Big Jingjing and Chacha Are Watching You (Chinese and Other Internet Censorship Update)
How cute. How cuddly. How scary. Here are Big Bro and Big Sis:
What’s it about? Intimidation (HT RConversation):
Starting today, when netizens visit all the main portals of Shenzhen city, Guangdong, they will see two cartoon figures “Jingjing” and “Chacha” ….. The image of Shenzhen Internet Police will officially be online. From now on, when netizens visit websites and web forums of Shenzhen, they will see these two cartoon police images floating on their screen. Our reporter learned that these are the images of Shenzhen Internet Police, presented by Internet Surveillance Division of Shenzhen Public Security Bureau, for the first time in China.
The real Internet Police has existed for a long time.
….. “The main function of Jingjing and Chacha is to intimidate, not to answer questions,” our reporter was told by officials in charge of The Internet Security and Surveillance Division of Shenzhen Public Security Bureau. The Internet has been always monitored by police, the significance of Jingjing and Chacha’s appearence is to publicly remind all netizens to be conscious of safe and healthy use of the Internet, self-regulate their online behavior, and maintain harmonious Internet order together.
Where did the names come from? The word “jing cha” means “police” in Chinese.
Stories like this one are why you see The Internet Wall of Shame in the right frame at this blog. Although specific cooperating companies aren’t cited, “friendly intimidation” such as this would not be possible without the active involvement of Wall members Cisco, Yahoo!, and MSN in helping the Chinese government perfect its police state.
Why is the government so worried? Because unrest is growing (HT American Thinker), and, as you can see in the last paragraph of the excerpt, there is a major “eminent domain” element to the unrest:
The number of “public order disturbances†rose 6.6 percent last year, to 87,000. Mass protests that involved “disturbing social order†jumped 13 percent, while those that “interfered with government functions†surged 19 percent, the Public Security Bureau, the national police, told Chinese reporters at a news conference on Thursday that was reported by the New China News Agency.
….. Peasants, migrant workers and former employees of bankrupt state-run factories in the cities – collectively the overwhelming majority of China’s 1.3 billion people – have tended to benefit far less from the prosperity than the budding urban middle class and the party elite.
In 1994, the police recorded about 10,000 protest incidents, but the statistics show that both the frequency and the scale of the unrest have increased rapidly every year since, even as the economy has expanded faster than that of any other major country.
Unrest has worsened especially quickly in the last several years because the government has seized millions of acres of rural land, which peasants can farm but not own, to make way for factories and real estate developments. Compensation is very low and many peasants say they have no choice but to protest to win attention for their claims.
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ALSO: RConversation, who owns the Net censorship topic, also has the following updates:
- Jan. 12 — Congressional hearings apparently are planned on US companies helping China suppress free speech. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) would conduct these hearings. Also Tim Ryan (D-OH) intends to make this a topic of hearings in The Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
- Jan. 14 — Other countries are filtering Internet content, only more quietly. “Countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tunisia, Yemen and Sudan all use commercial filtering products developed by U.S. corporations.”
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Jan. 21: Wizbang Weekend Carnival participant.
