China - controlling the internet

I'm sure we're all well aware of the censorship the Chinese Government enforces on its public but it now seems they want to expand that ethos to the rest of the world.

www.bbc.co.uk...

My personal take on this is that certain censorship should be enforced (and no, I don't know how) - and I think we're all on the same page about what sort of content I'm talking about. On the flip side, one should have freedom to surf where they want but then the question becomes: where do you draw the line?

What would really interest me here would be the reaction of a Chinese person - what do they think about their own country's censorship?

I think this is the link you meant to include:

www.bbc.co.uk

In one way, it is difficult to argue against what China is doing. After all, every country sets its own controls / laws on every other aspect of life. Why not the internet? Having said that, I see censorship (and protectionism) as a sign of weakness. In the long run, nothing good comes of preventing your citizens from speaking or trading freely.

a reply to: lacrimoniousfinale

Whoops - apologies on the link and thanks for fixing it up! Not quite sure what happened there...

a reply to: MrCrow

In the future we might all be charged a license fee to be able to go online. This would be as easily enforceable as passports are today. The providers could by law have to check your age and identity and that you have a license. This could be done on pretty much a world wide scale. The revenue (profit) generated could be in the kind of territory as $50 Billion annually even if it cost less than $10 for our annual application (allowing for costs of legislation and enforcement of say $20 Billion). Also, there would be the possibility of penalties if one has misbehaved online where access could be limited to or away from certain areas of the internet or even taken away in extreme circumstances.

Not my kind of internet, but I am sure there are those who are already planning the world wide dominion and the fantastic financial opportunities in a world of 7 plus Billion potential customers.

China can only control China's portion.

The only aspects I would like to see censored on the internet are child pornography, scams, extreme terrorism and somehow minimalizing the exposure of minors to anything that is beyond their little precious minds to process that may cause them emotional upset or damage (that is a kind of violence you see).

I loved the internet when it was the Wild West. It was fun, but now it is all being gobbled up by the party pooper advertisers, big business, state, idiotic behaviour and deliberate intent of a few ruining the experience of the many, criminals; all the usual culprits.

I think we can safely assume that the future will be full of excuses to develop new multi national legislation on a world scale to make way for certain "opportunities". The Climate Change legislation will just be the beginning, a nice gentle one with "good intentions" to get us all in the mood. I am only too sure it is a very big bad wolf with mean teeth in sheep's clothing.

"Ohhhh, Grandma, what BIG TEETH you have!"

"All the better to...", yep you get it.

I saw something about "china's internet customers get past censorship" about two years ago .

www.google.com...=china%27s+internet+customers+get+past+censorship

I tried to make the first one a link and it did not work just copy and paste

and

www.youtube.com...