Communist China party girl
p2p news / p2pnet: Is ‘party’ girl Mu Mu real? Or is she a PR/propaganda plant custom-made to give Communist China a prettier face?
“On her fourth day of keeping a Web log, she introduced herself to the world with these striking words: ‘I am a dance girl, and I am a party member’,” says the intro to a New York Times article on blogging in China.
“I don’t know if I can be counted as a successful Web cam dance. But I’m sure that looking around the world, if I am not the one with the highest diploma, I am definitely the dance babe who reads the most and thinks the deepest, and I’m most likely the only party member among them.”
The Mu Mu blog apparently went up in July. We couldn’t find it after an admittedly somewhat abbreviated search. But the NYT has a clip of some of the pix (right) which appear on it.
Definitely suggestive but not porn, soft or otherwise, which is just as well given the instructions from China’s president Hu Jintao to, ” wage a people’s war against pornography on the Internet”.
Under Hu Jintao, “the government has waged an energetic campaign against freedom of expression, prohibiting the promotion of public intellectuals by the news media; imposing restrictions on Web sites; pressing search engine companies, like Google, to bar delicate topics, particularly those dealing with democracy and human rights; and heavily censoring bulletin board discussions at universities and elsewhere,” says the NYT.
“So far, Chinese authorities have mostly relied on Internet service providers to police the Web logs. Commentary that is too provocative or directly critical of the government is often blocked by the provider. Sometimes the sites are swamped by opposing comment – many believe by official censors – that is more favorable to the government.”
China was, “one the first repressive countries to grasp the importance of the Internet and of controlling it,” says Reporters Without Borders, featuring the country on its Enemies of the Net list, and going on:
“It is also one of the few countries that has managed to ’sanitise’ the Internet by blocking access to all criticism of the regime while at the same time expanding it (China has more than 130 million users).
“The secret of this success is a clever mix of filter technology, repression and diplomacy. Along with effective spying and censorship technology, the regime is also very good at intimidating users and forcing them to censor their own material. China is the world’s biggest prison for cyber-dissidents, with 62 in prison for what they posted online.”
Also read-
New York Times – A Party Girl Leads China’s Online Revolution, November 24, 2005
people’s war – China online porn war, July 24, 2005
Enemies of the Net – 15 Enemies of the Net, November 18, 2005
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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 website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
