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from the glimpse-behind-the-Great-Firewall dept.
The Globe and Mail covers an unpublished Chinese censorship document revealing sweeping effort to eradicate online political content.
Chinese authorities have tightened their grip on the country's online broadcasting platforms, banning a long list of content – everything from tattoos to religious proselytizing, violations of "mainstream values," flirtatious dancing, images of leaders and Western political critiques – as the government seeks to stamp out any venue that could be used for dissent or behaviour it considers obscene, according to an unpublished censorship directive obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The meteoric growth of online video services in China has offered a vibrant venue for creativity and, occasionally, obscenity and political protest – unleashing a daily riptide of user-made cat videos, pranks and glimpses of everyday life. Hundreds of millions of people in China watch short video clips and live-stream video every month.
Chinese authorities have responded with strict new rules, ordering online broadcasters to eradicate a wide range of content, according to the document obtained by The Globe, which is entitled "Management requirements for live service information and content."
The document is being used as a master guideline for content blocking by some of the country's most-used video sites, multiple sources in the industry told The Globe. It began circulating early this year, and is believed to have been issued by the powerful Cyberspace Administration of China, China's central Internet authority, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Comments from Amnesty International and other organizations are included. The document outlines ten basic categories of banned content and provides insight into the Chinese government's goals.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12 2018, @03:15PM (3 children)
From wswswswswsws, The end of net neutrality: The US ruling elite escalates campaign of internet censorship [wsws.org]:
Emphasis mine.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 12 2018, @06:28PM (2 children)
These would be the proverbial interesting times, it seems...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 12 2018, @08:44PM (1 child)
When I was doing graduate work in Manchuria I made money on the side as a paid lecturer. I was trying to work that curse into one of my speeches on industrialization and modernity and asked my Chinese roommate, a PhD candidate in physics at China's equivalent of M.I.T., what the exact saying in Mandarin was and he had no idea what I was talking about. So I asked my professors in social sciences, history, and literature there and they had never heard of it either.
It turned out one of the most famous sayings people know about China and repeat often is completely fictional. No such curse or saying exists.
On a slightly related note, nobody in China says 'chop chop' either. In Mandarin people say 'kuai kuai,' which sounds nothing like 'chop chop.'
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @03:17AM
Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I have spent time in China too and consider myself decently familiar with Chinese culture, and I have never seen this chestnut come from anywhere but US talking heads.
"Kuai dian" is what I told taxi drivers if they needed to get a move on, but "chop-chop" seems to have attestable origins within (Pidgin) Cantonese.