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Beijing Police To Launch Animated Web Patrols
Reader geoffrobinson notes an AP story on a new initiative by the police in Beijing to put a visible police presence on the screens of Chinese citizens. Starting Sept. 1, little animated cop figures will wander across the displays of users of a baker's dozen of Chinese Web portals. The program is set to expand by year's end to all sites "registered with Beijing servers," according to the report. The point of the anime-like figures seems to be to remind citizens that their Web usage is being monitored, not to actually implement any further monitoring themselves.
Bonzi Buddy got a new job!
What is next, an animated goatse reminding us of the horrors that are to be found on the internet?
If you google Tiananmen does a little animated tank come out and crush your cursor?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
You look like you're trying to access the Real Internet! Would you like me to:
-block the sites you're trying to access
-uninstall your proxy software
-report you to the authorities for re-education
-subtly rewrite your search results
Shouldn't that be "Big Brother is watching Yu"?
"He said he was going somewhere he would need Euros"
Damn you single trade currency!
How we know is more important than what we know.
welcome our animated police overlords.
Just like the cops at home.
They got both a male and a female cop. And a police car.
So to continue your analogy, perhaps we can have the goatse guy and the tub girl, and meatspin as the police cruiser.
This should streamline running Vista. Now whenever you are prompted for Allow/Deny the character will go ahead and choose Deny for you. Every time.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
They're so cute they just make me want to limit my searches to government approved propaganda and puppies.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I live in China, and I can tell you that it's certainly not in a "death-like state like that the of Chinese government oppression". Sure, censorship exists, the government is quite corrupt and abusive, especially on the lower levels, and it can be hard to find a good book. It drives me up the wall sometimes, just how flat the popular culture is- anything controversial gets dropped like a hot rock.
On the other hand, there are raunchy popular novels (printed by half-legal vanity presses) being sold right outside my door. There's tons of (bad) modern art expressing the pain of living in Chinese society, and (bad) rock 'n roll expressing the pain of being young and unloved. Although there are fewer than 100 movies released to theaters each year on the mainland, every film ever made is sporadically available on DVD, from Deep Throat to To Live to They Live. Chinese people can find every sort of approved and forbidden idea under the sun if they're curious, and they're mostly free to discuss it in private. Publishing is another thing, but the Cultural Revolution is over, and you can pretty much say whatever you want to your friends.
China is booming, and the authorities can barely keep it under control. I won't defend their actions (although cartoon cops are hardly the worst things they do....) but the notion that China in any way resembles 1984 is absurd. While the government is sliding from totalitarian Communism towards plutocracy, the people are getting away with everything they can, and it's a lot. I don't hold out a lot of hope that we'll have big D Democracy here anytime soon, but to imagine that this country, or the US, or anyone else would somehow be better off in a Massive 3rd World War is insane.
You are insane.
Can you get all hentai on that girl cop and "interact" with her using a tentacle cursor?
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Reminds me of an old Soviet joke:
A Russian and an American are discussing the merits of their governments.
The American says, "We have full freedom of speech. I could stand on a soap box all day and yell 'The American government sucks, and the American president is a criminal' and I would not be arrested."
The Russian replies, "That's nothing. I could go into Kremlin, call a press conference with invitations to all the communist party leaders, and announce 'The American government sucks, and the American president is a criminal' and I would be commended."