It's renowned for having one of the most restrictive regimes in the world. Now China has launched another clampdown on internet usage. In three months last year, almost 13,000 internet cafes were shut down across the country.
In all, the authorities closed 12,575 cafes between October and December for operating illegally, according to the official Xinhua news agency. AP reports the crackdown was aimed at creating "safer environment for young people in China". It said the businesses closed were mostly located near primary or middle schools.
China has the second-largest population of net users in the world, behind the US, with 87 million people online. However, they face many restrictions on their usage. While business and education use is encouraged, the government is less keen on the effect on public morality of giving children access to violent games or sexual material. It controls what the public can see, blocking access to many sites. Many Western news sites have been blocked, with search engines which provided links to information also banned at some times in the country.
View: AP Coverage
In all, the authorities closed 12,575 cafes between October and December for operating illegally, according to the official Xinhua news agency. AP reports the crackdown was aimed at creating "safer environment for young people in China". It said the businesses closed were mostly located near primary or middle schools.
China has the second-largest population of net users in the world, behind the US, with 87 million people online. However, they face many restrictions on their usage. While business and education use is encouraged, the government is less keen on the effect on public morality of giving children access to violent games or sexual material. It controls what the public can see, blocking access to many sites. Many Western news sites have been blocked, with search engines which provided links to information also banned at some times in the country.
View: AP Coverage
Neowin spoke to LokiTorrent's owner, Lowkee, a few weeks ago, as the legal battle was just getting underway. "I run a completely legal website that the MPAA or anyone else has no right to force me to close," he said. "In just the past few weeks, the MPAA has forced the shutdown of many other BitTorrent sites which were set up to do nothing more than allow people to share what they wished. It will be a dark day when we roll over to let organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA make our freedom of speech laws for us.
"Piracy is a byproduct of peer sharing," he added. When peer-to-peer software is being written, there aren't 10 developers wringing their hands together over how much software and music people can steal from those who make a living selling it. Peer sharing is used to allow people who don't have the financial funding of the MPAA and RIAA to share their works, for free, to a worldwide audience without the massive costs of bandwidth punishing them for being popular."
Remember, for all its faults (including the odd lawsuit against 12-year-olds, or dead people), the Recording Industry Association of America did do one thing differently. It waited until there was a mainstream, easily-available and legal alternative to the P2P networks before it launched its legal actions. Napster, iTunes and all have taken off - they may not yet have the same volume of downloads as services like Kazaa did in their hey-day, but it's growing all the time, and surely it won't be that much longer until legal music downloads actually do take over.
The movie business, however, is nowhere near this level. Napster has mentioned it plans to get into it at some point in the future, but no dates have been mentioned yet. There are a few services up and running now, but many of them are (once again) American-only - and others have a small selection of films that most of us have never heard of. Hardly that great of an incentive when a quick search will yield the latest blockbuster, watchable within just a few hours. Link up your computer to your TV and a decent surround sound system, and it's pretty much impossible to tell it apart from the real thing.
I have no doubt legal movie downloads - whether they're pay-per-view, download and keep, or a 24-hour "licence" to watch (pretty much like getting a movie out of Blockbuster or somewhere else at the moment) will come. However, it seems that it's still quite a long way off. More and more people have broadband, more and more people are wanting to use it to its full potential. More and more people are discovered the wonders of downloading films quickly and easily; until there are some viable, legal alternatives, the MPAA is facing an uphill struggle in shutting down BitTorrent trackers.
Neowin's Tom Graham contributed to this report
View: Neowin forums discussion View: BBC News coverageIt is important to note that Neowin does not endorse or support piracy of any kind; members posting links or detailed information will face severe action.
i live in the USA and the USA is getting worse and worse!
There's plenty of alternatives to the BS we have, stop using biased remarks to support your lack of an argument.
Liberals ran the Soviet Union. Liberals run China. It is only a matter of time.
i live in the USA and the USA is getting worse and worse!
