Chinese Gov't To Tighten Internet Controls Even Further

jfruh writes "The new Chinese leadership released a document outlining its vision for the country Friday, and most of the attention was paid to reforms, like plans to loosen state control of the economy and end the one-child policy. But when it comes to the Internet, the Chinese Communist government is doubling down on its restrictive policies. The document notes that social networking and instant messaging tools can rapidly disseminate information and mobilize society; the government doesn't think those are good things, and plans to bolster its regulatory systems and increase the scope of their legal authority."

Comments

The trend in China

[cold fjord]

More economic freedom, social freedom is mixed, and continuing or tighter political control.

It will be interesting to see if they continue the trend of relatively more economic freedom into the future since the new leadership is harkening back to the old ways. "Where are the true communists?"

at least they're honest

[noh8rz10]

tfs:

The document notes that social networking and instant messaging tools can rapidly disseminate information and mobilize society; the government doesn't think those are good things

This is what I love about China. They're completely up front about who they are. In the US everything needs to be carefully cloaked in terms of protection from terrorists.

Re:at least they're honest

[ebno-10db]

This is what I love about China. They're completely up front about who they are. In the US everything needs to be carefully cloaked in terms of protection from terrorists.

Every country has it's bogeymen (a/k/a government excuses). Here it's "terrorism", over there I think "social disharmony" or some such . The funny thing about manure is that it smells the same wherever you go.

Re:at least they're honest

[Stormy Dragon]

If a 9/11 scale attack occurred in the US every month, you'd still be statistically more likely to die in a car accident than in a terror attack. The degree to which we fear terrorism relative to the actual risk is way out of proportion. If someone proposed things like indefinite detention or wide scale monitoring to prevent bad driving, they'd rightly be seen as a paranoid nut.

Re:BUT SNOWDEN

[Antipater]

That's like saying we shouldn't have had a Civil Rights movement because at least we weren't killing our minorities like Germany did; we were just oppressing them.

"Y is worse than X" does not mean that X is not also bad.