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

Re:Nothing to see here, move on

[rolfwind]

Well, at least our friendly Bush administration has something in common with Communist China:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/09/19/AR2005091901570.html

Now who knows what other similiarities they have? Perhaps we'll find out that they actually torture prisoners in secret locations to fight the war on terror, similiar as China tortures a diverse range of seperatists for their own "war on terror":

http://www.cfr.org/publication/4765/chinas_war_on_ terror.html?breadcrumb=default

Nothing to see here, move along people!

It's all in the definition

[ztucker]

It should be noted that in China the word "democracy" is considered pornographic

Communist country? Are you serious?

[Flying pig]

China is not a Communist country. It's an oligarchic dictatorship. The fact that said oligarchy calls itself "communist" is about as relevant as Lebanese militias calling themselves "Christian" or the Provisional IRA calling itself "Trotskyite". You can call yourself what you like. But if you want historical parallels for current Chinese government, the Imperial Roman system or the Venetian Serene Republic are probably closer analogies.

I wouldn't get cross about this misnomenclature except that there have been a very few real attempts at Communist government, notably in India, and they shouldn't be dirtied by association. Let's be clear - if the Chinese people eventually overthrow or modernise their government, it will be the end of the process of the rise and collapse of large scale dictatorships in the 20th Century.

To sum up

[deblau]

Sex is good, unless it's for money, then it's bad (in capitalist America, who would have thought?). Porn is good, unless you're a conservative. Sex with children is bad, but selling it is really bad. Violent porn is very, very bad. Violence in general is bad, unless you're under a repressive government, in which case it's OK to overthrow a dictator if it's yours, but not if it's somebody else's. China is terrible, because they spy on their citizens. America is the greatest country on Earth, we'd never do that. Oh, wait, yes we would. It's great to speak out, unless you're in a paranoid government that doesn't follow its own laws (but I just covered that). But we're still the best, because we're loud, over-confident, and we've got the 82nd Airborne, and all you other countries don't, so neener neener. Oh yeah, and we've got God on our side, and that beats all you heathens.

Did I miss anything?

Re:Nothing to see here, move on

[koreth]

Meanwhile, Western leftists think that the occasional terrorist mass murderer getting slapped around is much more worthy of attention and support than peaceful political dissidents in leftist dictatorships, even dictatorships that have strayed from the "faith" like China.

Far be it from me to stop a self-satisfied rant from completely mischaracterizing the political views of tens of millions of people, but are you talking about Western leftists like Amnesty Interational? Or maybe you mean Human Rights Watch. Hmm, no, that's not it. Well, please provide examples, since you're obviously quite certain.

Ignore the possibility, of course, that you're living in a Western country, and thus are more likely to hear about protests directed at your own government. Or that China is successfully covering up some percentage of its internal discord, so you're never hearing about it. Or that China has been crushing its citizens for decades, while the West's adventures in fabrication-based nation building are more recent, and thus more likely to garner comment. Or that Western countries have more of a tradition of listening to their citizens, and thus the citizens are more likely to speak out about their own governments' policies with the expectation that it might actually do some good.

Concentrating effort where it's most likely to have an effect is clearly way too abstract a concept for wacko yogurt-eating Birkenstock-shod lefty nutjobs, so it must just mean they're hypocrites with no sense of proportion.

Re:My Dreamjob:

[limber]

why bother moving all the way to china? Try Canada. here in Ontario, there is a statutory requirement that *every* "adult sex film" in distribution be reviewed by a screening panel of the Ontario Film Review Board.

In actuality the setup is used as a cash cow for the government -- in order to get a film distributed, you have to pay a fee for them to review it and approve it for distribution. It's kind of ridiculous.

Joking aside, it turns out that the job is quite mind numbing. the panel members basically sit in a room all day long watching porn on fast forward with the audio muted. they only slow it if they think something verboten (e.g. beastiality, child porn etc) is onscreen.

Watching porn at your leisure is one thing. But *having* to do so as your job? And you don't just get to watch the stuff you enjoy. You are trapped there watching *all* the bad porn that is being made. Umm, no thanks.

You didn't get the memo ...

[willtsmith]

China stopped being communist when switched from a planned/command economy to a free market system. But they made sure to keep the authoritarian regime in place.

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, they called that fascism. I guess when the pots occupy the media and government infrastructure, they are unwilling to call kettles black.

Re:I believe this is nothing new for china

[Txiasaeia]

If that's not porn, what is?

At the very most, it's erotica - if we consider it to be an example of an ideal married relationship, rather than a metaphor for the relationship between Christ and the church (which is stretching it a bit, methinks).

A discussion of women's breasts as tasty fruit is tasteful (if you'll forgive the pun). But how is talking about the female form, even genitalia, considered to be pornographic? The purpose of porn is sexual titilation. The Bible is mostly story-driven, and its purpose is to teach and to inform; most of the stories themselves are there because they give us illustrations of fellow humans who have failed miserably or succeeded magnificently.

If you think the Bible is porn, wait until you see this anatomy textbook I've got! Talk about your playmate of the month!