Chinese Official Vows to "Purify" the Net 321
Sleeping Kirby writes to tell us China's Communist party leader, Hu Jintao today announced the intent to leverage the economic potential of the web while seeking to "purify the internet environment". He proposes to do this by maintaining "the initiative in opinion" on the internet and to "'raise the level guidance on the internet," thus civilizing and purifying the internet environment.
Bolshevism vs. Fascism (Score:3, Interesting)
From TFA:
It's still why I think Bolshevism* and its sequelae are more insidious than fascism: sure, the fascists will shoot you if you agitate against them; but the Bolshevik state would prevent you from agitating in the first place by limiting the set of stimuli that comprise your world.
Reminds me a great deal, actually, of that old Semitic myth about a certain garden and tree of knowledge; whose premise was: fragile and jealous power depends upon the ignorance of its subjugates.
The ignorance of subjugates will always be a Bolshevik, and not a fascist, end.
_____________
* Or Marxism, etc.
And this is unique to "Bolshevism" how? (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is unique to "Bolshevism" how? Controlling the media to present a picture of fair and rational government has been the aim of almost every government/state/ruler in history and it continues to the present day. You need to hit the books if you think fascists (or democrats - small "d") don't practice this too...
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Re:And this is unique to "Bolshevism" how? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but it's good to be skeptical. In my corner of Europe, many people seem to have a blind faith in the government, and will reject anything that resembles a conspiracy theory. I don't have any reason to believe my government seeks to harm me, but even if they mean the best, they can do harm. They have certainly been wrong, uninformed, and naive on some issues. And even the wildest conspiracy theories are sometimes true. So the right approach is to treat everything with a healthy dose of skepticism, and _always_ think for yourself. The problem is, of course, that nobody has time to become an expert and think about everything government decides about.
It's surely not unique in Chinese history (Score:5, Interesting)
He also changed his name to Shi Huangdi, meaning "First August God". This is certainly nothing that the current Emperor would ever deign to do.
Re:It's surely not unique in Chinese history (Score:5, Interesting)
As for Qin Shihuang (another name for Shi Huangdi), most of your comment are correct, except that Zheng was his given name and YING was the surname. He certainly was an influential figure and events related to him did change the course of history. But mind you it was two thousand years ago. A lot of equally important (if not more important) events happened afterwards. Simply attributing everything today to a man died more than 2000 years ago is very much over-simplification, if not totally wrong.
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To quote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Huangdi [wikipedia.org]:
he created a new title, huangdi, combining the word huang from the legendary Three Huang (Three August Ones) who ruled at the dawn of Chinese history, and the word di from the legendary Five Di (Five Sovereigns) who ruled immediately after the Three Huang
His original name was Qin Shihuang, and it is a simple, but clever trick when he invents the title 'Huangdi' (~'emperor') and changes his na
Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism (Score:4, Insightful)
Bolshevism and Fascism are both comparatively bad forms of government by certain standards. Government rooted in non-militia military power generally is.
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The last fifty years of what? If you're talking about the US, it isn't a democracy; it's a limited republic with some facist elements. Democracy is where every "person" being governed has an equal say in the governing of society. Needless to say, it doesn't scale well.
In a US-style republic, those being governed have the option to have their say (not equal representation) in electing (and r
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Not only does it not scale well, but it's decidedly evil. It is, in every sense of the term, mob rule. A representative republic, while unwieldy in some circumstances, at least stands a chance of guarding some fundmental set of principles.
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Some elements? See here under "The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism" [couplescompany.com].
Yeah I know I posted this a few times already and some of you might not agree with the characteristics, the author or the site colors. Just count the matches...
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I came across an interesting article about the M3 series, the broadest measure of money supply, which is no longer publishe
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government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. (emphasis mine)
The USA and the UK both fit this definition. Most of the world uses the word democracy as shorthand for democratic republics such as the USA, constitutional monarchies like the UK or
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However it's perfectly possible to have republics or monarchies t
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A pure democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. As a form of governance, it is only effective for highly homogenous societies.
