Chinese Official Vows to "Purify" the Net

Sleeping Kirby writes to tell us China's Communist party leader, Hu Jintao today announced the intent to leverage the economic potential of the web while seeking to "purify the internet environment". He proposes to do this by maintaining "the initiative in opinion" on the internet and to "'raise the level guidance on the internet," thus civilizing and purifying the internet environment.

Comments

Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

From TFA:

Hu stressed the need to exploit the net's possibilities, while keeping a tight grip. “Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration,” he concluded.

It's still why I think Bolshevism* and its sequelae are more insidious than fascism: sure, the fascists will shoot you if you agitate against them; but the Bolshevik state would prevent you from agitating in the first place by limiting the set of stimuli that comprise your world.

Reminds me a great deal, actually, of that old Semitic myth about a certain garden and tree of knowledge; whose premise was: fragile and jealous power depends upon the ignorance of its subjugates.

The ignorance of subjugates will always be a Bolshevik, and not a fascist, end.

_____________
* Or Marxism, etc.

Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

By that notion I guess we are living under and Bolshevik revolution in the US right now. . . .

Exactly; I think the case for Bolshevism is stronger than the case for fascism; but “fascism” has been, since WWII, a rhetorically charged word to drum up cheap interest.

Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

I hate to put it this way, but that's nowhere near true. If you look at the wikipedia entry on Nazi Propaganda, it will be a great enlightenment to you. Fascism always included extensive information management. Democracy shouldn't, and isn't designed to, but the last fifty years have had backsliding induced by fearmongers.

Bolshevism and Fascism are both comparatively bad forms of government by certain standards. Government rooted in non-militia military power generally is.

Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[Oh the Huge Manatee]

I bet you can't even provide a proper definition of "Facism".

Facism = Discrimination against ugly faces, or government by the pretty ones.

Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism

[Kadin2048]

All that Commmie ignorance and the Russians still managed to put a man into space before anyone else.

People seemingly nostalgic for the Red Bear seem to love to belabor the "man in space" point, but also seem to avoid noting that the Soviet Union failed the ultimate intelligence test, when it neglected to ensure its own survival.

If the system was that good, obviously it should have easily managed to hang on -- obviously that would have been the prime national priority. And yet it did not. Perhaps the take-away lesson is that while the system worked admirably on concentrating a lot of resources on a few key problems, it was unable to manage the delegation of a lot of resources, to a lot of smaller problems. (This isn't particularly astute or surprising; control centralization allows for concentration, but at the expense of flexibility.)

Multi talented

[LiquidCoooled]

Hu Jintao is a very talented man.

from the article:

Hu stressed the need to exploit the net's possibilities, while keeping a tight grip. "Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration," he concluded.

On the internet I thought one hand was for the mouse and the other was otherwise occupied. Its no wonder he is keeping a tight grip.

Purify this!

[suso]

Well with the unix epoch hitting 1169696969 in 7 hours and thus a dip in the 65% of people spending time with their SO, it should be harder for him to purify the net.

From the good-luck-with-that dept.

[Short Circuit]

You might think that the average person wouldn't stand for it. But I recall someone once saying the "average person" is 5' tall, female, and Chinese.

While China may only house 15-20% of the world's population, that's still a huge fraction. That would be one hell of an astroturf.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!!

[teutonic_leech]

Yeah, just what we needed - officials of a country with a long track record in crimes against humanity bent on 'cleaning up the Internet'.

Well done

[grub]

Every time you buy some "MADE IN CHINA" shit from WalMart, etc. you help bankroll this type of crap.

I think what he means is...

[KeithH]

...that he is going to ban Internet Explorer (tight grip) and force a replacement for SMTP (innovate).

Well, he's nearly got the clout for it. Good luck Hu. You've got my vote! oh wait...

Re:I think what he means is...

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Your post advocates a (x) legislative ...

Re:I think what he means is...

[ColdWetDog]

just look at that mess of spam emails, phishing attempts, viruses

And coming from China. Think of that.... Maybe he's on to something.

The Register isn't qualified to report on this.

[It's a thing]

Anyone who confuses the Web and the Internet isn't qualified to report about either.

And anyone who puts a ® at the end of an entire article as if it was a copyright symbol isn't qualified to copyright or register as a trademark anything.

Re:They're going to what?

[User 956]

I don't know, but it's ironic that they want to "purify the internet environment", while their actual environment goes to complete shit.

And this is unique to "Bolshevism" how?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

...the Bolshevik state would prevent you from agitating in the first place by limiting the set of stimuli that comprise your world...

