well
there goes about 99% of the internet.
China’s shadowy army of government censors have turned their attention to online video with strict new guidelines set to further curb freedom of expression on the internet. The State Internet Information Office and State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) said in a statement that they want to stamp out “vulgar …
Just you wait, in a few years time you'll upload a video of some kittens nomming to Youtube but there will be a six month "processing" delay and a £500 fee while the video gets sent off to the BBFC for certification!
Actually what will really happen is that by then Google will have introduced a special BBFC certification algorithm which will only take a few seconds and will be free to use, but it will erroneously rate your kitten nomming film R18 due to suggestive scenes!
You just know they will try this or something like it in order to "protect" our children...
To prevent their children being exposed to the horrors of the internet, perhaps prudes (sorry - "concerned parents") can have their children's eyelids cauterised together, thereby ensuring they're never exposed to anything that may allow them to develop into normal human fucking beings.
The parents most receptive to this type of "child-protection" seem to be the ones who have no idea about basic computer use - the ones to whom the internet is some sort of back alley, where their children *must* have their hand held at all times - and it's the internet-savvy children of these parents who are usually the best at hiding the porn.
Tiananmen Square, anyone?
Much state violence here (UK) is bad enough to be hidden from public view by the media, presumably "voluntarily" rather than by law, but the result is the same: general public ignorance.
I suspect the effect will be the same as with other forms of prohibition. The commodity "real" news will rise in perceived value, be supplied by the unscrupulous, and be of an inferior quality to that which would otherwise be obtained legally.
http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/index.php?siteurl=theregister.co.uk
Test results for theregister.co.uk
Beijing fail
Shenzen fail
Inner Mongolia fail
Heilongjiang Province fail
Yunnan Province fail
Holy fudgecakes! Since when did the El Reg beancounters approve the use of scruples? Clearly I wasn't paying enough attention...
So, I wonder what the original Chinese word was that Vulgar was translated from, I would not be surprised if it was a bit more specific than vulgar...
But HOW is this different than the British government banning Extreme pornography?
IMHO, if no one was forced, and no one was harmed, then it should not be illegal to have an image of the act (of course photo/video of sexual acts with under 16's would be illegal since 16 is the age of consent, sensible right?)
Will we ever have sensible laws? no chance
Will we ever be really free? not a hope in hell unless we have a benign educated dictator take power.
I wish people would stop moaning about China while our governments are just as bad.
What a dismal place for being one of the millions of beta males. No chance of being an authoritarian leader. Have terrible odds finding a partner with the Girl/Boy ratio and now they can't even have a decent wank over some porn.
All that sexual frustration is bound to end in tears and a nice violent repressive society a la the Arab world.
If I remember correctly, the dastardly Chinese communists were the protagonists of Arthur Charles Clarke's short story «I remember Baylon», in which satellites were sent up to pump pornography into the homes of unsuspecting, innocent residents of the US in order to destroy their moral fibre. What a vile plot ! Of course, history didn't proceed in quite that fashion and the US turned out to be fairly good at producing its own pornography (I believe I first read the story in Playboy in 1960), but it is ironic that the Chinese are trying to protect their onw public from soemthing which might well have been - had reality followed the script of Sir Clarke's fertile imagination more closely - their own fault ! Perhaps they will learn from the US and include «parental controls» with every device that connects to the internet....
Henri