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It is more on the lines with National Socialism economically and a bit Italian Fascist government policy wise (without any central Il Duce figure).
I say this because China is highly nationalist rather than ideologist.
If you published an article today about Tibet/Taiwan is not China would be akin to publishing an article in 1939 Germany that Danzig is not Germany.
Sure you have the ability to
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Bolsheviks have no problem shooting you and fascists have no qualms about censorship, propaganda, and other information control techniques. While one might find substantive rather than merely rhetorical differences between those two
Defending fascism? (Score:2)
I think the term you want is "authoritarianism". The desire to totally control others is truly egalitarian. It is not restricted to any race, creed, religion, class, or political ideology.
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Exactly; I think the case for Bolshevism is stronger than the case for fascism; but “fascism” has been, since WWII, a rhetorically charged word to drum up cheap interest.
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Facism = Discrimination against ugly faces, or government by the pretty ones.
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Re:Bolshevism vs. Fascism (Score:5, Insightful)
People seemingly nostalgic for the Red Bear seem to love to belabor the "man in space" point, but also seem to avoid noting that the Soviet Union failed the ultimate intelligence test, when it neglected to ensure its own survival.
If the system was that good, obviously it should have easily managed to hang on -- obviously that would have been the prime national priority. And yet it did not. Perhaps the take-away lesson is that while the system worked admirably on concentrating a lot of resources on a few key problems, it was unable to manage the delegation of a lot of resources, to a lot of smaller problems. (This isn't particularly astute or surprising; control centralization allows for concentration, but at the expense of flexibility.)
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Every civilization falls, eventually.
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They're going to what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They're going to what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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After all, the Bush Administration continuously borrows extraordinary sums from the Chinese government to buy war materiel from the Chinese Red Army-owned factories (along with Wall Mart and Sam's Club, and various other retailers [Nordstrom, The Gap, etc.]) for the occupation of Iraq (and no doubt, the soon-to-be nuclear strike on Iran!). Perhaps not coincidentally, the newest foreign af
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-Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity
Re:They're going to what? (Score:5, Funny)
>Don't they mean purify humanity?
Abbot: "Not they, Hu."
Costello: "Who's going to what?"
Abbot: "Hu's going to purify the Internet. What's going to purify humanity."
Costello: "I don't know who or what's gonna purify humanity! Or how!"
Abbot: "Hao? Who's Hao?"
Costello: "I don't know!"
Both: "All your base!"
Who, or When? (Score:2)
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'Purify'
'Glorious'
'Courageous'
And other terms meant to indicate that somehow the idea described is 'whiter then white' and all that man can aspire to. It's all part of the ethos. If people thought that the idea's of the government weren't perfect, then why they might start thinking up their own idea's, and that will never do.
Of course us capitalist democracies do get the same stuff sometimes, but we can say 'screw you' to the people
Multi talented (Score:5, Funny)
from the article:
Hu stressed the need to exploit the net's possibilities, while keeping a tight grip. "Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration," he concluded.
On the internet I thought one hand was for the mouse and the other was otherwise occupied. Its no wonder he is keeping a tight grip.
Purify this! (Score:5, Funny)
From the good-luck-with-that dept. (Score:3, Interesting)
While China may only house 15-20% of the world's population, that's still a huge fraction. That would be one hell of an astroturf.
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Is she single?
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Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
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King Canute (Score:2)
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Well done (Score:5, Informative)
Every time you buy some "MADE IN CHINA" shit from WalMart, etc. you help bankroll this type of crap.
And what about the Olympic Games? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's nothing (Score:3)
Of course, it would probably be easier if your politicians were not so tightly related to the big oil companies, but that's another story. Or is it ?
