Slashdot Mirror
China Employs Campus Internet Overseers
d'alz writes "China's Internet police, reportedly including as many as 50,000 state agents, have monitored the Chinese citizenry's online habits. They have blocked Web sites, erased commentary and arrested people for what is deemed anti-Party, or anti-social, speech. Several hours each week Hu Yingying, a college student, goes to a little-known on-campus office crammed with computers. There she logs on, unsuspected by other students, to help police her university's Internet forum." From the article: "Under the Civilized Internet initiative, service providers and other companies have been urged to purge their servers of offensive content, ranging from pornography to anything that smacks of overt political criticism or dissent. The Chinese authorities say that more than two million supposedly 'unhealthy' images have already been deleted under this campaign by various mainland Internet service providers, and more than six hundred supposedly 'unhealthy' Internet forums were shut down. These deletions are presented as voluntary acts of corporate civic virtue, but have a coercive aspect to them, because no company would likely risk being singled out as a laggard."
C'mon, mod the troll down.
fp?
"Check out this great idea I read about on the Internets. Why don't you implement this in our country as your first act as CIA director, General Hayden! Ah'm sure it'll help us stop those tourists."
"Terrorists, sir."
"Ah yeah, terrorists."
women make the best snitches.
it's a good thing they aren't good at math, or we'd be sunk in the workplace.
where i work, there's a routine stream of attractive women who quickly advance because they fuck executives.
No, the government just exposes your wife, who is working undercover for the CIA to uncover the secrets of Iran's nuclear program. Whoops. Sorry Valerie.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
The U.S. government is operating secretive prisons in Eastern Europe and not so secretively in Guantanamo where they are holding people without charge or trail, and apparently in many cases engaged in low grade or maybe even high grade torture.
Three squares, a Quran, a prayer mat, and the direction to Mecca. Doesn't get any better than that for Jihadists.
A big percentage of those people are doing hard time for drug related antisocial behavior.
The dope smokers always reveal themselves.
The U.S. government apparently is increasingly piping massive amounts of digital communication in to the NSA where they are largely able to spy on whatever they feel like since there is very little judicial oversight now since the Bush administration circumvented the FISA court.
Hasn't put much of a crimp in overseas communications, unless you are trying to contact your sister cell in Hamburg.
As nearly as I can tell if a 19 year old boy tries to strike up a romantic involvement with a 16 year old girl on the Internet there is a risk he will be arrested in an FBI sting or put on the TV in a sting by some TV news organization looking for some sensational reality TV.
Makes for great television. Perhaps sexual predators will think twice.
All in all this is basically the same kind of repression, spying, censorship and social standards enforcement as that the Chinese are doing, the only thing that is different is the scope and the degree.
Pope Benedict has warned us about the dangers of moral relativism. Perhaps you should read some of his stuff.
One of the big knocks against China is they would seize people's property and give it to developer cronies of the party. Well recently the Supreme Court authorized seizing people homes to turn them over to a drug company to build a new office complex.
This court decision was indeed disturbing. But here in the US we have a legislative branch that can correct the actions of a rogue court. This is entirely lacking in China.
All in all I wouldn't get all holier than thou about how bad the Chinese are and how good the U.S. is.
If I were you I'd try to do something about your self-loathing.
an ill wind that blows no good