Teenagers banned from Internet cafes in China

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The Xinhua News Agency reveals teenagers are to be banned from Internet cafés in China as part of a Government-led initiative to prevent young people from being exposed to "immoral and harmful content."

The ban also extends to karaoke bars and discos as the Government attempts to crack down on "audio and video products and electronic games" which "harm national security and incite hatred toward other nationalities," as reported by the Xinhua News Agency. The ban will go into effect on March 1st.


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[Kinsao]

That's a nightmare.
I'm lost for words.
Of course, I'm not so naive as not to know this happens... but to see it in black and white...

[godppgo]

So accessing internet at home will not expose teens from immoral and harmful content? I don't see the logic in that.....

[MrsAmberface]

that makes almost no sense at all aside from the fact that it just sounds like the ""house moms of america"" <--lol--> except for in china i belive i'd be lost with out internet. It may be bad but there is a lot of good like sites such as this where you meet and interact with people and then learn some that makes me sad

[Kinsao]

godppgo: That's a good point But also, it's like influence of the state, it has influence on feelings of the public... it's like they are putting the message across that 'internet is a bad thing for children'... and this kind of message percolates... even though they would still be allowed to use internet in their home (depending on the parents). And also that sort of thing paves the way for much more extreme censorship... (as indicated by the second part of the post)

Mrsamberface: Yeah, like everything else there is good and bad things, just like books or TV or movies, somethings ok for children and some not, that's life.

[Mamoru-kun]

That's a nightmare.
I'm lost for words.
Of course, I'm not so naive as not to know this happens... but to see it in black and white...

That's a nightmare for them if you consider that they are somehow closing another door to the rest of the world, as japan did some centuries ago. But here we are speaking about billion of people! They are not closing a door, they are setting the frontier deeper! If they continue that way, we will soon have two "Earths" down here, in wich each part will "horrible" for the other one...

[ArmandV]

This is no surprise. China's a communist country. People tend to forget this.

[Sukotto]

Sad,
but let's not stop paying attention to "over here" (wherever
your 'over here' may be). In the US they do it more sublte
and via corporations.


It seems corporations want to pave two seperate paths
for the internet, one in which those who can pay get a fastlane
and the slow lane for the rest of us. Plus they want to charge
for almost everything we do on the internet.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/chester

Center for Digital Democracy
http://www.democraticmedia.org/issue...eutrality.html


and,
I seem to recall reading some time ago about a neo-con
proposal for government to control the internet in the case of
some sort of 'national security' situation. After about 10 minutes
of internet searching, I could not find this however...



---added---
what's this 'domain name' stuff I just started to read about?
sorry if I'm highjacking the thread.
I'll go search elsewhere on the forum.

I agree with many above.
the net is a great way to meet people you might not ordinarily
be able to meet, and before societal prejedices might set it.

[nurizeko]

"harm national security and incite hatred toward other nationalities"

Oops, too late.

[Brooker]

That's too bad. I hope the people of China can enjoy all of the freedoms others enjoy.

[Ma Cherie]

This is no surprise. China's a communist country. People tend to forget this.

That's what's wrong, in theory China shouldn't be defined as a communist country. Not after it has adopted the market system. In theory this makes no sense.

[gs001]

As I know this stipulation was implemented several years ago,
and it has nothing to do with political suppression.
teenagers are often addicted to internet and play truant,
so they were only allowed to go to internet bar at holiday.
if they choose to access internet at home, their tutor can
easily supervise them.
And from this thread I know how China be demonized
China now has 110 millions of netizen(almost the same as
Japanese total population) and 64% of them use Broad Band,
no one can "control" this huge people and digital flow.
I'm not a communist lover, I just want you understand China
objectively.

[ArmandV]

That's what's wrong, in theory China shouldn't be defined as a communist country. Not after it has adopted the market system. In theory this makes no sense.

"In theory." But it is still not the reality. The government is still communist.

"No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it is still a pig."

[Silverbackman]

As I know this stipulation was implemented several years ago,
and it has nothing to do with political suppression.
teenagers are often addicted to internet and play truant,
so they were only allowed to go to internet bar at holiday.
if they choose to access internet at home, their tutor can
easily supervise them.
And from this thread I know how China be demonized
China now has 110 millions of netizen(almost the same as
Japanese total population) and 64% of them use Broad Band,
no one can "control" this huge of people and digital flow.
I'm not a communist lover, I just want you understand China
objectively.