And mod me down all you like, I have plenty of karma to burn. Burning karma does
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Items manufactured in mainland China almost never qualify as PRC or People's Republic of China, but rather as simply Made in China. As one is a democratic republic and the other is a communist state with capitalist leanings, I'd assume manufacturers would wish to avoid a
Re:Actually no (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what he means is... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, he's nearly got the clout for it. Good luck Hu. You've got my vote! oh wait...
Re:I think what he means is... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I think what he means is... (Score:4, Insightful)
And coming from China [slashdot.org]. Think of that.... Maybe he's on to something.
The Register isn't qualified to report on this. (Score:5, Insightful)
And anyone who puts a ® at the end of an entire article as if it was a copyright symbol isn't qualified to copyright or register as a trademark anything.
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I believe they're using the "®" as a logo ("R" for "Register") rather than attempting to indicate a registered trademark.
Small problem for Mr. Hu (Score:4, Informative)
A vast majority of the world's servers are in countries not named the People's Republic of China. Therefore, to do as he insists, he would have to take control of those servers. I suspect, that even given the large number of people at his beck and call, that is a task beyond his capacity. At some point, every person is possession of sole authority in some organization gets delusions of grandeur.
In plain English: he's FOS.
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Or, he tries harder to make the 'great firewall of China' even more efficient so that the stuff that he can't directly control, he can supress. If his little corner of the world seems to have been purified, and his own citizens can't see anything to refute it, his plan must have worked.
I suspect that's a more likely strategy.
Cheers
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Not that I think you're wrong about the delusions of granduer thing, but this is something within his power to do.
Say what you will about him... (Score:2)
Reminds me a lot of a certain Sci-Fi book. (Score:2)
First great mistake (Score:2)
Of course, the internet may soon be bigger than Asia...
Doug in a Dress (Score:4, Insightful)
China would have to have a ginormous amount of 'censors' constantly surfing and updating their own database of acceptable internet sites to have anything close to a 'guidance initiative'. This is just a media spin on what china has been doing all along, blocking major portions of the internet off completely from it's own citizens.
You can see the ridiculous tracert douginadress.com [douginadress.com] takes to reach chinese citizens right now ; another comment on China's inability to even provide standard censorship
Is the Chinese Constitution a sham? (Score:5, Funny)
Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.
Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. No citizen may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people's procuratorate or by decision of a people's court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. Unlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens' freedom of person by detention or other means is prohibited; and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited.
Article 39. The home of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. Unlawful search of, or intrusion into, a citizen's home is prohibited.
Article 40. The freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People's Republic of China are protected by law. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe upon the freedom and privacy of citizens' correspondence except in cases where, to meet the needs of state security or of investigation into criminal offences, public security or procuratorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with procedures prescribed by law.
Article 41. Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints and charges against, or exposures of, violation of the law or dereliction of duty by any state organ or functionary; but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited. In case of complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens, the state organ concerned must deal with them in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures, or retaliate against the citizens making them. Citizens who have suffered losses through infringement of their civil rights by any state organ or functionary have the right to compensation in accordance with the law.
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All of your bolded words (especially "unlawful", used multiple times) can be interpreted by Chinese courts to mean anything, because the Chinese Constitution purposefully spells out rights (grants them) as oppo
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Actually, the last amendment to the Constitution says that Congress can't raise its own pay in the middle of a term.
It is even the last ratified of the 11 that have been ratified of the 12 that were originally pro
Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham? (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the bitching about the United States you see on Slashdot, at least our government actually has to try to subvert the Constitution, and we have ways of fighting back. The US Constitution doesn't have an "Oh, and everything we promised you you have, you don't have." escape hatch built in. Technically, we have the exact opposite, whatever our dear Attorney General may think. (The closest thing to an all-purpose escape hatch is the Commerce Clause, and that's not without controversy, nor is it total; the Supreme Court has interpreted it more broadly than I'd like but they have rejected some uses of it.)
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with the united states constitution tenth amendment.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
perhaps the best way to compare the two
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But only terrorists fight the US government!
``The US Constitution doesn't have an "Oh, and everything we promised you you have, you don't have." escape hatch built in.''
But the President does have "constitutional powers" which put him above the law. Well, at least he thinks so and acts like it. Wholesale surveillance of US citizens,
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Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham? (Score:5, Informative)
How many times have you heard some politician in America accuse someone of "distorting the facts"? In China, Article 41, which at first says that people have a right to criticize the government, then goes on to say "but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited." This is a much higher bar to political speech than the US has. Can you imagine being practical to criticize an elected official if you had to verify all your facts even to the point of not being allowed any "distortions". Seems reasonable, until you are thrown into Jail because you rounded up the amount and said the national Debt was 9 trillion when really it was just 8.6 trillion, or you get thrown in jail because you are found to exaggerate the amount of corruption or mismanagement in government.
You want a world without negative political campaigns, you go ahead and find it in China. You want a world where people are afraid to speak their minds about their government, go to China.
Just read the whole thing, there is a little something for the authoritarian in everyone.
Look at Article 54, for instance:
It is the duty of citizens of the People's Republic of China to safeguard the security, honor and interests of the motherland; they must not commit acts detrimental to the security, honor and interests of the motherland.
A familiar pattern should emerge, eventually, as you read through the CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA. First it talks about the rights of the people and then it gives the state broad authority to take away those rights to pursue some government interest such as "security" or "public order". In some cases taking away that right must be merely "lawful", so as long as they use some standard form or procedure then just about every so called right is subject to the whims of lawmakers, with no real grounds for judicial review.
Yes, there are some similar exceptions in the US Constitution, which US lawmakers regularly try to take advantage of, just as they do in China. But I do think that the exceptions in the Chinese Constitution are far broader in scope and more powers are explicitly delegated to the government which give it broader authority over people's lives.
Re:Is the Chinese Constitution a sham? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Article 1. The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The socialist system is the basic system of the People's Republic of China. Sabotage of the socialist system by any organization or individual is prohibited.
Article 28. The state maintains public order and suppresses treasonable and other counter- revolutionary ac
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Purifying the internet is all well and good... (Score:2)
Paging Gen. Jack D. Ripper!!!
Oh, thats a good one! (Score:2)
Hello, Major Strasser (Score:2)
I find it interesting... (Score:2)
China had to learn from North Korea & Cuba? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that doesn't sound too good. And he wants to "purify" the internet.
Another interesting summary on wiki of his "Eight Do's and Dont's", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba_rong_ba_chi [wikipedia.org]
Number Eight is interesting, "Regard plain living and hard struggle as an honour, regard living in luxury as a shame."
Perhaps he needs a number nine, which reads something like "Regard the internet as a backward Western evil, filled with filthy images and make-believe."
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Sounds like a Marketing guy (Score:2, Funny)
Straight outta pre-bubble 2000 sales hype for some dot-com. Yup, China is advancing far faster than we could have ever believed.
Purifying the Net (Score:2, Funny)
TFA said nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time there's this knee-jerk, robotic reaction I totally don't get. Believe in what you WANT TO believe in. In this case, there's no FA to read.
Business Opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
Date: Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:53 PM
Subject: PURIFICATION CAMPAIGN
Chmn Hu Jintao
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am fine today and how are you? I hope this letter will find you in the best of health. I am Chmn Hu Jintao, the Chairman of the "Communist Party" and the "Fifth Civilization Marching Forward Into the Millenium (FCMFIM)", a subsidiary of the "PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC)".
The Fifth Civilization Marching Forward Into the Millenium (FCMFIM) was set up by the late Head of State, Chmn Mao Zedong who died on 9 September 1976, to manage the excess revenue accruing from the electronic commerce and its allied products as a domestic increase in the campaign to purify the internet environment. The estimated annual revenue for 2005 was $45 Billion US Dollars Ref. FMF A26 Unit 3B Paragraph "D" of the Auditor General of the People's Republic of China Report of Nov. 2006 on estimated revenue.
