China Internet Group Calls for Censorship

From AP news:

BEIJING - China's official Internet industry association is calling on its members to help the government suppress material deemed subversive or immoral.

"Unhealthy information" online has harmed Chinese children and threatens social stability, the Internet Society of China said in a statement. The 5-year-old group is the government-sanctioned association for Internet service providers and Chinese Web sites.

"We should run our business in a civilized way," said the statement issued Wednesday and reported by the government's Xinhua News Agency. "We should not produce, disseminate and spread information that harms state security, social stability and information that violates laws and regulations and social morality."

The group called for its 2,600 member companies to supervise content, delete "unhealthy" information and oppose acts that undermine "Internet civilization," Xinhua said.

China's communist government encourages Internet use for education and business but tries to block access to sensitive material. The country has the world's second-largest Internet population after the United States with 110 million people online.

The Internet Society statement didn't give any examples of material that members should suppress or say what prompted the appeal.

Chinese online filters have blocked access to foreign sites about Tibet, China's pro-democracy movement, human rights and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement. The government also launches frequent crackdowns on China-based sites with sexually oriented material.

Sana hindi tayo matulad ng China.

UPDATE: From Roger L. Simon:

The thing about totalitarianism is that as a lifestyle it can be pretty grim, but when it comes to rhetoric it has some solid comic potential. Orwell may have been the first to recognize this (Animal Farm) and I wonder what he would say about the recent call by the Internet Society of China for the suppression of "Unhealthy information" online. Now what do they mean by that? A list of MacDonald's in Shanghai? A parody of the Chuck Berry classic? ("Unhealthy information down in Memphis,Tennessee...") I guess it depends on what your definition of "unhealthy" is. According to our friends at Xinhua, the group called for its 2,600 member companies to supervise content, delete "unhealthy" information and oppose acts that undermine "Internet civilization."

Ah, now there's the clue to what they mean - "Internet civilization." Has the ring of "lost worlds" about it, doesn't it? Lost worlds like ... say.... Tibet. Now there's an example of "unhealthy information" you won't find on a "right-minded" organization approved by the totalitarian state like ... say... Google China.

(On third thought, I realize Orwell was far from the first to recognize the comic potential of fascists. Aristophanes beat him to the punchline a couple of thousands years before.)