If the US was getting worse, you wouldn't be alive to say that. If anything it is getting better as we don't have people running around shooting their mouths off in an attempt to prevent the government from doing its job.
Last edited by 46870 on 15 Feb 2005 - 02:35
Actually, they're more conservative than liberal. They like things the old way. Under a liberal government in the US saw surpluses in the budgets, and a booming economy among other positive things. Now the economy is booming for the top 1% only while they ship more, and more, and more of your manufacturing and technical jobs to China. BTW, China is an economic success with a nearly 10% growth in their economy last year. The best the US can do is 3% to 5%.
Things ARE getting worse in the US. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing at an alarming rate. Free speech is endangered as well.
If only it would do its job instead of trying to push a religious belief on everyone and starting unjustified wars..
Last edited by 50670 on 15 Feb 2005 - 15:12
These guys are so out of the world and behind times that they believe they can stop the internet revolution with a few proxies here and there, not to mention packing internet activists to some concentration camp. China must be the second most oppressive regime right behind North Korea.
1. Sudan
2. North Korea
3. Burma
4. China
5. Saudi Arabia
6. Libya
7. Pakistan
8. Turkmenistan
9. Zimbabwe
10. Equatorial Guinea
SquareSoft0, if the US was a regime (e.g. evil), you wouldn't be alive to say that.
"Regime" is a synonym for "the system of government." It emphasing the state, society and the market. It says nothing about it being good or bad.
It's only when you affix words to it that make it sound bad. Like "oppressive regime" or "facist regime".
LOLzzz Have you been living under a rock for the past decade? Commies censoring info due to parents' complaints!? The truth is simple, China wants to restrict net access to only approved venues so that they can monitor any dissident activites.
Talk about a naive world view indeed.
First of all, they're only cracking down illegal internet cafes. Even though they already closed 13000 of them, there're many that are still open. So the censorship arguement doesn't really hold.
Every parent in China really hate illegal internet cafes because they'll do anything to make money. Fire hazards is a huge issue among illegal internet cafes. In 2004, more than 100 died in a fire in an illegal internet cafe.
Apart from this, parents complain about children spending more time playing games and less time studying.
Yes censorship sucks but this is not an instance of it.
With a country that size the gov sure is a living pananoiac entity.
We all could use some clean slates!! (i'm getting a little loopy this morning from all the coffee, please take with grain of salt).
regime=bad
communism=bad
rebels/insurgents/=bad
It's not what the word is, it's how it's used. Go look up the words your using in a dictionary before you treat them as something bad.
En fait j'en ai un peu rien à foutre de faire des fautes de frappes, le truc c'est que mon message passe, et que les gens voient où ils sont, on est pas dans un monde noir et blanc, mais tout est gris, être manicheiste est du temps de Moïse, ouvre les yeux et lis un journal, autre que Fox News ou CNN...
El tema es que no me importa de hacer faltas escreviendo, el tema es que el mensage sea entendido, e que la gente veen donde son, no estamos en un mundo blanco e negro, pero todo es gris, estar un maniqueisto es quedarse en el tiempo d Moïses. Abre los ojos e lees un periodico que realmente vale la pena, otro que Fox News ou CNN....
O tema e que não importa si faz faltas escrevendo, o tema e que o meu mensagem esta comprendido, e que o pessoal ve onde são, não estamos num mundo pretto e branco, mais tudo esta gris, estar um maniqueisti e como ficar no tempo de Moïses. Abre os olhos e le um jornal que realmente vale a pena, outro que o Fox news, ou CNN....
The drill is that it doesn't matter if I'm not typing correctly, the prob is that my message is understood, and that people see where they are, we are not in a black and white world, but everything is grey, meaning that beeing manicheist is from Moïse time and opsolet. Open your eyes man, read newspaper, not Fox News or CNN...
They say the wise points the moon with his finger, and the idiot starr at the finger....
