China to employ virtual Internet cyber cops

Tech News

By Stevie Smith Aug 30, 2007, 14:21 GMT

In a sugar-coated move that smacks heavily of more enforced censorship and big brother tactics, the Chinese Government has this week launched a duo of online cartoon police officers to patrol the Net in order to "wipe out information that does public harm and disrupts social order."From this coming Saturday, the two diligent and uniformed virtual cops – one of either sex – will officially appear on the screens of Net surfers at 30-minute intervals through news portals. The cute law-enforcement officers will arrive in order to gently remind users about the benefits of Internet-based security, offers a BBC news report.Also expected to hit Web sites and forums in Beijing before the close of 2007, China’s Web police will appear to users on foot, on motorbikes, or even in a squad car while keeping their eagle eyes peeled for any "websites that incite secession, promote superstition, gambling and fraud," outlined the Municipal Public Security Bureau in Beijing.According to Chinese newspaper China Daily, the bureau’s deputy chief of Internet surveillance, Zhao Hongzhi, has stated that: "It is our duty to wipe out information that does public harm and disrupts social order," and the Web cops will help provide protection for the country’s sprawling community of 120 million "netizens."Zhao further explained that Web surfers in any way concerned about potentially illegal activity on the Net need only click on the prowling cops in order to dispatch a report directly to the Internet Surveillance Centre.China continues to monitor and censor all of its online content and the Government already has human security personnel constantly hunting across the Net in order to keep China’s online population safe from harm. At its most stringent, China has tracked down several political dissidents via their Web-based claims and activities and thrown them in jail.Currently, Yahoo! Inc. is in the news as it attempts to have accusations of aiding and abetting dismissed from a legal case involving the jailing of a Chinese writer who dared called for democracy online. Yahoo! (Yahoo! China) is being sued by the man’s wife for violating its privacy policy and providing the Chinese Government with his personal e-mail history, which directly contributed to his 10-year sentence.

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Simon LomaxSep 2nd, 2007 - 13:04:19

What do you expect from a communist regime? why do we act surprised when communists act like communists? They already have a one child policy which is totally unnatural and is becoming a problem in the country as more of the population are now old aged.They have execution buses(sky news) that tour the country harvesting the organs of convicted criminals facing the death sentence.The difference between those in china and those of us in the uk or america is they're not deluded into thinking they're a free people.

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