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China Jails Porn Site Leader For Life
eldavojohn writes "The AP has picked up the story of a man convicted of serving internet porn in China. They report that he has been jailed for life. Eight accomplices were given sentences ranging from a few months to almost a decade. Some might view internet pornography as morally wrong but I wouldn't think it to warrant a lifetime sentence." From the article: "Xinhua reported that police said it was difficult to know the exact amount of profits the Web site earned. Police found about 200,000 yuan ($25,000) in the bank accounts of the nine. When the site was closed in October last year, it contained more than 9 million pornographic images and articles, the police said."
And to think, only 3 weeks ago Chinese officials tried to convince the UN that the Chinese government does not censor the internet.
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
If pornographers are getting life, then spammers should get the death sentence. Of course, it would also undermine the capitalist underpinnings of the internet since porn and spam go hand in hand.
"Some might view internet pornography as morally wrong but I wouldn't think it to warrant a lifetime sentence"
Some view smoking marijuana as morally wrong but people spend decades in prison here for smoking a joint.
Ohh yea, you're right. I mean, wouldn't it be wonderful if everything we did was punishable by life sentences?
What about an off-color remark on Slashdot? You're polluting the site! LIFE IN JAIL. How about a turn on red, with a sign that says "no turn on red?" Those stupid drivers need to spend their lives in jail! The entire cast of Lost or Battlestar Galactica need to be sent to prison as well, because their shows show too much skin!
Seriously dude, don't you have any fucking compassion? So, just because you don't want to run into any porn sites on the Internet (boo hoo), you think people should rot in jail for life over it? You're on scary son of a bith.
Don't you realize that it's the very freedom of information (whether you like it or not) that has made the Internet as popular and useful as it is?
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I ask the following as a genuine question, and I really would appreciate an answer.
I assume you understand that your beliefs and morality are not necessarily shared by others, just as I understand that you probably do not share my opinions. From this, however, the only fair conclusion I can draw is that I have no right to interfere with your actions unless they are infringing on my ability to exist happily and in a way that does not affect you.
Your post seems to indicate that you believe people who do not follow your moral code should be punished - therein lies my question: if you believe it is right to punish those who disagree with you simply for acting in a way that you find objectionable, without interfering with you personally, why is it not equally right for others to punish you for your acting in a way that they find objectionable, even if you do not do so in a way that affects them?
A great reason why morality shouldn't be the sole basis for laws. Luckily, the US Supreme Court has overturned most laws that specifically say activites against the community morality are a crime. In countries as large as China, and the US, morals will vary greatly from place to place and person to person, and legislating it is a mistake. Those differences give us strength.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Pretty strong to have these two sentences on one line.
If I'd be living in your neighbourhood I would consider moving to a more enlightened place.
And that's something these poor Chinese victims of your type of 'Morality' can't do.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
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Some might view internet pornography as morally wrong but I wouldn't think it to warrant a lifetime sentence
8000 year old civilization, 1+ billion people and you know best for them don't you. Go eldavojohn, China awaits your wisdom.
Yet, the government gives an implicit "okay" to prostitution. About 33% of Chinese men returning from the mainland to Hong Kong have purchased the services of a prostitute.
Why is pornography worse than prostitution? Pornography is about fantasy. Prostitution is about reality, and in China, prostitutes are sometimes children.
>Perhaps pornography is simply a Western invention and a predilection that strikes people in Asia as bizzare.
I think you have not heard of certain Japanese perversions..perhaps Asia didn't invent porn
(although I think Indian murals are prior art!), but they certainly wrote some damn fine manuals.
Right wing (or in fact, any wing) religious extremists are always interesting to observe. The whole "I am right and you are wrong because you disagree with me. And incidentally, did I mention that I know that I'm right because it says so in an ancient book full of allegorical stories that has had a very dodgy history of translation and reproduction by illiterate monks" attitude leaves no basis for rational discussion. I wonder if there are any other groups of people in the world with similar blinkered views? Hmmm, let me think...