And by the way, I didn't talk about "evelish capitalist societies", this is a term from the cold war and Iran revolution that China employs to justify some of the actions they take....
Forget this line, I did say that, my mistake...
(Edit: Ya ;P)
Last edited by 46870 on 15 Feb 2005 - 00:20
More like keeping control of everyone. It's sad that there are DICK-taters still around.
so, you follow every order your parents give you, right?
i bet you all would have said something different if this happened somewhere in europe. and if you wanna be smart, try give up your "communism is always bad" attitude, cause that makes you look kinda stupid. (actually this topic hasn't got anything to do this communism)
(I'm against many aspects of communism myself)
No idea what kind of BS you're trying to spew here. History has proven that communism=oppression=failure. Communism in a practical sense is ALWAYS bad, no two questions about it. Don't give me nonsense like communism is good in concept etc...
When have you heard of any country shutting down cyber cafes mass scale because of parents' complaints? It's clearly a degenerate act by the commies to brainwash people on the front of maintating social order. Most owners have ties to crimminals!? What are You, are an experienced insider? Don't make bare faced lies when you know nuts.
And the western media doesn't brainwash people
Not really..... just because historically this is so doesn't mean the theoretical concept of communism is BAD and promotes the contiuation of oppression. Even within modern day capitalist democarcy there is oooooodles of oppression! Don't kid yourself
No, but most (and virtually all the time, now that I'm older), and I certainly didn't disobey continually. And from what I've heard about the Chinese, family is (or was) even more important to them. So, something must be seriously wrong (or seriously incorrect) if there's an epidemic of mass disobedience. Either the Chinese government is exaggerating the problem and/or danger, or their society is seriously neglecting teaching their children good moral behavior. From what I've heard about the government telling children to distrust and closely watch and report their parents, it's probably a combination of both.
Also, communism oppression is historically majorly, undisputively greater than Western democratic/capitalism "oppression".
Last edited by 33328 on 14 Feb 2005 - 16:33
And of course shichiroji4 spreads his ignorance to areas outside of technology. People like you are so stupid, you hear the connotations the media gives to words, and assume that's the definition:
regime=bad
communism=bad
rebels/insurgents/=bad
It's not what the word is, it's how it's used. Go look up the words your using in a dictionary before you treat them as something bad.
It really makes you wonder how much of our history is revisionist history.
I always wondered, if George Washington lost to the British, would he be called a insurgent in our history books?
Of course the founding fathers would have been seen as terrorists if they had lost.
Just because it's on the internet doesnt mean its good. The availability of porn and violence so readily is corrupting our morals, our values and our childrens future.
And then when a country does restrict things which are harmful you Americans and other western-world countries do your typical IRAQ thing and stomp all over other peoples opinions and cultures and beliefs.
Are you sure those numbers are a result of the inception of computers and the Internet and not just an overall trend? After all crime has been dropping since the '80s anyway regardless of any specific reason. I've seen tons of so called "facts" trying to show a correlation between an event with the decrease in crime, but they neglect to show that crime was already decreasing before and after the event.
When have you heard of any country shutting down cyber cafes mass scale because of parents' complaints? It's clearly a degenerate act by the commies to brainwash people on the front of maintating social order. Most owners have ties to crimminals!?
that just shows how you have been "brainwashed" by your parents / culture / society (no offense).
Indead, I am.
The family integrity is one of the most important things in Chinese culture i believe. And to keep the family working, many non-democratic and harsh means of education are used.
And finally, chinese form of government isn't really communistic, it's becoming more and more capitalistic everyday.
Just to remind you USA does not care about democracy if it did, it wouldnt trade billions with china and have pakistan and saudi arabia as speciel allies.
So if its ok for USA to goto war for Oil and front democracy/WMD to the public..
it is ok for china to Sensor damaging news and front child safety. Because china's sensorship didnt kill anybody while the iraqi war left 100,000 Iraqes and nearly 1500 americans DEAD.