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China's Web Surveillance System Employs More Than 2 Million
Reader dryriver recommends a BBC report on the immense scale of the web-monitoring system in place in China. An excerpt: "More than two million people in China are employed by the government to monitor web activity, state media say, providing a rare glimpse into how the state tries to control the internet. The Beijing News says the monitors, described as internet 'opinion analysts,' are on state and commercial payrolls. China's hundreds of millions of web users increasingly use microblogs to criticise the state or vent anger. Recent research suggested Chinese censors actively target social media. The report by the Beijing News said that these monitors were not required to delete postings. They are "strictly to gather and analyse public opinions on microblog sites and compile reports for decision-makers", it said. It also added details about how some of these monitors work. Tang Xiaotao has been working as a monitor for less than six months, the report says, without revealing where he works. 'He sits in front of a PC every day, and opening up an application, he types in key words which are specified by clients. He then monitors negative opinions related to the clients, and gathers (them) and compiles reports and sends them to the clients,' it says. The reports says the software used in the office is even more advanced and supported by thousands of servers. It also monitors websites outside China."
The easiest way to create jobs is by increasing red tape.
Better watch out. Before you know it USA is no longer number one.
The Ministry Of Truth employs many members of The Party.
Supposedly it was approximately 854,000 people in 2010:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38304293/ns/us_news-security/t/report-firms-agencies-involved-war-terror/
New things are always on the horizon
It is still possible to fight for your view in the USA. Freedom of speech and the freedom of organizing political groups are a important differences. But the freedom of anonymity and privacy might be more similar.
Another difference is the degree of separation between politics and the court system. I hope both countries will improve.
Only? 2M informants is no more than 0.2% of the population.
Compare that to the East German Stasi, who had ~0.5% full time on their payrolls (about 100k of 16M ppl), plus ~3% of unpaid whisperers...
It's somewhat disturbing that China is more forthcoming about its domestic spying than the US. At least they admit that they do it.
2 billion people in china so 2 million is only 1 percent. Lava china alone!
Look on the bright side.
Bitching on the internet works for affecting the decision makers . and they said that it's useless to bitch and moan on the internet!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm anti-China and anti-USA and live in neither place. What do you say to that?
I don't know; just sayin'
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
If this is anti-China, then the Snowden reporting is anti-USA
One can hope.
The legitimate use of this is, "Here's a list of the top 20 things that people are really angry about."
The illegitimate use is, "Here's a list of the first 20,000 people to arrest in Wuhan."
When did words become so frightening that we need to be watched 24/7, lest we say something dangerous?
I reckon there are a lot of people looking for "objectionable" pages and censoring them, wonder if these are counted. I wouldn't expect it to be a large fraction of 2 M though, unless it happens on a more local level than for all of China.
Unrelated, but what's this talk about "clients"? do they do it for paying customers too?
Hao! Shuo de hao~ li ke hui kuan!
It's not just reporting, just watch the comments on any news article that comes up that paints China in any negative light. Immediate attacks on the source, or attempts to divert the conversations and get people in the comments arguing back and forth.
With all this information about "Monitoring" I know the NSA needs more people to "Monitor" the internets.
I need to look into that USAjob.gov website and look for specifics like "Reading Slashdot, Reddit, 9gag all day long for entry level government salary" I would totally rock that in a suit and tie.
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
this great part is that the majority of software that is used for censorship is developed right here in the US. the truth is that it's raw capitalism that is helping oppress the chinese people which completely subverts the freedom of others that we so greatly cherish.
moral, ethical or even legal behavior with any foresight is not in the nature of true capitalism and yet we continue to allow these practices to continue. in true capitalism, snakes would continually eat their own tails with no thought of the repercussions if it made a buck. at the end, we get things like the massive economic collapse because banks "didn't see it coming".
i dont like the government messing with my affairs but there are sometimes when we need to prevent both our and others' destruction and oppression with some regulation. if there is a customer that wants a product to do evil, there will be some corporation willing to support them if it's profitable.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I wonder what percentage of the US population works in things related to the NSA spying program.
This has NOTHING to do with China, or the usual anti-China propaganda the owners of Slashdot love to spout. This is simply another example of what always happens when you have a LARGE government.
If you let ANY government create endless rules and powers for itself, it will grow and grow and grow those departments responsible for such powers. See the NSA or Obama shut-down projects for examples from the USA. No aspect of American society needs or requires FULL SURVEILLANCE. No aspect of the budget battle required public spaces to be closed down or barricaded. But big government means a monster that thinks people serve it, not the other way round.
Once you start the slippery slope of ANY big government program/project, filthy perverted individuals are drawn to it for power and money reasons, and seek to grow the project ever larger, so the impact on the lives of ordinary people becomes greater day by day. The original logic behind the project is forgotten pretty much after day one.
The more the department grows, the more power and money it gains, and the more money and power it gains, the more it grows. The US armed forces are the worst example of this principle. The US war machine actually seeks to create genocidal wars across the globe to justify its existence. Do any of you sheeple think anyone profiting from the US war machine wants fewer wars or a smaller army? Any of you really that thick?
And government jobs are GOOD JOBS, very very good jobs. Early retirement. Excellent benefits. The shortest working week (when you take account of all the 'sick' days government employees are expected to take). Yes, if you are really good, there are much better jobs in the private sector, but if you are Mr or Ms average sheeple, you can do no better than to jump onto the large government gravy train.
All across the West, the LAST significant unions with any power are the public sector unions. The same large governments worked to crush the power of private sector unions.
Of course China employs ever larger amounts of people to spy- it follows the ideals of the NSA to a tee. Just that in China, it makes more sense to be labour intensive. And better- having legions of real people spying creates individual trained trojan horses that change society around themselves- except the psychology of populations doesn't quite work like that- see old Soviet nations for examples.
The NSA removes the Human dimension for a VERY good reason. The monsters that rules the USA are vastly more sophisticated at understanding the psychology of power. Spreading the overt psychological responsibility of rule by large government to the general population is ALWAYS self-defeating. The Chinese rulers are backward primitives compared to the US monsters.
It all starts making sense to me now. There's a simple case of penis envy on the part of NSA.
The witch hunt continues.
"these monitors were not required to delete postings. They are "strictly to gather and analyse public opinions on microblog sites and compile reports for decision-makers"
They are meta-moderators, if somebody's karma goes to bad, the brute squad is sent automatically without their doing.
Not much different from NSA, just without direct access to information form US companies, so more people needed
What are you pro? Otherwise you're just backing into a corner...
China must have just started these activities because Snowden never would have run to a country that spies on its citizens. Why, that would make him a massive hypocrite! Maybe he went to China first, was shocked to find that they spy on their own people, then decided to run to Russia where they would never spy on their citizens. After all, it means SO much to him, his integrity, his ideals. He's my hero.
Don't you know you are my heeeee-roooooo....
Really puts into perspective the number of people there are in China.....that's the population of Chicago, just doing one job. Holy smokes.....
... even in that area, China generates more jobs than the US ... I wonder how many of those jobs have been outsourced by the NSA ... ;)
Right out of 1984
Quick question: when did "searching the internet for public information" count as spying? What, am I spying right now because I can Ctrl-F this page for "spying"?