Self-portrait by The Internet’s Girlfriend (and my friend) Dana DeArmond.
I in no way intend to trivialize the situation with this comparison, but it’s really hard not to look at the tally of porn crackdowns and arrests in China last year and compare them to Princess Leia’s memorable quote from Star Wars, “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” It’s an old reference, but if the iron fist fits… Given the nature of humans, and the nature of the internet, China’s increasingly drastic measures are becoming a near parody of themselves. I can’t stop thinking about the outcome. What is going to come from this? Is this going to explode, and if so, how?
Some of us study, feel, observe and comment on the wondrous ways of Internet information flow and privacy (and nothing is more informative in this respect than sexuality and porn, I promise you). I’ve watched media outlets, big powerful moneyed companies, individuals with power and those with celebrity, and also entire industries felled by trying to control or censor internet information and/or access. As a culture, we’re still learning. But it seems like China isn’t interested in any of these significant cultural behaviors. To me, it looks like a horrifying human experiment is underway, and it’s not going to end well. I feel like lives might be saved if someone could just tap out in Morse code to the Chinese government the John Gilmore quote, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”
Anyway, I was looking over the article below today, and we were upgrading my sex-positive link shortener vbly.us, and I thought, what a mindfuck. Looking at the vbly stats, most of the sex generated links are coming from China, the domain is Libyan; and it’s a sex-positive tool we created specifically with a founding principle of normalizing human sexuality and sexual tolerance. I welcome your thoughts, if you feel like commenting.
China arrests 5,000 for internet pornography offences
China arrested more than 5,000 people in 2009 in a drive to purge the internet of pornography and other “harmful information”.The ministry of public security said 5,394 people had been arrested and that over 9,000 websites had been deleted for having pornographic content. The ministry did not say how many people had subsequently been put on trial.
The authorities released the figures with a warning that its policing of the internet would intensify in 2010 in order to preserve “state security”.
China maintains strict censorship of the internet in order to make sure that unhealthy content, including criticism of the Communist Party, does not reach a wide audience. Websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are all blocked and Google has received a public warning for not censoring itself more thoroughly.
With over 350 million internet users, the government worries that any small cracks in its authority could quickly spiral out of control. In the first six months of 2009, an average of 221,000 Chinese a day started using the internet for the first time, or 153 new users a minute.
The authorities are also hoping to tackle the growing number of Chinese hackers and fraudsters who use the internet to spread viruses and steal personal information. The government has tightened regulations for websites, forcing owners to prove their identity before being allowed to register a name.
The ministry said it would “strengthen punishment for internet operators that violate the laws and regulations” in the coming year and “severely punish operations that have serious problems with harmful information”.
“Purifying the internet environment and cracking down on internet crimes is related to long-term state security,” the ministry said.
In December, the government offered a reward of up to 10,000 yuan (£906) to people who reported websites that feature pornography. (…read more, telegraph.co.uk)
* Note: if you’re looking for our vb.ly bookmarklet for your link shorteneing convenience, it’s here. Just drag the text (it’s a link) to your browser’s toolbar.
Last one to defend the Chinese government, but the UK arrest 3 a week for child porn offences, which is 150 a year, which scaled up to China’s population would be ~3000 people a year. So perhaps China is not so different in this regard, just one assumes it’s motives are suspect because of what else it does in Internet Censorship.
Judging by their appearance the Chinese sites I’ve seen as referrer because of some dumb Chinese click-jack spammer who can’t type his own domain name correctly, sites with poor quality porn and lots of Viagra ads are alive and well in the People’s Republic.
Australia is starting on the same path. Me sad.