And this is unique to "Bolshevism" how? Controlling the media to present a picture of fair and rational government has been the aim of almost every government/state/ruler in history and it continues to the present day. You need to hit the books if you think fascists (or democrats - small "d") don't practice this too...

Re:And this is unique to "Bolshevism" how?

[CRCulver]

Controlling the media to present a picture of fair and rational government has been the aim of almost every government/state/ruler in history and it continues to the present day.

Though, to be sure, one cannot assume that just because governments sometimes manipulate the press, any negative information about a government that eventually comes to light is true. During the reign of Justinian, he had Procopius produce a history of his times which was, of course, laden with remarks to sooth the emperor and avoid ascribing anything negative to the empire's administration. After his death, Procopius' Secret History appeared, purporting to give the "real story" of things, calling the general Belisarius an imcompetent fool and the Empress Theodora an outright whore. Yet, almost no historians believe anything in the secret history, which seems to be a kind of saucy genre of fiction that flourished at the time, and the reliable account is actually in the official production.

What I find at Slashdot is often groupthink that anything from the government is automatically wrong and any gossipy rumours that come from "underground sources" (who are more appreciated the more they try to look victimized) are automatically true. The world isn't that simple.

Re:And this is unique to "Bolshevism" how?

[RAMMS EIN]

``What I find at Slashdot is often groupthink that anything from the government is automatically wrong and any gossipy rumours that come from "underground sources" (who are more appreciated the more they try to look victimized) are automatically true. The world isn't that simple.''

No, but it's good to be skeptical. In my corner of Europe, many people seem to have a blind faith in the government, and will reject anything that resembles a conspiracy theory. I don't have any reason to believe my government seeks to harm me, but even if they mean the best, they can do harm. They have certainly been wrong, uninformed, and naive on some issues. And even the wildest conspiracy theories are sometimes true. So the right approach is to treat everything with a healthy dose of skepticism, and _always_ think for yourself. The problem is, of course, that nobody has time to become an expert and think about everything government decides about.

Small problem for Mr. Hu

[Billosaur]

A vast majority of the world's servers are in countries not named the People's Republic of China. Therefore, to do as he insists, he would have to take control of those servers. I suspect, that even given the large number of people at his beck and call, that is a task beyond his capacity. At some point, every person is possession of sole authority in some organization gets delusions of grandeur.

In plain English: he's FOS.

Doug in a Dress

[Ace905]

I think it's obvious the entire slashdot community is going to be 'against' this initiative. We all have experience using 'more than average' time on the internet and particularly the world wide web ; it is completely impossible to 'guide' people on the internet.

China would have to have a ginormous amount of 'censors' constantly surfing and updating their own database of acceptable internet sites to have anything close to a 'guidance initiative'. This is just a media spin on what china has been doing all along, blocking major portions of the internet off completely from it's own citizens.

You can see the ridiculous tracert douginadress.com takes to reach chinese citizens right now ; another comment on China's inability to even provide standard censorship

Is the Chinese Constitution a sham?

[amstrad]

From CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. No citizen may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people's procuratorate or by decision of a people's court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. Unlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens' freedom of person by detention or other means is prohibited; and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited.

Article 39. The home of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. Unlawful search of, or intrusion into, a citizen's home is prohibited.

Article 40. The freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People's Republic of China are protected by law. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe upon the freedom and privacy of citizens' correspondence except in cases where, to meet the needs of state security or of investigation into criminal offences, public security or procuratorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with procedures prescribed by law.

Article 41. Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints and charges against, or exposures of, violation of the law or dereliction of duty by any state organ or functionary; but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited. In case of complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens, the state organ concerned must deal with them in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures, or retaliate against the citizens making them. Citizens who have suffered losses through infringement of their civil rights by any state organ or functionary have the right to compensation in accordance with the law.

Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham?

[Jerf]

You missed Article 51:

Article 51. The exercise by citizens of the People's Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society and of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.

And guess who decides what interests the state?

For all the bitching about the United States you see on Slashdot, at least our government actually has to try to subvert the Constitution, and we have ways of fighting back. The US Constitution doesn't have an "Oh, and everything we promised you you have, you don't have." escape hatch built in. Technically, we have the exact opposite, whatever our dear Attorney General may think. (The closest thing to an all-purpose escape hatch is the Commerce Clause, and that's not without controversy, nor is it total; the Supreme Court has interpreted it more broadly than I'd like but they have rejected some uses of it.)

Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham?

[bigpat]

You can drive a truck through the exceptions, and so they have.

How many times have you heard some politician in America accuse someone of "distorting the facts"? In China, Article 41, which at first says that people have a right to criticize the government, then goes on to say "but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited." This is a much higher bar to political speech than the US has. Can you imagine being practical to criticize an elected official if you had to verify all your facts even to the point of not being allowed any "distortions". Seems reasonable, until you are thrown into Jail because you rounded up the amount and said the national Debt was 9 trillion when really it was just 8.6 trillion, or you get thrown in jail because you are found to exaggerate the amount of corruption or mismanagement in government.

You want a world without negative political campaigns, you go ahead and find it in China. You want a world where people are afraid to speak their minds about their government, go to China.

Just read the whole thing, there is a little something for the authoritarian in everyone.

Look at Article 54, for instance:

Article 54

It is the duty of citizens of the People's Republic of China to safeguard the security, honor and interests of the motherland; they must not commit acts detrimental to the security, honor and interests of the motherland. Even look at the parts you quoted from, such as Article 40 (with the important part bolded):

Article 40. The freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People's Republic of China are protected by law. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe upon the freedom and privacy of citizens' correspondence except in cases where, to meet the needs of state security or of investigation into criminal offenses, public security or procuratorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with procedures prescribed by law. So basically, in the guise of devising a legal protection on privacy, the government is given explicit authority to open people's mail "to meet the needs of state security" and to "censor correspondence". The only restriction on censorship is that they follow some sort of standard procedure as defined by a law.

A familiar pattern should emerge, eventually, as you read through the CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA. First it talks about the rights of the people and then it gives the state broad authority to take away those rights to pursue some government interest such as "security" or "public order". In some cases taking away that right must be merely "lawful", so as long as they use some standard form or procedure then just about every so called right is subject to the whims of lawmakers, with no real grounds for judicial review.

Yes, there are some similar exceptions in the US Constitution, which US lawmakers regularly try to take advantage of, just as they do in China. But I do think that the exceptions in the Chinese Constitution are far broader in scope and more powers are explicitly delegated to the government which give it broader authority over people's lives.

Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham?

[edwardpickman]

Where have you been? Here in the good ole US of A we have hundreds perhaps thousands of laws that are blatantly unConstitutional. Virtually all the forfeiture laws related to drug possession and sale are illegal. Many parts of the Homeland Security Act were obviously unConstitutional. The Supreme Court excuses them as being for our own good but the founding fathers made no such exceptions. Rationalizing exceptions to Constitutional Law are very scary in any society. The Supreme Court should not be allowed to change the Constitution through interpretation only the States have the power to change the Constitution.

Re:They're going to what?

[Tackhead]

> They're going to what?
>Don't they mean purify humanity?

Abbot: "Not they, Hu."
Costello: "Who's going to what?"
Abbot: "Hu's going to purify the Internet. What's going to purify humanity."
Costello: "I don't know who or what's gonna purify humanity! Or how!"
Abbot: "Hao? Who's Hao?"
Costello: "I don't know!"
Both: "All your base!"

China had to learn from North Korea & Cuba?

[us7892]

From wikipedia, In December 2004, the Hong Kong magazine Open quoted an alleged instruction by Hu to propaganda officials in September in which he wrote that, when managing ideology, China had to learn from Cuba and North Korea. Although North Korea had encountered "temporary economic problems", its political policies were "consistently correct". Open also quoted Hu as calling Mikhail Gorbachev, "a betrayer of socialism".

Well, that doesn't sound too good. And he wants to "purify" the internet.

Another interesting summary on wiki of his "Eight Do's and Dont's", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba_rong_ba_chi

Number Eight is interesting, "Regard plain living and hard struggle as an honour, regard living in luxury as a shame."

Perhaps he needs a number nine, which reads something like "Regard the internet as a backward Western evil, filled with filthy images and make-believe."

TFA said nothing

[grumpyman]

TFA has absolutely no context and everybody just can't wait to pitch in their brilliant 2 cents on 'purification', state control, philosophy in life...etc. Anybody bother to check what is he referring to? TFA is atypical Chinese government bashing rhetoric. I have no problem bashing them, but FFS in what context does he meant by purifying? What if the context is 'kiddie porn', 'online crack sale', WTF is it??? Network virus? Zombie bots?? DOS attack????

Every time there's this knee-jerk, robotic reaction I totally don't get. Believe in what you WANT TO believe in. In this case, there's no FA to read.

