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China Censors 60,000 Porn Sites, 5,000 Arrested

Posted by Soulskill on from the neverending-battle dept.

lothos writes with news that China has arrested thousands more people and shuttered 60,000 websites in an ongoing anti-pornography crackdown. "Wang Chen, director of the Information Office of the State Council, said at a news conference that some 350 million pieces of pornographic and indecent internet content were eliminated, according to the Xinhua report. The government launched a special campaign a year ago to rid the internet of pornographic and vulgar content, Xinhua reported. Overall, the campaign included 2,197 criminal cases involving 4,965 people who violated Chinese law by disseminating pornography via the internet or mobile phones, the news agency said. Of those, 58 people received prison sentences exceeding five years."

23 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. welcome to china by wan9xu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    where government officials can openly keep harems but citizens can't even watch porn.

    1. Re:welcome to china by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Welcome to America, where Congressmen can fight for and pass laws discriminating against gays, while they bang boys in their offices, suck cock in airport bathrooms and so on.

      All politicians think they are gods above the law while the people are mere inconveniences for them to rule over. The only difference in China is that at least they are honest about being totalitarian.

    2. Re:welcome to china by couchslug · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I find it odd that the ChiCom government should CARE about porn.

      Any insights on that one?

      Let the citizens fap in peace and they won't rebel, while profiteering from said fappage could enrich the oligarchy.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    3. Re:welcome to china by jnbszabo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Neal Stephenson, in his novel the Diamond Age, goes on at length about the Chinese' hysterical fear of anarchy. It may not be porn as such the Chinese rulers fear, just like it isn't opium or heroin that frightens them, but rather the inability to contain the consequences of potential runaway overindulgence. It might be a case of choosing the devil you know (the consequences of overbearingness) versus the devil you don't know (anarchy). Tien an menh square was an illustration of this.

    4. Re:welcome to china by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I find it odd that the ChiCom government should CARE about porn.

      Any insights on that one?

      Let the citizens fap in peace and they won't rebel, while profiteering from said fappage could enrich the oligarchy.

      I find it odd that the U.S. government should CARE about certain drugs.

      Any insights on that one?

      Let the citizens get stoned/ripped/trashed/high in peace and they won't rebel, while profiteering from said legalization and taxation of said controlled substances could enrich the oligarchy.

      I think both questions have the same answer.

    5. Re:welcome to china by blind+biker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I find it odd that the ChiCom government should CARE about porn.

      Any insights on that one?

      Obviously, in China the rich and powerful can get as much pussy as they want. Denying the same to the working classes/masses is useful, as a frustrated sexual libido (in China, there is a lack of women, at the moment) can be focused very easily. It is how you control these masses, by promising them a bright future ("more (than 0) pussy") or channeling the rage against Japan, capitalist imperialism etc. whatever is convenient.

      Same thing in Islamist societies: the rich and powerful can have multiple wives, necessarily removing them from the pool for the general populace, who then believes in 72 virgins in another dimension, and all they have to do, is be exceptionally good Muslims (blow oneself up).

      These are methods to obscure the reality of the situation, to deflect the anger from those who really deserve it.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    6. Re:welcome to china by TarPitt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Relevant quote from 1984:

      With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness. Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way she put it was:

      'When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simpIy sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?'

      --
      If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
    7. Re:welcome to china by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > Most congress-critters are fine, upstanding people; their biggest problem is putting up with the American people

      Awww. that's so cute! Did Santa bring you that belief in magic?

      Politicians don't get into office unless they are desperately hungry for power. Everyone else who isn't gets raped by the people who are.

      Politicians live to serve themselves and their biggest contributors. If you ain't paying the bills, you are nothing to them except the annoying thing they have to dupe into voting for them every now and again.

      If you believe otherwise, I have a great bridge to nowhere you may be interested in buying.

    8. Re:welcome to china by Khashishi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's funny. You have some picture of the Chinese government as an evil mastermind, calculating every move to his advantage. It's a lot simpler than that. The laws largely reflect the attitudes of the population. A lot of Chinese people (just as a lot of Americans) feel that porn is morally bankrupt and want to see it go away. In America, various guarantees of liberties like the Bill of Rights prevent lawmakers from simply banning whatever the majority doesn't like. But in China, these safeguards don't exist.

  2. Priorities by ArcherB · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You would think that a country intent on controlling it's population growth would encourage fapping.

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  3. Coming to the US and EU soon by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Net Neutrality? Or Fairness Doctrine? Nah. The FCC has been doing this since the 1950s, before those buzzwords even existed. In the same fashion they censor radio and television, they will soon be doing the same thing China is doing: censoring the "filthy nudie pics" from the web.

    Of course they should not be able to do. CATV and internet are PRIVATE domains so the FCC should keep their hands off. But they won't. Our US and EU politicians are no different than Chinese politicians - they all have avarice and ambition - love of money & love of power. They'll censor the porn off the net and justify it as "protecting the children".

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Coming to the US and EU soon by zero_out · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now you're just spreading FUD. The FCC should be preventing this stuff from showing up where it isn't expected, but it's not trying to prevent porn from being on the internet, nor is it trying to prevent it from entering your home via your TV, as long as it's clearly gated. The FCC doesn't prevent your local cable company from providing you with porn. It prevents it from being broadcast openly to anyone with a TV, who can easily stumble upon it unwillingly. That's why a breast can't be displayed during the Super Bowl. It's the wrong place and the wrong time. Families will watch the Super Bowl, including kids, because it's considered to be "relatively" safe. Although, the FCC should be doing more about the commercials shown during the event.

