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ShanghaiUnderground
StreetBeater
Joined: July 15, 2004
Posts: 2413
Location: Shanghai
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 Posted:
Mar 06, 2007 - 06:01 PM |
 
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| Post subject: China Won't Let New Internet Cafes Open |
Found this curious, but I'm not sure what to make of it.
Is the Great Firewall at its capacity for filtering/blocking subversive info? Is the government waiting for the next generation of filtering equipment to arrive from the West?
Perhaps they want people to surf for their pron and phalun g0ng enlightment from their homes or offices, where it might be easier to track.
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The Associated Press
Monday, March 5, 2007; 11:24 PM
BEIJING -- China will not allow any new Internet cafes to open this year, state media reported Tuesday.
The Xinhua News Agency said 14 government departments, including the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Information Industry, had issued a notice saying that "in 2007, local governments must not sanction the opening of new Internet bars."
It said there are about 113,000 Internet cafes in China. Many are smoke-filled rooms with rows of computers set up for online gaming.
The Chinese government promotes Internet use for education and business, but tries to block the public from seeing material online that is deemed subversive or pornographic.
In January, President Hu Jintao ordered Chinese Internet regulators to promote a "healthy online culture" to protect the government's stability.
China's online population grew by 23.4 percent last year to 137 million people, about 10 percent of its 1.3 billion population, the China Internet Network Information Center reported last month. The figure puts China on track to surpass the U.S. in the next two years as the nation with the most Internet users, the government has said. |
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"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth." |
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bougie
Board Buddha
Joined: Nov 20, 2004
Posts: 13323
Location: Wuhan Hubei China
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| Posted:
Mar 06, 2007 - 07:39 PM |
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Maybe it's cause the really fat kid that died from being a video game junkie ?
No way .. what was I thinking. |
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ShanghaiUnderground
StreetBeater
Joined: July 15, 2004
Posts: 2413
Location: Shanghai
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Mar 08, 2007 - 11:59 AM |
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More business for the hair salons.
Wonder how many fat and not so fat kids have died and gone to heaven at a whackshack.
Probably 100,000+ whackshacks in Shanghai alone.
Perhaps the Party is afraid to curtail the pleasures that matter most to the locals.
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Smoking curb could "upset China stability"
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's stability could be threatened if the government tried to curb smoking, a senior official said on Wednesday at a discussion of the annual meeting of parliament.
"Smoking harms people's health, but restraining smoking threatens social stability," said Zhang Baozhen, deputy chief of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.
"Smokers rioted when the former Soviet Union collapsed because they could not get any cigarettes... The principle applies in China as well," Zhang said, responding to proposals from some members of China's parliamentary advisory body to curtail the smoking industry.
Smoking bans are already in effect in many places around the world, including several American states and parts of Europe, but Zhang said China should not make the same move.
"As a developing country, China still needs the tobacco industry," he said.
China, the world's largest producer and consumer of cigarettes, with nearly 2 trillion sticks consumed a year, bans its drivers from smoking, but the law is routinely ignored.
The World Health Organization estimates that smoking kills 1.2 million people are year in China.
China's ruling Communist Party has put strong emphasis on maintaining social stability as prοtests due to corruption, land grabs, environmental disasters and a growing gap between rich and poor increase.
"With the development of modern technology, we can reduce the harm of smoking by lowering the toxic ingredients in cigarettes," the official said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070307/wl_nm/china_parliament_smoking_dc_ 3;_ylt=AnUvCZrmibaNvqDIWSb4OrJPzWQA
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_________________
"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth." |
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ShanghaiUnderground
StreetBeater
Joined: July 15, 2004
Posts: 2413
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted:
Mar 12, 2007 - 11:04 AM |
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An update:
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Game over for China's net addicts
BEIJING (Reuters) - Combining sympathy with discipline, a military-style boot camp near Beijing is at the front-line of China's battle against Internet addiction, a disorder afflicting millions of the nation's youth.
The Internet Addiction Treatment Center (IATC) in Daxing county uses a blend of therapy and military drills to treat the children of China's nouveau riche addicted to online games, Internet pornography, cybersex and chats.