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
...they mock God's evolution.
You believe they mock a diety you've freely elected to worship.
Please keep in mind that the rational part of the world, the one which has has never chosen to believe in the existence of idols or gods, doesn't necessarily want the "moral values" your fellow cultists have invented forced upon them.
If you stopped searching for trivial things which you claim are offensive to you then life would probably be alot better for everybody.
You like to hang out in a building on Sundays and sing songs idolising a superbeing. Others prefer to sit at home, masturbating, while watching videos of consenting adults performing sexual acts. And many others will spend their Sundays at the track, or pitch, or in a workshop, garage or lab. Some even go to the beach.
And horrors, many will spend their Sunday having sex! Gasp!
Harmless pornography may offend you but a lot of people find the crusades of the self-appointed moral elite to be far/em> more offensive.
Oh and, heh, here's an outrage for you to rant about...the captcha for this post is "incest".
I'm not trying to troll. If I were, I would be an Anonymous Coward. These crass web sites not only typically have no value as information, they are crass in the way that they mock God's evolution. They go against my ethics. I know I'm not alone in this.Ok. Here's my counter example.
Not only does your religous verbal defacation have no value as information, you are an ass in the way you think that because you don't agree, it's ok to send people to life in jail. Your intolerance goes against my ethics, I know I'm not alone in this. Hey everyone, let's lynch this person for being an ass.
Oh wait, I forgot...Free Speech.
You have the ability and the right to not view porn if you don't want to. You have the ability and right to install internet filtering software on your child's computer to "prevent harmful viewing of information". I personally believe that trying to kill off all the "bad" websites in way more harmful than letting a child see them, for one being, that child will have a very shallow and narrow understanding of life if you do. BUT, that's just my opinion and I'm not going to murder you because you think differently.
Be grateful you have the right in this country to say what you did in your posts; say them and not fear that the government will kill you. Say them and expect the worst thing that could happen is a bunch of pissed off people reply to your post. Respect that right because that is the VERY THING you say China destroyed, and did a good job at that.
And on a different topic... WTF is "God's evolution"?
I thought if you used the words God + Evolution side by side, then it would cause a massive implosion of the universe...
---FourChannel---
Shame on him for having an opinion!
The spirit in which pornography is created and viewed promotes immorality.That's what YOU believe. Personally, I believe that sexuality shouldn't be suppressed, and I feel that the proliferation of pornography simply underscores our desire to be more open about sex. It shouldn't be a taboo. We're living and breathing organisms and it's a part of who we are. To deny that is to deny our very existence.
I don't believe pornography is created in a "spirit of immorality." I believe that some of it is over the top, as happens in anything, but I don't believe it's immoral any more then sex itself.
Take a look at one thing here - notice how I say "I believe" rather then putting this out there like fact? See, that's another part of being human. We have different beliefs. You need to respect my beliefs before I can try to respect yours.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Perhaps pornography is simply a Western invention and a predilection that strikes people in Asia as bizzare.
There's no "Asia". China and India are so huge and diverse that they have very little in common. The US and France probably have more in common than China and India.
the 8000+ years of civilization went down the drain with communism destroying the past and making people a tabula rasa starving for wealth, and capitalism offering wealth on the occidental model. Result? Let's see how the younger chinese generation turns out.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I dunno if the Chinese government implicitly okays prostitution. Just because it is prevalent in some contexts does not mean that they condone it. I won't be surprised if they have prostitution "crackdowns" every now and then.
