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Chinese Internet Users Cross 800 Million Mark (scmp.com)

Posted by msmash on from the reaching-new-highs dept.

There are now as many internet users in China as there are people in the United States, Indonesia and Brazil combined. From a report: While two in five Chinese are still offline, the country's internet population has grown big enough to open huge market opportunities for hi-tech companies, and provide the government with better access to keep watch over its citizens, according to an analyst. China surpassed the 800-million mark for the number of internet users for the first time, further cementing its position as home to the world's biggest online community, as the country kept up its investment in infrastructure and pushed to lower access fees. The number of internet users in China rose by 30 million in the first half of this year to 802 million, representing a penetration rate of 57.7 per cent, according to a report by state agency China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) released this week. All but 1.7 per cent of the users access the internet through mobile devices, according to the report.

4 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Re: And they don't even move the needle by fubarrr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Best to call it Chinese intranet

  2. And that half billion of them are buttfuck poor by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Insightful

    China is a nation of 300 million (USA sized) people attached at the hip to 1,000 million poor third world backwards peasants. To get a handle on this, imagine that tomorrow morning every US citizen woke up with 3 clones beside him. Obviously your reaction would be, "get the hell out of my house, you deplorables!" after which the clones would be on their own with no safety net, no welfare or medicare, and the US government would not allow them to stay in the civilized cities, banishing them to the rural areas (hukou system).

    That's basically the situation in China. So these 800 million users are 300 million normal people plus 500 million morons from flyover territory. Needless to say they have little to offer besides cheap labor for the benefit of the capitalists on the coasts. Kind of a metaphor for our own situation in America, eh?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  3. is it really 'the internet'... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    when they're cut-off from much of it? it's more like 800 million chinese INTRAnet users with partial, and censored, global INTERnet access-the accessibility of which is at the whim of their government.

  4. 800 Million Users by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 3, Funny

    800 Million Users; only one political opinion allowed.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch