Slashdot Mirror
China Bans Military Personnel From Blogging
eldavojohn writes "China has banned all 2.3M members of its military from blogging — even personal, non-military blogs. From the announcement of the new regulation: 'Soldiers cannot open blogs on the Internet no matter (whether) he or she does it in the capacity of a soldier or not. The Internet is complicated and we should guard against online traps.' While the official word seems to not be translated to English yet, the same apparently goes for websites or homepages owned by soldiers; there is no indication as to whether or not this applies to sites like Facebook or Renren (which the USMC bans). Similarly, as of 2007, the US requires active duty soldiers to clear any posting with a superior officer, and Israel had to cancel an operation due to a Facebook status update. A military blog aggregating site claims only a few Chinese military blogs indexed, but it looks like as of June 15 that list may have shortened."
This makes perfect sense, OPSEC-wise, and within the context of Chinese culture, I suspect is no big deal.
From what I've seen, this wouldn't be a completely insane idea to apply to members of the US armed forces. But, given the role of reservists and the existing penetration of the social web into the demographic of those currently serving, this would be a bear to enforce, and result in a storm of protest, on the assumption it's goal was to cut off alternative sources of information on the situation in Afghanistan.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Why is this posted as a YRO article, or even a slashdot story at all? I'm sure that not one of the millions of Chinese Army read slashdot.
The fact is that military personnel whether its US or foreign operate under different rules than the rest of the population.
This is not news for nerds, and it definitely doesn't matter to anybody.
If the Chinese government believes that foreign governments are monitoring the blogs or online activities of their active duty military personnel, perhaps they're engaging in this behaviour to monitor the military activities of other governments?
(Lee Ermey voice)
"Private Pyle, what about "on its network" do you not understand?
You had best square your ass away and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up!"
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
...they also ban interviews with Rolling Stone?
Any word on when Joe Lieberman will use this as an excuse for us needing to do the same in the U.S.?
To clear any ambiguity, the USMC does not forbid Marines from using Facebook or any other social Networking site. They only disallow access on their own INTRAnet.
... only applies to Marine Corps networks and computers, allowing Marines to access the sites on their own computers or at Internet cafes." -tinyurl.com/nnymlj [cnn.com]
"The ban
China is in a cold war with the west. The last thing they want is information leaking out. As it is, they make heavy us of spying in the west to come up with all sorts of offensive weapons that they can use. Sadly, the west is trying to be friends with China, but China is about to surprise everybody. The reality is, when you are the leader of the worlds largest nation (population wise), AND have a population that is about to be very heavily skewed towards males, what do you want next? The world. If nothing else, look at their military systems. Heck, look at their recent promise to allow the Yuan to 'float'. It floated for a day and then was restored. Then floated just a little bit downwards. Why? Because the TRUE leaders of CHina said NO.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
it's a much wider ban than not blogging.
active service men and women cannot not go to internet cafe, apply for job online or go online dating etc.
MoD China website (of course its in chinese) rules of internal affairs
http://www.mod.gov.cn/policy/2010-06/07/content_4162971_25.htm
well, don't know how strict it's goingt o be obeyed though. other rules include to have 8 hours' sleep everyday. don't think you get into trouble for a sleepless night :)
"Microchips... CPU's... We're going to probably be at war with China in twenty years and these things can put a ballistic missile up a camels ass from about 100 miles."
I'm not saying this will happen, but when you're going to have hostilities with anyone, step one is cutting off communication. Or have I forgotten Sun Tzu?
You do lose some ( ok, most ) freedoms while serving your country, and with the risks involved in 'blog activity' i don't really see a big deal with restricting it.
Can blog all you want when you get home.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Imagine if the Chi-Comms had mandated that all 2.4 million soldiers must blog--except that they must post miss-information and etc. originating from their propaganda ministry and covert ops--think of the burden it would have had on other nation's resources trying to monitor that!
So, yeah, IFO am glad the Chi-Comms shut up.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
We have a censorhsip gap!!
Ok, I didn't expect to defend communist China today, but really this rule makes sense. Look at the way Amazon and Netflix have been sued in just the last six months for examples of the incredible wealth of sensitive information you can reconstruct from completely mundane and innocent data. Keeping troops off the internet entirely makes perfect sense from a security standpoint, although going that far isn't necessary and stomps on people's free speech way too much for my taste.
Anyway, I know I wouldn't want anyone reconstructing the surfing and posting habits of my military members to spot troop movements, locations of certain projects, etc. That's not a far-fetched concern, either: in the cold war Blackbird and U-2 spy planes regularly counted the number of vehicles in parking lots, watched trains, etc. to figure out when big projects were underway and where major hardware was being shipped. It's not impossible to do similar things by tracking internet traffic.
Best. Explanation. Ever.
It can mean "too complicated for us to deal with" or "too complicated for us to explain this to your puny little mind".
I'm sure that not one of the millions of Chinese Army read slashdot.
lolll...you're right! When it comes to reading slashdot (or leaving their footprints in my logs), those units of the People's Liberation Army that are working with the Ministry of State Security suddenly become "research institutes".
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
golly sergeant I did not know that the internet was the network?
has come to Canada
Wow, 2.4M army? I wonder who would dare to attack such a big army!!!
Sina Weibo is hot :D.. ok no blogging, what about starting a web site on photography? Ok what about writing some product reviews?! Ok none of that, what about discussing WOW on forums? These rules are such faggotry on the net.
Banning blogging isn't going to silence people, it'll make them louder, noobs.
I'm in the army and no one has ever told me that I have to clear what I post with anyone. The exception would be when we deploy then they require everyone to submit their Facebook, Myspace, whatever, for constant scrutiny (understandable, I guess) during a deployment. Heck, my current unit actually encourages people to friend the unit FRG page (I don't and never will), and our sergeant major posts updates from his office.
there is no indication as to whether or not this applies to sites like Facebook or Renren
noone in China has access to facebook, unless of course they VPN out or have remote access to a machine outside of China. I had to do this while on vacation there in order to use my Facebook and Twitter accounts. RenRen is monitored by the Chinese govt, so I don't see them having any trouble with this.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.