LOL, gs001 you continue to amaze me wherever you go. Communist or not, there are still victims of this government control. Why can't you guys at least become more like Taiwan?

[gs001]

Hello Silverbackman, my Indian friend
glad to meet you here!
your Indian always have time to access internet?
I want to know why you(as a Indian)always pretend to be an American?
Do you shame of your nationality?

[godppgo]

Hello Silverbackman, my Indian friend
glad to meet you here!
your Indian always have time to access internet?
I want to know why you(as a Indian)always pretend to be an American?
Do you shame of your nationality?

Maybe he is American?

[gs001]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[gs001]

Maybe he is American?

I knew that guy in India forum,
he is an Indian nationalist
BTW, godppgo, is that photo under your name really yours?
you are beautiful

[godppgo]

I knew that guy in India forum,
he is an Indian nationalist
BTW, godppgo, is that photo under your name really yours?
you are beautiful

The girl in my avatar is my gf. A shanghai girl.

[Silverbackman]

Hello Silverbackman, my Indian friend
glad to meet you here!
your Indian always have time to access internet?
I want to know why you(as a Indian)always pretend to be an American?
Do you shame of your nationality?

Why no, my Chinese friend. I'm just a big fan of Indian culture as I am with Japanese culture. Still a pure red-blood American (if Indian descent).
BTW, I sometimes wonder the same thing about you and China though. It seems you cannot accept the truth that you have little freedom in China ;). Which is why you can never convince Taiwan to join your country.

[Supervin]

It seems [that people in China] cannot accept the truth that [they] have little freedom in China ... Which is why [China] can never convince Taiwan to join [it].

It's because the people in China are:
i) misled by the vast amounts of Government propaganda fed from birth and school education, or
ii) they are aware of the suppression, but have gotten used to it by accepting it as reality and the current situation as the status quo, or
iii) ignorant of the magnitude of freedom in other countries.

China isn't at all convincing Taiwan 'to join' it, rather it's coercing Taiwan to recognize itself as a part of China.

But hey, what do you expect from an authoritarian regime?

[bossel]

The government is still communist.

Only by name, but not by deed. It's a party dictatorship, but there is hardly a communist feature left beyond that (if that is a particular communist feature at all).

[Silverbackman]

Only by name, but not by deed. It's a party dictatorship, but there is hardly a communist feature left beyond that (if that is a particular communist feature at all).

That is true but that is what happens to anyone who attempts communism or pure socialism. Mao's version of communism was a bit closer to Marx's view and yet it lead to the starvation of millions. Pol Pot's communism was even closer to Marx's vision, and it lead to one of the biggest crimes against humanity of our time. North Korea, well might as well not venture into there!

There is however two communist countries that isn't generally talked about: Vietnam and Laos. Whatever happened in those two countries? Did they become more capitalistic or did communism actually work there?

[nurizeko]

As I know this stipulation was implemented several years ago,
and it has nothing to do with political suppression.
teenagers are often addicted to internet and play truant,
so they were only allowed to go to internet bar at holiday.
if they choose to access internet at home, their tutor can
easily supervise them.
And from this thread I know how China be demonized
China now has 110 millions of netizen(almost the same as
Japanese total population) and 64% of them use Broad Band,
no one can "control" this huge people and digital flow.
I'm not a communist lover, I just want you understand China
objectively.

I highly doubt that statistic of chinese users, but if its true, your country is still highly restrictive on internet access.

China certainly isnt as bad as the mao era but, people still go missing, prisons are still harsh, pro-democracy is still crushed, i really do feel its just a general ignorance of how much freedom other countries have.

China can be the richest most powerful country in the world, ide still rather live in my scottish backwater with all my freedoms intact.

Though from stories of asian kids dying after insane gaming marathons, i dont question that it seems more addictive to asian kids then western thing...i think its a consiquence of the culture though, american-asians dont seem as badly effected by it.

[Supervin]

I highly doubt that statistic of chinese users, but if its true, your country is still highly restrictive on internet access.

There are actually 134 million Net users in China, and counting, FYI.

Internet access is not at all restrictive in China.

It's just that there is this massive firewall implemented on the Internet in China by the Communist Government, and recently, with both Microsoft and Google in China supporting and maintaining this. (I won't even begin to go into the lack of moral scrupples by multinational corporations and their double standards.) Topics and blogs related to democracy, Taiwan, Falun Gong and Tiananmen are screened out.