BEJING — Regardless of where one lives, searching for work is never an easy task. During a global economic meltdown, the options are even less appealing. Thanks to the Chinese government’s ongoing push to sanitize its nation’s access to the internet, its job hunters now have another employment possibility: “lewd” and “uncivilized” internet behavior snitches. Of course, since ratting out one’s friends, neighbors and countrymen is not only fun but patriotic, the government expects its Web weasels to do the deed for free.
According to government-run news agency Xinhua, tens of thousands of volunteers will be recruited by the end of 2009, all eager to root out “lewd” materials and “uncivilized” conduct on the internet. The search will be conducted as part of the country’s Capital Civic Enhancement Committee Office (CCECO) and will include patrols of internet cafes by “supervision volunteers” who will be on the lookout for unseemly content and minors trying to get near internet-connected computers.
“Lewd,” in this case includes violence, libel and anything that might be seen as rubbing uncomfortable against the government’s definition of public decency – including pornography.
As a CCECO director explains it, “The aim is to shield minors from unwanted harm they might be subjected to on the internet.”
Naturally, this includes not only explicit sexual content, which is said to damage both the physical and mental health of youth, but also Google, which has been increasingly blocked within China due to the fact it provides links to erotic materials.
Government officials have chided the Google China executive in person, resulting in an apology and a promise of immediate changes. Currently, the nation’s block of the search engine giant only affects the Chinese-language version. Those capable of reading English still have access to a world of information. The CCECO has asked Google China to cease searching foreign sites, since such methods are often employed as an end run against the block.