"I gradually became obsessed," said Li Yanlin, a university student whose grades plunged after he became addicted to Internet games. But after several weeks at the Daxing facility, the 18-year-old said he "recognized the falseness of online gaming."
Concerned by a number of high-profile Internet-related deaths and juvenile crime, the government is now taking steps to stem Internet addictions by banning new Internet cafes and mulling restrictions on violent computer games.
The government-funded Daxing center, run by an army colonel under the Beijing Military Hospital, is one of a handful of clinics treating patients with Internet addictions in China.
Patients, overwhelmingly male and aged 14 to 19, wake up in common dormitories at 6.15 a.m. to do morning calisthenics and march on the cracked concrete grounds wearing khaki fatigues.
Drill sergeants bark orders at them when they are not attending group and one-on-one counseling sessions. Therapy includes patients simulating war games with laser guns.
The IATC's tough love approach to breaking Internet addiction is unique to China, but necessary in a country with over two million teenage Internet addicts, according to facility staff.
"Many of the Internet addicts here have rarely considered other peoples' feelings. The military training allows them to feel what it's like to be a part of a team," said Xu Leiting, a psychologist at the hospital. "It also helps their bodies recover and makes them stronger."
The IATC has treated 1,500 patients in this way since opening in 2004, and boasts a 70 percent success rate at breaking addictions.
The fees cost about 10,000 yuan ($1,290) a month, nearly a year's average disposable income in China. But the center takes on pro bono cases for poor families, said Tao Ran, its director.
"There is no trend for Internet addiction as far as social or economic status, or geography, are concerned. So long as they can get access to a computer, there will be addiction," Tao said.
INTERNET VIOLENCE
At the end of 2006, China had 137 million Internet users, an increase of 23.4 percent from the previous year.
Of users under 18, an estimated 13 percent -- or 2.3 million -- are Internet addicts, according to a 2006 study by the China National Children's Center.
Internet addiction rates posted in Western studies vary wildly, with little consensus as to what constitutes addiction and whether the concept exists.
A Stanford University of Medicine report in 2006 found one in eight adults find it hard to be away from the Internet for several days, but the report was inconclusive as to whether excessive use could be defined as an addiction.
China's health authorities, however, have few illusions about placing Internet addiction on a par with alcoholism, drug-taking and gambling.
"The effects are the same," Tao said. "Some addicts drop out of school, some mug people for money, steal and sell their families' things to keep playing games. Some end up killing themselves because they feel life has no point."
The social consequences of addiction had caught the government off guard -- as had the Internet's explosive growth.
"Suddenly, from a handful of users in 1997, China now has over 130 million. People can get online in the most remote places. The legal system did not have time to develop," Tao said.
Addiction to the Internet is blamed for most juvenile crime in China, a number of suicides, and deaths from exhaustion by players unable to tear themselves away from marathon game sessions.
In 2005, a Shanghai court handed a life sentence to an online game player who stabbed a competitor to death for stealing his cyber-sword -- a virtual prize earned during game-play.
PARENTAL PRESSURE
The rising tide of Internet-addicted youth has prompted the government to ban new Internet cafes in 2007, which are seen in China as breeding grounds for social delinquency.
Delegates at the National People's Congress, China's annual session of parliament, have proposed stricter criminal punishments for Internet cafe operators who admit minors, and have flagged restrictions on violent games.
"Even President
Hu Jintao talked of developing a scientific and civilized Internet environment recently," Tao said.
But China's Internet addiction is not merely a product of an imperfect regulatory system, Xu Leiting said.
"The main cause of Internet addiction is that parents' expectations for their children are too high," said Xu.
With education perceived by many parents as the only means of advancement in an ultra-competitive society of 1.3 billion people, some lock their children up to study and ask teachers to assign them extra homework.
The pressure can be too much for some children, Xu said, especially if they fail.
"Then they escape to the virtual world to seek achievements, importance and satisfaction, or a sense of belonging."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070312/lf_nm/china_internet_addiction_dc_ 1;_ylt=AuSMiL0TWiKd8odms1dPON9PzWQA
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Building a kinder, gentler army, how sweet. |
_________________
"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth." |
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