Re:Actually no

[Em Adespoton]

This will continue until automation helps reduce the number of hours people need to work (and people will be paid more as they work less because the amount of work needed to afford a good lifestyle would be reduced).

Ah yes... 1950's optimism... with the advent of the automatic dishwasher, laundry machines, improved automobiles, etc. people will no longer have to work 8 hour days! What's that? 50 years have passed and you work an 8.5 hour day now? You can't work an 8 hour day because then you won't be competitive with the people working 8.5 hour days, and you won't be able to keep a job to support yourself? How is that possible, when you live in a country with such a massive food surplus?

It's surely not unique in Chinese history

[DuBois]

The first Chin Emperor (Qin in modern romanization), ZHENG Ying (259-210BC), gave his Dynasty's name to the entire country of China. He burned all the books in the country and banned scholarly discussion of history. Sounds a lot like the current Emperor is just doing what a Chinese Emperor normally does. And that might explain why the Chinese people, whose sense of history extends far further back than most Westerners', tolerate his continued rule. A sense of "unity" for all of China comes from the Emperor. See the modern movie "Hero" for one take on this facet of Chinese culture.

He also changed his name to Shi Huangdi, meaning "First August God". This is certainly nothing that the current Emperor would ever deign to do.

Re:It's surely not unique in Chinese history

[lxt518052]

I don't think the undertone in Hero could represent the main stream. In fact, the director Zhang Yimou has been widely criticized for whitewashing for a tyrant. The film actually has become a laugh stalk for its ridiculous plot.

As for Qin Shihuang (another name for Shi Huangdi), most of your comment are correct, except that Zheng was his given name and YING was the surname. He certainly was an influential figure and events related to him did change the course of history. But mind you it was two thousand years ago. A lot of equally important (if not more important) events happened afterwards. Simply attributing everything today to a man died more than 2000 years ago is very much over-simplification, if not totally wrong.

Business Opportunity

[mudshark]

From: Chmn Hu Jintao
Date: Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:53 PM
Subject: PURIFICATION CAMPAIGN

Chmn Hu Jintao

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am fine today and how are you? I hope this letter will find you in the best of health. I am Chmn Hu Jintao, the Chairman of the "Communist Party" and the "Fifth Civilization Marching Forward Into the Millenium (FCMFIM)", a subsidiary of the "PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC)".

The Fifth Civilization Marching Forward Into the Millenium (FCMFIM) was set up by the late Head of State, Chmn Mao Zedong who died on 9 September 1976, to manage the excess revenue accruing from the electronic commerce and its allied products as a domestic increase in the campaign to purify the internet environment. The estimated annual revenue for 2005 was $45 Billion US Dollars Ref. FMF A26 Unit 3B Paragraph "D" of the Auditor General of the People's Republic of China Report of Nov. 2006 on estimated revenue.

I am the Chairman of the Contract Award Committee, and my committee is solely responsible for awaiting and paying of contracts on behalf of the People's Republic of China. My Committee awarded Contracts to foreign contractors for Vigorous Purification By One Hand Grasping Matters in the cheap plastic consumer goods producing areas of Sichuan. We overshot the contract sum by US$25,000,000.00. We have paid the contractors and withholding the balance of US$25,000,000.00. But, because of the existence of some of the domestic laws forbidding civil servants in PR from opening, operating and maintaining foreign accounts, we do not have the expertise to transfer this balance of fund to a foreign account.

However, this balance of US$25,000,000.00 has been secured in form of Credit/Payment to a foreign contractor, hence we wish to transfer into your bank account as the beneficiary of the fund. We have also arrived at a conclusion that you will be given 20% of the total sum transferred as our foreign partner, while 5% will be reserved for incidental expenses that both parties will incur in the course of actualizing this transaction, and the balance of 75% will be kept for the committee members.

If you know that you will be capable of helping us actualize this transaction, you should send to me immediately the details of your bank particulars or open a new bank account where we can transfer the money US$25,000, 000.00, which you will be holding in trust for us until we come to your country for our share. Your nature of business does not matter in this transaction. The required details includes your company's name, address, your private personal telephone/fax numbers, your full name and address, including your complete bank details where the transferred fund will be routed by the Shengdong Bank.

Note that this transaction is expected to be actualized within 21 working days from the day the required details are forwarded to the People's Ministry of Finance who will approve the needed foreign exchange control allocation for the release of this money to your account. Please, treat this as top secret. You should contact me urgently.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Yours RESPECTFULLY,

Chmn Hu Jintao