分类: IT职场
2005-07-18 22:04:20
China cracks down on the sex bloggers
By David Eimer in Beijing
Published: 17 July 2005
For the hundreds of thousands of
people who log on to Furong Jiejie's website daily, her saucy self-portraits and
delusional diary entries ("I have a physique that gives men nosebleeds") provide
something to talk and laugh about during breaks at work. But the dizzying rise
of Furong, who has become the most talked-about woman in China, has prompted the
Chinese government to assert further its control over cyberspace.
With about 100 million users, China has the second-largest internet
population in the world after the US, and it's growing by millions each month.
To monitor what these increasingly curious "netizens" are reading about, the
authorities have intensified their internet surveillance by recruiting "web
watchdogs" to anonymously police thousands of cyber-cafes and public message
forums. And all Chinese websites, bloggers and bulletin-board operators must
register with the government - or be fined and shut down.
Furong
Jiejie - the name literally means "hibiscus older sister" - seems likely to face
that fate. "We have been keeping an eye on sister Furong," said Liu Qiang, an
official with the Ministry Of Culture, which is responsible for overseeing the
internet. "But there aren't any explicit regulations to control such a
phenomenon." The latest in a series of online celebrities, known in China as BB,
or bulletin-board, stars, to have emerged in the past couple of years,
28-year-old Furong is an unlikely candidate to run into trouble with the
authorities.
Prone to posing in provocative photos - tame by Western
standards - Furong has an obvious hunger for fame. She hardly seems a threat to
society.
Nevertheless, the publicity department of the central
committee of the Communist Party has told BlogChina, the largest provider of
blog-hosting services, to relocate content relating to Furong, whose real name
is Shi Heng-xia, to less prominent parts of their website.
That's
what happened to Mu Zi-mei, a 27-year-old magazine journalist, in late 2003,
after she became equally famous by publishing an explicit online diary detailing
her busy sex life.
The government's heavy-handed approach is an
indication of its ambivalent attitude towards the internet. "The government sees
the internet as vital for China's technological progress but, at the same time,
they want to stop people from accessing content they see as unhealthy," says
Chen Changfeng, deputy dean of Beijing University's School of Journalism and
Communications. That includes political dissent and pornography.
Most
print and TV media in China are local rather than national, making the internet
an even more powerful tool. "The internet is omnipotent now. If something
happens in Guangzhou, then people in Beijing will hear about it quickly ...
People can check the news and immediately respond to it by posting their
opinion," notes Ms Chen. "What the internet in China does is help to form public
opinion very quickly."
The anti-Japan protests in March and April
began on-line, with millions venting their anger in open forums over a history
textbook that downplayed Japanese army atrocities during the Second World War.
Only later did the traditional media pick up on the story. It's been the same
with Furong Jiejie, whose photo adorned the front pages of many papers last
week. Now, though, it seems that her 15 minutes of fame are up.
For
the hundreds of thousands of people who log on to Furong Jiejie's website daily,
her saucy self-portraits and delusional diary entries ("I have a physique that
gives men nosebleeds") provide something to talk and laugh about during breaks
at work. But the dizzying rise of Furong, who has become the most talked-about
woman in China, has prompted the Chinese government to assert further its
control over cyberspace.
With about 100 million users, China has the
second-largest internet population in the world after the US, and it's growing
by millions each month. To monitor what these increasingly curious "netizens"
are reading about, the authorities have intensified their internet surveillance
by recruiting "web watchdogs" to anonymously police thousands of cyber-cafes and
public message forums. And all Chinese websites, bloggers and bulletin-board
operators must register with the government - or be fined and shut
down.
Furong Jiejie - the name literally means "hibiscus older
sister" - seems likely to face that fate. "We have been keeping an eye on sister
Furong," said Liu Qiang, an official with the Ministry Of Culture, which is
responsible for overseeing the internet. "But there aren't any explicit
regulations to control such a phenomenon." The latest in a series of online
celebrities, known in China as BB, or bulletin-board, stars, to have emerged in
the past couple of years, 28-year-old Furong is an unlikely candidate to run
into trouble with the authorities.
Prone to posing in provocative
photos - tame by Western standards - Furong has an obvious hunger for fame. She
hardly seems a threat to society.
Nevertheless, the publicity
department of the central committee of the Communist Party has told BlogChina,
the largest provider of blog-hosting services, to relocate content relating to
Furong, whose real name is Shi Heng-xia, to less prominent parts of their
website.
That's what happened to Mu Zi-mei, a 27-year-old magazine
journalist, in late 2003, after she became equally famous by publishing an
explicit online diary detailing her busy sex life.
The government's
heavy-handed approach is an indication of its ambivalent attitude towards the
internet. "The government sees the internet as vital for China's technological
progress but, at the same time, they want to stop people from accessing content
they see as unhealthy," says Chen Changfeng, deputy dean of Beijing University's
School of Journalism and Communications. That includes political dissent and
pornography.
Most print and TV media in China are local rather than
national, making the internet an even more powerful tool. "The internet is
omnipotent now. If something happens in Guangzhou, then people in Beijing will
hear about it quickly ... People can check the news and immediately respond to
it by posting their opinion," notes Ms Chen. "What the internet in China does is
help to form public opinion very quickly."
The anti-Japan protests in
March and April began on-line, with millions venting their anger in open forums
over a history textbook that downplayed Japanese army atrocities during the
Second World War. Only later did the traditional media pick up on the story.
It's been the same with Furong Jiejie, whose photo adorned the front pages of
many papers last week. Now, though, it seems that her 15 minutes of fame are up.