You see, pornography is very prevalent in China; heck it is as prevalent as pirated movies and software in China (keep in mind the estimates that >90% of software is pirated), meaning that there are parts of China where you can literally see this stuff in plain view just be strolling down the street (there is a positive correlation between prevalence and distance from Beijing, so you probably won't see this in Beijing). China does piracy crackdowns every now and then to show people (mostly the congresscritters in Washington) that they do care and will take a tough stance on piracy. Piracy is illegal in China. And you face extremely severe consequences if you are prosecuted. And that, my friend, is the big "if", since it is not uncommon to see cops visiting one of the many small stores selling pirated goods to buy stuff (at a discount, of course) for their own consumption. As I said, porn is quite prevalent. A lot of the places selling pirated movies also sell pirated porn. And you can sometimes even see explicit covers of such products as you are walking down the street because the vendors will sometimes set them up so that they are street-facing.
Sure, they'll throw a few guys in jail now and then, but this is just a show to tell people that the government is Mr. Tough Guy and that violating the laws is Bad For Your Health. But in practice, nobody--including most of the people in government--gives a damn.
The central government is also not that dumb. They know that if they strip people of their sources of pleasure, they will be in trouble (they already have more than enough boiling discontent that they are trying to keep a lid over), so I'm not surprised if they are purposefully limiting their action to a few show cases to just nominally assert their authority while unofficially condoning it. Of course, that probably isn't any consolation for the bloke in jail.
I don't think we can draw any sort of correlation like that. Some might say we have a low birth rate because we're more liberal about sexuality, with less emphasis on procreation and mostly healthy views on recreational sex. Or maybe we're so obsessed with physical perfection that only a small subset of our population is having sex, while the chinese will fuck anything :P Or maybe our social structure is so fucked up and warped around money that it simply doesn't make business sense to have kids. Or maybe it's all MTV's fault that the young today are lazy, stupid and sedated. Or maybe we have so much violent crime that couples are subtly afraid of bringing a fragile child into the world.
There are a million theories and few facts. The one thing we can't quantify is cultural difference. I, for one, think a lot of people should forget about having kids. I firmly believe the world is already overpopulated as it is, even in the western world. I can't even imagine how packed it is in India and China. All it's doing is exhausting the limited resources, spreading thin while demand shoots way up. High demand + low supply = tension
-Billco, Fnarg.com
It's not just places like China wanting to crack down on the "revolution" that has come with the Internet.
Here in the UK, the Government plans to criminalise possession of certain types of images it has labelled "extreme" (covered on Slashdot here) - even though the images feature consenting actors or are faked/simulated; this is about censoring "obscene" images because they are inherently seen as harmful to those who view them (more information at http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ ).
My understanding is that the US has been recently trying to crack down on online porn sites too, though thankfully Free Speech has restricted these attempts (e.g., see COPA ).
Since when did God speak up against porn? Did he talk to you personally? And, if so, did anyone else hear it? Did God instruct you to be the next prophet? Have you spoken to your therapist about this? Because.. I can't really recall having seen anything in the Old Testament (closest you get is tearing down some phallic symbols, which comes down to Idol Worship, which has been put forth as a different sin: worshipping the material world). The New Testament seems to be really quiet about it, too, despite recorded instances of porn from that era. Some of it far more creative (and, occasionally, outrageous) than most the stuff out there today. You do, however, get some pointers about "letting him who is without sin cast the first stone" and such, though, which does have some applicability here. Are you without sin, by your faith? After the crucifixion, the next Roman emperor was Caligula, whose rein contained some of the most outrageous perversions seen so far, at least if you consider the scale. Rumors abound of his sister dying from brutal sodomy, as I recall. You'd think the people contributing to the formation of the church in this era would have written about almost nothing else if they were as preoccupied with people's sexual habits and preferences as you are. About the only notable admonitions in the bible regarding sex, are to lay off the sheep (attributable to the notion that animals can't consent to being the recipient in sex), not to hump a man (attributable to communicable diseases; there are many other "rules" in the bible that clearly are aimed at disease control in an era which had precious little of it), fidelity (attributable to reducing violence in society), prostitution (again, communicable diseases, plus the modern objections to it) and crossdressing (not sure about that one, but I'm fairly sure you can put it down to something in the culture at the time). Do not be so eager to deal out judgement.
