China Makes Arrests To Stop Internet Porn 204
thefickler writes "The Chinese Government is expanding a crackdown on Internet pornography. Xinhua news agency, which is owned by the government and can safely be used for reporting in China, says the campaign to scrub the country's Internet of 'vulgar' content has so far resulted in 29 criminal cases. Police have ordered the removal of 46,000 pornographic and other 'harmful' items from websites. The latest crackdown comes after official warnings of rising social unrest as the economy slows. It's no coincidence that this year is the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen Square, or, to use the acceptable nomenclature, 'the June 4th incident.'"
numbers (Score:0, Informative)
What I don't understand is that if there are so many damn people in China why they don't just overthrow their government... it wouldn't be difficult.
arrests not necessarily due to porno (Score:5, Informative)
"28 suspects arrested in the campaign included 4 men in their twenties who ran the Midnight Prostitute Call website from eastern China. They also included two men accused of using a video chat service to defraud customers."
Re:numbers (Score:5, Informative)
a lot of chinese people happen to like the chinese government and approve of what's going on
Quite right. This is anecdotal, but the Chinese people I've spoken with about this simply do not see the problems that I try to ask them about. They largely agree with what the Chinese government is doing. They see government as their protector, and mostly agree/assume that "the government knows best." They point to the remarkable progress and advancement in China (in terms of tech, economy, society, etc.) to prove their point.
At worst, I've gotten some of them to begrudgingly admit that some things the government is doing may be "necessary compromises" in order for the country as a whole to grow.
Those that I've met are among the more educated and traveled/worldly of the Chinese population. I'm not sure which way that biases the sample. I'm well-aware that there are dissidents in China trying to stop things like censorship; but doing so must be exceedingly difficult when the average person (and even the "intellectual elite" if you will) support the government.
It is tradition act of the government (Score:5, Informative)
In the past, the government had done many gang/crime enforces during certain month of year before, they call it "Yan Da" which basically mean strict enforcement.
But everyone in china knows that It doesn't solve anything permanently and the people who are involve with such act just keep low profile and wait for it finish.
As for the porn busting thing.. my coworkers are making jokes about it and pulling out any thing vaguely sexual. such as, you can't mention "Mei Nv"(beatiful girl) in the game description.
Bottom line, Everything will be business as usual in a month or two.
Re:An IT analogy (Score:3, Informative)
My Chinese teacher says China is not yet ready for democracy. For one, it is a huge country, which also means it is inert. Such radical changes, if implemented haphazardly, mostly lead to problems.
The Chinese do not plan in 4-year mandates. They plan in chunks of 20 or 50 years. At the same time, they do not tend to improvise as much.
There is quite a number of issues here, and the more I learn about China, the more I understand that applying the western model would be the wrong thing to do. It is a different culture, with different values. Forcing our values on them, in any way, would meet – and is meeting – much resistance.
Evolution, not revolution. That's the answer.
Re:What for? (Score:2, Informative)
But I don't think it's going to work. China's had a pornography problem ever since it's had the internet. If you've ever visited Chinese websites (I'm Chinese so I know), even the mainstream news websites are plastered with 18+ advertisements. Needless to say, it's a bit late to start fixing the problem, eh?
Re:What for? (Score:3, Informative)
The words before your quote is:
Not to value/employ men with superior ability keeps people from rivalry; not to prize articles which are difficult to procure keeps people from becoming thieves; not to show people what is likely to excite their desires keeps their minds from disorder.
The real meaning of Lao Zi's quote (the quote in the above post) actually centred to two things: 1) Fulfill their physical need/keep them strong. 2) Decrease people's desire.
Lao Zi himself is a history scholar who is very wise, knowledgable, and good in ethic that Kong Zi (the "founder" of Confucius) describe him as "dragon" (an animal that reaches the "god" level).
The writing does say "keeps them innocent of knowledge" etc. literally. But reading Chinese writing, you can never take it word by word. You need to get the "atmosphere" or "real meaning" of the writing.
Various times in history, Chinese did try to implement his ideas into ruling system. Those times results into the strongest time of China. And it's not really about not letting people know, but about "controlling desire" (that's part of Chinese culture) and "let nature fix things naturally by not imposing unneccessary laws and controls".
What mainland government doing is not really associated to what Tao Teh Ching says. They fails to clean up desires amoung government officals (probably not including the very top ones). Then they can't possibily clean up the desire amoung the people, except the scholars who care (not talking about those university people, but scholars, if you know what I mean).