China Pledges To Step Up Internet Administration

angry tapir writes "China says it will step up administration of the Internet this year while continuing to build out the country's fiber-optic backbone and expand broadband access for consumers. Internet administration was mentioned in a keynote report on the work of the government to China's parliamentary session. It underlined the importance of culture and noted the need to 'strengthen the development of civic morality' and 'speed up the establishment of moral and behavioral norms that carry forward traditional Chinese virtues.' The pledge comes amid revelations that DDoS attacks against WordPress last week allegedly originated from China."

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[DNS-and-BIND]

Isn't it funny that China's government recognizes the role the internet plays in culture? And wants to direct it in a positive way that benefits everyone in society? The entire idea is anathema to Westerners, isn't it? China does face some very real language problems and separatist tendencies, Mandarin is the common language that glues all of society together. Without a common language, the country would fragment along ethnic and regional lines and it would be back to the warlord civil war era from the 1920s. The government doesn't want this to happen and is enlightened enough to try to keep the country together in order to save millions of lives. Altruistic, eh? In China, the government really is made up of The Smart People. Not just anyone can join the CCP. It's rather like the US State Department or maybe Harvard, where you have to be really smart or have family connections to get in. If you're a redneck (laobaixing) who loves your country and wants to serve they'll just sneer at you, ridicule your hillbilly Mandarin accent that doesn't sound like a newscaster, slam the door in your face, and tell you to join the Army like all good peasants and hicks are supposed to do. Because if there is one cross-cultural idea that all The Smart People agree on worldwide, it's that lesser intellects (or those not from good families) should be ridiculed and rejected from having their ideas seriously considered in government.

As opposed to, say, America, where the government's idea of benefiting everyone is running up a $223 billion deficit in March 2011 alone, more than all of 2007. The role the internet plays? The internet allows Americans to utterly and completely convince themselves that they live in a real-live functioning fascist police state. And then use that same internet to organize protests against their own government. Inconvenient truths are a bitch, ain't they?