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The Sleeping Dragon: China and The Adult Internet
by Ed Rampell
What do the enlightened Dalai Lama and sensuous cybersex have in common?
If you guess transcendental masturbation, you're wrong. However, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning spiritual leaders of Tibet and e-adult have some of the most banned Web sites in the People's Republic of China. Along with political and religious dissidents in the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy, Free Tibet, and Falun Gong movements, adult content is taboo behind the Bamboo Curtain.
The Chinese Communist Party has constructed cyber-snooping and filtering system so draconian, it's called "the Great Firewall of China." In September 2002, Beijing blocked Google - that is, Chinese surfers were denied access to an entire search engine - not just a Web site! The San Jose Mercury News wrote, "Many observers linked the move to a general clampdown on media ahead of a major Communist Party congress where a change in China's top leadership is expected(It's also believed Google didn't block adult sites)." Rand Corp. researcher Michael Chase says guesstimates of the amount of personnel from PRC's domestic and foreign security apparatuses and Ministry of Information monitoring the 'Net, may be as high as in "the tens of thousands… Traditional non-technical countermeasures are at least as important- including physical surveillance, informers, and regulations…They try to force content providers in China to do lots of self-censorship." Consider:
Ministry of Public Security December 1997's Internet regulations included: "Section Five - No unit or individual may use the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following…: (6) Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material, gambling, violence, murder…"
According to a Yangcheng Evening News report on Sinofile.net, in December 1999, 19-year-old Yuan received a two-year prison sentence for creating a site that contained pornographic material. That same month, authorities cracked down on a pornographic homepage. Yang Ke and He Suhuang created the 'Beauty Internet Garden' "by taking obscene pictures from adult Web sites on the Internet and buying pornographic pictures and CD-ROMs."
According to the People's Daily, in April 2000 Shanghai's police uncovered the first e-porn case in China's financial center, arresting Shang Xinjun, an employee with the Wenhua Technological Co., Ltd. in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, for spreading porn online. Police investigations revealed 33 porn pics were put on the homepage of Shanghai-funded www.myrice.com, which attracted more than 1.45 million surfers over a few months. Shang also had connections with overseas porn Web sites, and said he put porn online to attract ads.
On July 15, 2002, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists expressed grave concerns over "passage of new regulations restricting online news in China… together with a voluntary pledge signed by more than 300 companies and organizations - including U.S.-based Yahoo! - to prevent distribution of 'harmful' material online, indicate a clear step backward for freedom of expression in China." On Aug. 6, 2002, CPJ condemned the recent 11-year sentence handed down to activist Li Dawei for downloading and printing [political] materials from the Internet… the longest sentence CPJ documented for Internet-related activities in China."
On March 3, 2002, conservative Newsmax.com called China: "An Internet police state… Everything [a user] does on the Web might conceivably be used against him. Pornography? Potentially, a two-year sentence."
The co-author of the Rand Corp. report You've Got Dissent! told AP Aug. 27, 2002: "Internet providers in China are responsible for activities of customers, [James] Mulvenon said, so these providers hired employees… 'big mamas,' who monitor chat rooms and kick out subversives… 'You find people very quickly using something that could be a forum for political dissent and using it to trade music and pornography,'" Mulvenon said.
Part One: The Great Firewall of China
Part Two: Dare To Struggle, Dare To Win!
Part Three: Serve The People
Part Four: Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Computer
Part Five: Let 100 Flowers Bloom
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