I am the Chairman of the Contract Award Committee, and my committee is solely responsible for awaiting and paying of contracts on behalf of the People's Republic of China. My Committee awarded Contracts to foreign contractors for Vigorous Purification By One Hand Grasping Matters in the cheap plastic consumer goods producing areas of Sichuan. We overshot the contract sum by US$25,000,000.00. We have paid the contractors and withholding the balance of US$25,000,000.00. But, because of the existence of some of the domestic laws forbidding civil servants in PR from opening, operating and maintaining foreign accounts, we do not have the expertise to transfer this balance of fund to a foreign account.
However, this balance of US$25,000,000.00 has been secured in form of Credit/Payment to a foreign contractor, hence we wish to transfer into your bank account as the beneficiary of the fund. We have also arrived at a conclusion that you will be given 20% of the total sum transferred as our foreign partner, while 5% will be reserved for incidental expenses that both parties will incur in the course of actualizing this transaction, and the balance of 75% will be kept for the committee members.
If you know that you will be capable of helping us actualize this transaction, you should send to me immediately the details of your bank particulars or open a new bank account where we can transfer the money US$25,000, 000.00, which you will be holding in trust for us until we come to your country for our share. Your nature of business does not matter in this transaction. The required details includes your company's name, address, your private personal telephone/fax numbers, your full name and address, including your complete bank details where the transferred fund will be routed by the Shengdong Bank.
Note that this transaction is expected to be actualized within 21 working days from the day the required details are forwarded to the People's Ministry of Finance who will approve the needed foreign exchange control allocation for the release of this money to your account. Please, treat this as top secret. You should contact me urgently.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Yours RESPECTFULLY,
Chmn Hu Jintao
First Amendment (Score:3, Funny)
An Open Letter to Hu Jintao (Score:2)
Please be advised of an old adage we have here in America: it's like herding cats.
In short: good fucking luck. You'll need it.
Sincerely,
Me
Politicians full of shit. News at 11. (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this any different than local efforts to purify the internet like segregating the dirty pics into
You can find out all about international efforts to purify the net here. [privacyinternational.org] And its already outdated.
Every politician will talk about purifying the internet, making it safe for you and your children because most people have a knee jerk reaction, and it distracts from real issues.
In other so far unreported comments he said (Score:3, Informative)
In other unreported comments he went on to explain China's new computer initiative involving Linux and the new Chinese made and developed hardware. He said that his remarks applied equally to the new smart phone due to be released at the Beijing summer IT fair.
"It is exactly the same", he said "ensure also that one hand grasps hardware while the other grasps the OS. This way all users are given full integrated experience and can exploit potential of modern computer science to maximum without distraction from driver problem.
"Ensure one hand grasps phone network while other hand grasps mobile appliance. Only so can stability of both be assured and West China networks kept immune from crashes.
"Ensure also one hand around throat of developers and other around phone application environment. So can help users avoid distraction by non optimally working applications not authorized by Party.
"In coming weeks will be propounding further on four principles of making happy users and clean and healthy computing and phoning environment: protect OS, protect hardware, protect applications, protect networks. Trust in Party."
I am very surprised these inspiring comments, which will alas strike a chord with only one or two Western computing and mobile phone companies, and which are a devastating if tactful correction to the whole Open Source movement, failed to find their way into the press.
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So you hold on to what is "developing" with one hand, and "administer" to your bedmate with the other. Works pretty well for me!
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Aside from the fact that Hu Jintao needs the Leia-to-Tarkin retort, it means that while over here (waves off to one side) is the Ministry of Network Technology and Applications Research and Development [that's the hand grasping development], over there (waves off to the other) is the Ministry of Internet Monitoring, Censorship, and Dissident Suppression [or the hand grasping "admini
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/tosses book
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So, ThighNet then?
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Nope. PieNet.
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