get one heck of a lot of porn in the Bible itself.

Porn? Porn is, as far as I'm concerned, defined as gratuitious sexual references in whatever format designed to titilate. Lot's actions showed us how screwed up he was. David's actions, too, go to show why God's chosen wasn't allowed to build the temple. Mary did absolutely nothing wrong, and there's no reference to sex *at all* in the accounts of her conception in the Gospels. The closest you have to any kind of graphic sexuality is the story of Onan, but the story was about how he was disobedient; it wasn't a pornographic story in any way, shape, or form.

Perhaps you're confusing "sex" with "porn," in which case yes, there are several sexual references and stories with sexual overtones in the Bible. But these references do not mean that the Bible is pornographic, any more than this post is pornographic.

s/China/Western World

[xiando]

Please consider how Internet censorship is being implemented in the "free world" when reading this story.

Example: Starting January 1st 2006, it is illegal to have organized debate on how to by-pass copyright restrictions in Finland. It is also illegal to distribute software, also free software, that can be used to by-pass copyright restrictions. This is a violation of free speech in the Internet in The Free World(tm).

Another example: In many countries now it is illegal to inform that the World War II holocaust where claimed six million jews supposedly died is a hoax. You don't even need to be accused of lying, which you are not by informing about this issue, in many countries you will simply be put in prison on the vague charge of "denial".

And there are many, way too many, examples on how free speech is being violated and limited in the western world.

The first amendment seems to be the only one left in the USA now and it is under constant attack. Eye-ball the story and ignore place in the world (China), this is something every citizen should protest against, regardless of where in the world it happens - And it is, sadly, a trend that I see too clearly all over the world these days.

Btw. You might aswell start using http://tor.eff.org/ right away - Sadly, tools that allow anonymous communication have now become necessary and essential.

Re:Communist country? Are you serious?

[Eli Gottlieb]

What you speak of is called "Oligarchical Socialism". True Communism has no government and no private ownership of the means of production.