China To Launch Virtual Web Patrols

Beijing Police Launch Patrols To Scare Surfers From Illegal Sites

(AP)  Police in China's capital said Tuesday they will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content.

Starting Sept. 1, the cartoon alerts will appear every half hour on 13 of China's top portals, including Sohu and Sina, and by the end of the year will appear on all Web sites registered with Beijing servers, the Beijing Public Security Ministry said in a statement.

China stringently polices the Internet for material and content that the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening. Despite the controls, nudity, profanity, illegal gambling and pirated music, books and film have proliferated on Chinese Internet servers.

The animated police appeared designed to startle Web surfers and remind them that authorities closely monitor Web activity. However, the statement did not say whether there were plans to boost monitoring further.

The male and female cartoon officers, designed for the ministry by Sohu, will offer a text warning to surfers to abide by the law and tips on Internet security as they move across the screen in a virtual car, motorcycle or on foot, it said.

If Internet users need police help they can click on the cartoon images and will be redirected to the authority's Web site, it said.

"We will continue to promote new images of the virtual police and update our Internet security tips in an effort to make the image of the virtual police more user friendly and more in tune with how web surfers use the Internet," it said.

China has the world's second-largest population of Internet users, with 137 million people online, and is on track to surpass the United States as the largest online population in two years.

The government routinely blocks surfers from accessing overseas sites and closes down domestic Web sites deemed obscene or subversive.

[toolmangler-2009]

No one needs to give China anything. They will steal any tecnology they cannot make themselves. They aren''t stupid and the more open their society gets the better it grows. Just leave them alone and make sure the internet still has the freedom to instruct and China will end up just like America. Socialism is only slowing down, not stopping the spread of knowledge.

[michellem99-2009]

Today I read a story
The cops dances
on the sites in
china''s people''s
cumputers.
The censorship.
How wrong it is..
Yet the sites that
should be there
are not..
Yet they are treated
as children in adult bodies.
A brain washed bunch
that are missing so much.
They have to wonder what
is in the rest of the world.
But can''t access it..
Nanny govt said and mean no..
They have tryed to fight it.
And lost..
Verse by Michelle aka Barbara..

[lastdance2]

Who - Do you think - Gave them the Technology
To do that - "Spy Network"

Criminal Corporate America ! ! !
The Republican (Nazi) Party ! ! !

Lastdance

[incog-nito]

You can bet they are using this technology to spy on people. There are no privacy rights in China, and considering their human rights records, does anybody think they have any reservation about doing this?

[republic1776]

How long will the Chinese people be beat into submission like this?
The largest population in the world.
Boggles me!

[gunownerdan]

Soon this will be happening in America as the government continues to give itself more and more power.
Censorship and total government control of all media is inevitable as a government becomes more tyrannical.
It''s something that communist and fascist dictatorships all have in common.

[rray52]

Just what the web needs more pop-ups.

[incog-nito]

rational_1: Bush already beat her to it.

[rational_1]

Big Brother meets Bugs Bunny! Wonder if Hilary''s got any plans along these lines.