Chinese authorities have recently been widely criticized for their well known censorship of various popular websites from the Chinese cyber space. This was all done in what was cited to be an attempt to ‘purify’ the online surfing experience of the average Chinese citizen. The Chinese citizens in question, however, beg to differ, and several global voices join them in condemning this prohibition as an act of oppression and suppression of the individuals’ right to freedom of choice.
On the other side of the fence, there Chinese powers that be have put forth their intentions to wipe off all forms of pornography with the help of these restrictions, and all of this is being done in order to ‘preserve national long term stability’, to build a ‘harmonious society’ and to prevent the ‘poisoning of young people’s physical and mental health. The official organization responsible for this moral crackdown on more than four hundred sites is the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, more popularly (or, in the current circumstances, perhaps notoriously) known as SARFT.
SARFT has even devised a three pronged strategy to ‘protect’ the unwilling citizens from the evils of freedom of internet surfing. The first is a mass crackdown on internet pornography crimes. The second strategy entails extension of power and administrative capacity of its security section, enabling the same to deter the ‘criminals’ in addition to being able to handle and deter more extensively and efficiently. The third part of this brilliant plan is enhancing collaboration and communication between various concerned departments in order to function more smoothly and efficiently.
They propose fabricating a blacklist and to ‘urge’ ISPs to make efforts to filter out pornographic material with increasing security and preventive technology. While one might think that SARFT is simply making a fool of itself, maybe one needs to think of the ulterior, hidden agenda of power, control and censorship which are the ultimate result of any such crackdown behind the rather pathetic veneer of moral policing.
Scarily enough, it seems to be working, though one has to think that SARFT believes that the average person’s IQ is in single digits if they really hope to get away with the whole issue without anyone noticing.
[Via ZeroPaid.com]
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google (. cn) to leave China, the Chinese government will block google.com?