Right and wrong, and in particular the question of how hard something should be punished varies a lot across the globe. Just take Singapore, where rumour has it that if you spit on the street, you will be arrested and given a very heavy fine. I think most would agree that spitting is not the most charming thing to do, but criminal prosecutions? Anyway, if you live in a country you can be expected to KNOW the laws and follow them, and you ought to know HOW different transgressions are regarded. So perhaps in China people in general regard pornography as something very bad? Or perhaps they feel that these persons not only broke the laws, but did so in a particularly obnoxious way that warranted the harsh punishment? I don't know, because the article hasn't told us anything about it; all we have to go on is our own background, which may not be appropriate.
Apart from that, pornography is not simply a question of looking at erotic art; the lunatic fringe in the world of porn deals with some extreme things, including child pornography, violent sex (not just your usual discipline and bondage), exploitation of those who are weak, etc. Sometimes drugs, prostitution and other crimes are involved. Again, we haven't been told about it - we don't know what was involved in this case.
But lifetime seems over the top, and despite what the more reactionary part of the western press reports, the Chinese courts aren't generally much more heavyhanded than they need to be; so I suspect they have found some pretty nasty things going on. It wouldn't necessarily be reported to the press - the Chinese may well have thought that the details were too grisly to report.
Erotic art was there in many temples and caves in India, Japan and other civilizations.
But with the advent of Christianity with its much more constricted views of right and wrong, other civilizations changed.
Ironic that what west sees as backwardness in other cultures is actually introduced by west itself.
This is the kind of tripe that a gross ignorance of foreign history and prehistory and of comparitive religions will get you.
First of all, the presence of erotic art does not denote a broad cultural acceptance of erotica. Second, cultures go on swings of greater and lesser acceptance of erotica -- even Western civilization went from the period of the Inquisition to the period of Renaissance to the period of Puritanism. Japanese culture, which you cited in particular, had numerous shifts in culture to accept and reject sexuality in various forms without the influence of Christianity playing a major role (being actively driven underground for centuries by the Shogunate after a brief introduction in the 16th century).
Furthermore, you apparently have no understanding of the greater influence of Confucian mores (originated in the 5th century BC) on Eastern views of sexuality. Confucianists widely viewed the act of sex itself as meant only to be used for procreation and had very similar views to the West on the "dirtiness" of sex, on the necessity of sex being only between a man and a wife, on the subservience of women to men, on the persecution of homosexuality, etc. two millenia before China had contact with the West. While Taoism was far more accepting of sex, it is Confucian mores that have been the dominant. These mores, developed independently of the West, also happen to be a large part of why the Chinese are so willing to accept authoritarian systems -- Confucianism is inherently a hierarchical system -- and have been a driving force behind many of Communist China's morality laws.
Also, if you think that India is a hotbed for free-love just because it was the home of the Kama Sutra, tantric sex traditions, and erotic temple art, you have a LOT to learn about the many forms of Hinduism and how dominant their various influences have been as well as the way that most polythestic cultures respected the idea of "a time and a place" for sex rites while leaving marriage as the dominant institution.
Next, I'd just like to note that while it was Jesus that said that if your eye leads you to sin, you should pluck it out, it was the millenia old tradition of Judaism that Christianity inherited most of its sexual mores from. All monotheistic religions that we have good records of the beliefs of have had strong prohibitions against sexual immorality, and you'd probably be surprised to find out how many still existing polythestic and animistic religions have VERY strong prohibitions against pre-marital and extra-marital sex in spite of existence of fertility rites and primitive porn.
All human cultures have, with time, developed some sort of bias towards sex primarily between husbands and wives. All human cultures have had porn, prostitution, and adultery in spite of their society saying it's wrong in the general case. Very, very few cultures have accepted polyamory outside of ritualized days and events, and yet people have left evidence that they indulged anyway. It's like there's competing biological needs involved or something...
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").