China Pushes Real Name System For Online Games

oxide7 writes "Starting from August 1, Chinese Internet users will have to register using their real names for playing online games, China Daily reported on Saturday. The regulation, issued by the Ministry of Culture on June 22, is said to be part of a nationwide campaign to improve management of the virtual gaming industry and protect minors from unwholesome content. It applies to all multiplayer role-playing and social networking games."

Comments

Protect people from unwholesome content?

[mangu]

Such as democracy and human rights?

Re:Protect people from unwholesome content?

[clarkkent09]

When you take a trip down from your fantasy fairy land into reality you'll realize that a person with financial security and general liberty to pursue their interests (which may come from money or from political influence or usually both) actually IS more free and more happy than a hungry beggar digging through trash or a political prisoner who is tortured daily. Inner freedom my ass.

Re:Protect people from unwholesome content?

[causality]

When you take a trip down from your fantasy fairy land into reality you'll realize that a person with financial security and general liberty to pursue their interests (which may come from money or from political influence or usually both) actually IS more free and more happy than a hungry beggar digging through trash or a political prisoner who is tortured daily.

And in America any degree of that we have enjoyed came about because of men who had so much inner freedom that they had the guts to put their lives on the line and start a revolutionary war in order to build a society around any kind of mundane freedom you have enumerated. They were willing to be considered something like terrorists or treasonous, to fight in war, and also to defy the apathy of 1/3 of their population and the opposition of another 1/3 of their population at that time.

You understand that dead men don't have any of the political or monetary freedoms you mention? So why would some folks who were already rather well-to-do value something more than their own lives? That's simple. They had inner freedom and it determined how they faced the events and circumstances of the world around them. You cannot subjugate a truly free people. You can only subjugate cowards who fear the threat of force more than they fear a meaningless existence because such people have no inner freedom. That's why they are so compatible with a meaningless existence (like climbing the corporate ladder as a major focus of life) even though many of them sense that there is something wrong with it.

Admittedly the Founding Fathers are a cliche, mundane, yet concrete illustration of people who understood what I am talking about. Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Ghandi are more examples, for both were imprisoned yet neither was afraid of prison or deterred by it from doing what they knew to be right. Someone concerned about political freedom exclusively would most certainly want to avoid state-imposed incarceration.

I am having to resort to this sort of explanation only because you failed to see one thing: I am not arguing against political freedom. I said only that it wasn't what I was referring to. You didn't bother, but had you asked me about political freedom I would say that its only stable form would have to come from a society that values real inner freedom. In other words, political freedom should follow and have its roots in real freedom. If it doesn't, then you get its roller-coaster form where governments start out smaller and freer and eventually become huge and authoritarian until collapsing and being replaced by something else, ad infinitum. That's why a high degree of political freedom has been so fleeting throughout history. At any rate, they are not opposed. They are related.

Inner freedom my ass.

I knew when I wrote the previous post that some people would scoff at it. Without a doubt, it can be a hard notion to seriously consider. On that I think we can find some agreement. Where we differ is on the question of whether my writing was truly faulty, or whether the inability to really understand it is a fault in the reader.

Where are "bigbrother" and "policestate" tags ?

[TheBlackMan]

This is definately not about "privacy" or "security". We all know what is the reason for such law, so it should be tagged appropriately.

Excellent news

[maugle]

Now no politician in the US can even consider supporting it!

"Ladies and gentleman, my opponent has come out in support of policies implemented in polluting, human rights abusing, communist, totalitarian, job-stealing China! Are you going to let him bring that to our shores?"

Re:Excellent news

[Man On Pink Corner]

That's what the Australians thought.

Re:Excellent news

[Kell Bengal]

And you know, it's been met with public outcry and made certain politicians quite unpopular. The internet filtering thing was only ever a token appeasement move to get certain conservative elements onboard - now that they've run their course, it's being quietly set aside. Realpolitik rules the day.