China further lowers Info Curtain
p2pnet.net news:- China has tightened up its already harsh restrictions on Net cafes.
It’ll license no new venues this year, “while regulators carry out an industry-wide inspection amid official concern that online material is harming young people, the government said,” according to Associated Press.
A new clampdown would prevent “decadent” online material from spreading online, said the The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, recently.
Now, “Investigators will look into whether Internet cafes are improperly renting out their licenses or failing to register their customers’ identities, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce said on its Web site,” says AP, going on:
“The communist government encourages Web use for business and education, but authorities are worried it gives children access to violent games, sexually explicit material and gambling Web sites.”
Net cafes are hugely popular with customers who spend hours playing online games that link multiple competitors, adds the story.
Hu, “asked officials to become more knowledgeable and to improve their ability to administer the Internet,” says Xinhua, saying the Chinese government, “should use advanced technologies to better guide public opinions voiced through the Internet”.
“Our research has revealed the growing use of mostly US-based commercial technologies by states and ISPs that filter access to information,” Ron Deibert, director the Citizen Lab and OpenNet Initiative co-principal investigator, told p2pnet recently.
“For example, we have documented the use of the product Smartfilter (made by the US company Secure Computing) in the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Oman, and Saudi Arabia,” he went on, “the US product Fortinet in use in Burma; and the US product Websense in use in Yemen.”
Other countries use the open source product Squidguard and, “The widespread use of these commercial products points to a growing market for filtering services and could suggest an increasing sophistication of Internet filtering practices,” says Deibert.
Also See:
Associated Press – No More New Net Cafes in 2007, June 4, 2007
new clampdown – China to tighten Net curtain, April 24, 2007
p2pnet – State-led Net censorship on the rise, May 22, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
