NordVPN Promotion

Home / Blogs

Ladies and Gentlemen, China’s Netizen Day…

Just after the government announces a crackdown on Internet smut.

Yesterday, they announced plans for “Netizen Day” on September 14th, which apparently marks 15 years since the first e-mail message was sent from China in 1987.

China’s Netizen Day Website - Click to Enlarge
Source: wangminjie.cn
The new celebratory day (I don’t think it’s an official holiday) was unveiled at an official ceremony presided over by Chinese government officials and Internet execs, many of whose companies—including Google, Sina, and Sohu, who were named in the smut crackdown just 24 hours before. They also unveiled a very bling-bling website.

Wang Xiu Jun of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gave a speech. Her remarks are a good illustration of how the Chinese government is putting an increasing amount of energy into trying to shape and guide the Chinese Internet’s development in a “harmonious” direction. She spoke of how, in 2008, Chinese netizens provided support and comfort to disaster victims, and how they showed their patriotism. She emphasized President Hu Jintao’s remarks last summer, in which he said that the Party and government place great importance on the opinions of netizens. She said there are three main aims (I paraphrase heavily, this is not a translation):

First, to build a “healthy and green online environment,” which will serve the national economy and social development, creating a new platform for public service and providing a new space for the people’s healthy spiritual civilization (and of course combat porn and smut)... ;

Second, to improve the management of internet culture with the “spirit of innovation,” raise the service quality of Internet cultural products, foster a healthy forward-looking Internet culture, serve netizens with modern cultural brands and cultural services… ;

Third, develop good governance of Internet culture, because the Internet’s development has brought some “security problems” such as the spread of spam, grasping Internet development in one hand and Internet management in the other, protecting the legal rights of netizens to experience a healthy and safe Internet without fear.

Fourth, fulfill the potential of various Internet industry associations which will enter into “self discipline” pledges, etc.

The comments posted by random netizens at the bottom of this news item about the Netizen Day show a great deal of cynicism. A sampling:

914 ???! ???????????
(This person points out that 914 sounds like the words for “just going to die” in Mandarin and asks “aren’t they putting a curse on us netizens?”)

? ? ? ? ? ?
(“insanity day”)

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
(China doesn’t have enough celebratory days. According to current needs, we lack a lot of holidays such as Tiger Day, Sex Worker Day, University Student Day, “Fifty Cent” Day [for the “fifty cent party” Internet propagandists], “Human Flesh” Day [for “human flesh” cyber-mobs]. So I support Netizen Day.)

??????????????????????????????????????TM-GouShi
(Just those few internet media, pretty much nobody knew about this. What right do they have to decide Netizen Day? [followed by commonly used codes for expletives])

Somehow, no such comments could be found over at the official Netizen Day BBS site...

BLACK FRIDAY DISCOUNT - CircleID x NordVPN
Get NordVPN  [74% +3 extra months, from $2.99/month]
By Rebecca MacKinnon, Journalist and activist; Co-founder, Global Voices Online

Filed Under

Comments

Re: Ladies and Gentlemen, China's Netizen Day… Fergie  –  Jan 9, 2009 7:51 AM

Toon of The Day: Chinese Netizens on ‘Netizens’ Day’

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BYX14125JUQ/SWbgeZGBx7I/AAAAAAAAI84/dCbBSyvBBdQ/s1600-h/Chinese_Netizens_Day_Toon.jpg

Translation:

(1) “September 14 is now Netizens’ Day. We netizens finally have our own celebratory day, Yeah!”

(2) “How should we netizens celebrate this day?”

(3) “Take a day off! I guarantee everyone will be happy.”
  “But netizens are from all different walks of life, how can they take the same day off?”

(4) “I mean, let the comrades who are policing the Internet to take that day off…”

Via China Digital Times.

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

Related

Topics

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

NordVPN Promotion