Comments on: China to punish Baidu, Google, others for “pornography”

By: Aimee

Aimee — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:06:08 +0000

Great post, Eric. I cited this link in my response on www.aimeebarnes.com/blog. Look forward to reading more!

By: Confucious

Confucious — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:54:30 +0000

Look I agree but is there a better way to govern 1.3 billion people of highly diversified economic and education backgrounds? A good number of the 1.3 billion were offended by the French before the Olympics. Here's what happened to a French retailer over there. http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20080426_1.htm

Ever play Texas Hold' em? Sometimes when your cards are not capable of winning, you can still win the pot with a good bluff.

By: Eric Eldon

Eric Eldon — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:34:30 +0000

Confucious,

First of all, I don't think the government should be playing the role of "big brother" in telling people what to look at on the web. Such policies have been and will always be a recipe for abuse in any government. But that's not my main point here.

My main point is this: When the government threatens "severe punishment" for any sort of web site that happens to have anything it considers porn, the government can use that rationale to shut down basically any web site, including those that mostly don't have anything to do with "porn."

I don't see what the Ziyi Zhang photos have to do with this issue. All that situation seems to show is that the Chinese government isn't actually capable of stopping information-sharing on the web -- which is another reason why its threat today seems ridiculous.

By: Confucious

Confucious — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:21:30 +0000

Eric, when your mom doesn't let you search for porn at home is that 'stifling free speech?' Did you say to your mom 'Hey Mom, I NEED to see those pics otherwise it's bad for innovation.' Let's not be over dramatic with the “chilling message.” Entrepreneurs and investors over there know what their doing. Just like your sibling knows when he says “We shouldn't do that. Mom won't like that.” Maybe there's a conspiracy with this government announcement and the new Ziyi Zhang bikini pics – http://www.danwei.org/internet/zhang_ziyi_bikin...