The Informed Mind Of China Will Not Be Shut Closed
The Scotsman Evening News
Thu 3 Mar 2005
China shuts down 47,000 'harmful' internet cafes
China has closed 47,000 internet cafes in a campaign aimed at creating a more "wholesome environment" for children.
The country’s leaders encourage internet use for business and education, but have expressed growing concern that it gives children access to violent or sexually explicit material, and have tried to block online criticism of their Communist rule.
The cafes closed in the crackdown had been "admitting minors and engaged in dissemination of harmful cultural information", the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily said on its website.
About 21,000 of the closed cafes might be allowed to reopen after making unspecified changes. It said the business licences of 2131 were revoked.
China has the world’s second-largest number of internet users after the United States, with 87 million people online.
The government said in October that it had detained 445 people for operating websites deemed pornographic, and fined internet cafe operators a total of 100 million yuan (£6.2 million) for letting children play violent games.
Commentary
China can't have it both ways, a progressive society that makes money for their economy's coffers and a society where knowledge is squeezed into a vacuum. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no way that China is ever going to restrain her people of intellectual curiousity (87 million of them)and from accepting the lost of their "freedom" to browse the World Wide Web and give up the personal power over their own individual minds (that the State can't get to) that knowledge gives.
I am not talking about pornography or violent game use of the web here, but of legitimate web page use as sources of information and discussion. The "Communist" (let us not forget this) are even making money off their clamp down ("fined internet cafe operators a total of 100 million yuan (£6.2 million")under the guise that they are saving children from the destructsive violence and pornography that they believe has permeated their society's internet use."
I can't believe that all 47,000 internet cafes, or even twenty-five percent of that number, participated in letting children play violent games. Most likely it "admitting minors and engaged in dissemination of harmful cultural information", was an excuse to immediately cut off the flow of private, secular and world wide political news and opinion from a great number of interested citizens who have been indulging in satisfiying their curiousity and hunger for knowledge of the outside World.
I imagine that this turn of events is going to create many millions of unhappy citizens who most likely will become dissidents of potentially violent protest and rebellion against their coercive People's Republic. The Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily isn't going to fill the gaping fissure left by the closings of these popular internet cafes. No way!
The government acted too late, for "outside" information has been seeping from every computer terminal of these 47,000 cafes, into the minds of millions of Chinese. They had truly underestimated that "Knowledge is power" for months now.
The Chinese government doesn't have an army of over 87 million to put a gun to every head, nor a scalpel big enough to abort the seed of personal freedom of thought, that internet use has impregnated in 87 million brains. Nor will they be able to scrape away the residue of personal freedom of interest, nor the freedom of choice that had accompanied every internet surfing act. They can't brainwash these citizens in reverse, they've an impossible situation because that genie won't be put back into the bottle.
I'm glad to say it here and now, the imminent collapse of Communist China became a done deal the minute they allowed the People to "plug in" their telephone lines to the Web.
Thu 3 Mar 2005
China shuts down 47,000 'harmful' internet cafes
China has closed 47,000 internet cafes in a campaign aimed at creating a more "wholesome environment" for children.
The country’s leaders encourage internet use for business and education, but have expressed growing concern that it gives children access to violent or sexually explicit material, and have tried to block online criticism of their Communist rule.
The cafes closed in the crackdown had been "admitting minors and engaged in dissemination of harmful cultural information", the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily said on its website.
About 21,000 of the closed cafes might be allowed to reopen after making unspecified changes. It said the business licences of 2131 were revoked.
China has the world’s second-largest number of internet users after the United States, with 87 million people online.
The government said in October that it had detained 445 people for operating websites deemed pornographic, and fined internet cafe operators a total of 100 million yuan (£6.2 million) for letting children play violent games.
Commentary
China can't have it both ways, a progressive society that makes money for their economy's coffers and a society where knowledge is squeezed into a vacuum. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no way that China is ever going to restrain her people of intellectual curiousity (87 million of them)and from accepting the lost of their "freedom" to browse the World Wide Web and give up the personal power over their own individual minds (that the State can't get to) that knowledge gives.
I am not talking about pornography or violent game use of the web here, but of legitimate web page use as sources of information and discussion. The "Communist" (let us not forget this) are even making money off their clamp down ("fined internet cafe operators a total of 100 million yuan (£6.2 million")under the guise that they are saving children from the destructsive violence and pornography that they believe has permeated their society's internet use."
I can't believe that all 47,000 internet cafes, or even twenty-five percent of that number, participated in letting children play violent games. Most likely it "admitting minors and engaged in dissemination of harmful cultural information", was an excuse to immediately cut off the flow of private, secular and world wide political news and opinion from a great number of interested citizens who have been indulging in satisfiying their curiousity and hunger for knowledge of the outside World.
I imagine that this turn of events is going to create many millions of unhappy citizens who most likely will become dissidents of potentially violent protest and rebellion against their coercive People's Republic. The Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily isn't going to fill the gaping fissure left by the closings of these popular internet cafes. No way!
The government acted too late, for "outside" information has been seeping from every computer terminal of these 47,000 cafes, into the minds of millions of Chinese. They had truly underestimated that "Knowledge is power" for months now.
The Chinese government doesn't have an army of over 87 million to put a gun to every head, nor a scalpel big enough to abort the seed of personal freedom of thought, that internet use has impregnated in 87 million brains. Nor will they be able to scrape away the residue of personal freedom of interest, nor the freedom of choice that had accompanied every internet surfing act. They can't brainwash these citizens in reverse, they've an impossible situation because that genie won't be put back into the bottle.
I'm glad to say it here and now, the imminent collapse of Communist China became a done deal the minute they allowed the People to "plug in" their telephone lines to the Web.
posted by Gabrielle Flora Marie Cusumano | 9:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home