      If you want to view porn, that's up to you, and nobody should prevent you from doing so, as long as it's behind a door that says "here there be porn." That way, I and my wards won't stumble upon it without my expressed consent. To say that the FCC is trying to prevent it from being provided to you AT ALL is a gross overstatement, and just plain FUD.

    2. Re:Coming to the US and EU soon by N0Man74 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's why a breast can't be displayed during the Super Bowl. It's the wrong place and the wrong time. Families will watch the Super Bowl, including kids, because it's considered to be "relatively" safe. Although, the FCC should be doing more about the commercials shown during the event.

      If you want to view porn, that's up to you, and nobody should prevent you from doing so, as long as it's behind a door that says "here there be porn." That way, I and my wards won't stumble upon it without my expressed consent.

      The fact that you follow up an example of a nip slip during a musical performance with an argument about accidentally seeing porn just goes to show you how screwed up our perception of simple nudity is in this country.

      Nudity is NOT porn. A "wardrobe malfunction" is not porn.

      Porn and simple nudity are two very different things and my mind boggles as to why so many people don't seem to get that.

  4. Is that different in other countries? by grumbel · · Score: 3

    Ok, here is a question: Is this actually different in other western countries?

    As far as I know in Germany for example you are not allowed to publish porn on the net unless you make sure that people under 18 don't have access it. To confirm to this criteria it isn't enough to just add an agegate, but instead it requires things like sending credit card info, PostIdent (you show your Id-card at a post office and post office confirms your identity to the website) or something else that is much more secure, thus essentially removing porn from the public Internet.

    Now this of course doesn't mean that there isn't porn on the net in Germany, there is tons of it as the net isn't filtered, but I don't think many of it is hosted in Germany by German companies.

    1. Re:Is that different in other countries? by Palmsie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, and I think the point is, they are equally ridiculous, not equally intelligent.

      --
      Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
  5. There is no left or right by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So censoring sexually explicit works of authorship is a right-wing plank in the United States, but it's left-wing in red China. Doesn't that destroy the meaning of "left wing" and "right wing"?

    1. Re:There is no left or right by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is clearly a Euro-central idea and thus in Asia its left wing and in North America its Right wing.

    2. Re:There is no left or right by oldspewey · · Score: 4, Funny

      Doesn't that destroy the meaning of "left wing" and "right wing"?

      Porn ... is there anything it can't do?

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    3. Re:There is no left or right by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Europeans are the only people who have any sanity when it comes to nudity. I was watching a Philadelphia station that plays European programs, about some Italian detective/cop, and suddenly the young daughter walks into the room, topless, and sits there for five minutes. Nobody reacted.

      First I was shocked, and then I realized it ain't no big deal. In America (and Asia too apparently) the station would be hit with a million dollar fine if caught. I don't understand why people are afraid to see a naked breast or body. As the Pope once said about the nude paintings in various chapels: "The human body is made in God's image, therefore it remains holy even when it is unclothed."

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re:There is no left or right by donscarletti · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...about some Italian detective/cop, and suddenly the young daughter walks into the room, topless, and sits there for five minutes. Nobody reacted.

      Now, I am not reacting to say that this is harmful or degrading or whatever. But seriously, that is tacky, just plain tacky. They know that that scene was not gripping, so they put in a contrived pair of tits to keep the average punters interested. Honestly, in European films I have seen, particularly Italian, gratuitous nudity does coincide with a lull in the pacing that needed something to fill it, where Michael Bay would make a helicopter explode. Nice side effect of censorship is that it forces film-makers to try something new, rather than the tried and true chestnuts of violence, sex and obscenity that always work if you just use a little more than last time. Not that a bit of violence, sex and obscenity isn't good, but it is good to create legal and social forces to encourage other, more difficult things to be tried.

      --
      When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
    5. Re:There is no left or right by operagost · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If by "personal freedom" you mean being free to go to jail if you are a conscientious objector and refuse to serve in the military, then yes. Oh year, and you're free to pay taxes to support the state Lutheran church, while being barred from preaching in a public place.

      An "even distribution of wealth" means those who are productive have their reward taken away and given to those who aren't.

      Big government is not good.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    6. Re:There is no left or right by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not that a bit of violence, sex and obscenity isn't good, but it is good to create legal and social forces to encourage other, more difficult things to be tried.

      Why do we as a people need legal or social "forces" to change what we want to see? If the world's culture wants to be about tits and explosions, then it's not up to some pompous prude in an office to dictate that this is somehow "wrong". Let people do what they darned well please.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    7. Re:There is no left or right by amorsen · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the description it sounds like you mean Denmark. Here you only go to jail if you refuse the non-military service that you can pick instead of military service. And you can pay taxes to support the Lutheran church, but you get asked whether you want to and you are free to say no and not pay.

      Sure the government should not be helping the church collect money, but honestly it cannot really get me riled up. It certainly has advantages for keeping the church out of politics, even if it does get a bit of politics into church.
       

      --
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