The Internet Underworld: Youth Finding Ways around Communist Party Ban on Internet Cafes
From Washington Post:
Despite a Ban, Chinese Youth Navigate to Internet Cafes: GEDONG, China -- For the equivalent of 35 cents an hour, the youths were playing computer games in an underground Internet cafe, one of a half-dozen information-age speak-easies in this little farming and coal-mining town in Shanxi province 220 miles southwest of Beijing. For those unable to afford their own computers -- the vast majority here -- going online in a clandestine dive has become the only option; the local Communist Party leader banned Internet cafes nine months ago as a bad influence on minors.
If they dare to reopen, we might launch another campaign to shut them all down again," proclaimed Zhang Guobiao, party secretary for the surrounding Fangshan County....
Zhang's ban, which was reported by several Chinese newspapers, was regarded as extreme even by the censorship authorities in Beijing. But it was emblematic of the Communist Party's determination to retain control of what this country's 1.3 billion people see, hear and read despite the vast changes in other realms brought on by economic reform over the last two decades....
Eager to speed modernization, China's leaders have professed a desire to see people use the Web widely to seek knowledge and economic advantage. But they also have expressed determination to keep it under party control. The goal, they have said, is to keep Chinese away from sites deemed unfit because of pornographic or politically sensitive content -- or, in the case of Fangshan County, because they waste teenagers' time with frivolous games....
"Whenever people talked about Internet cafes, they got crazy," Zhang told the paper. "We came to a conclusion: Internet cafes bring more bad than good to young people. So we decided to shut them down. The harm to children is no less than from drugs."
To carry out his decree, Zhang relied on regulations requiring that establishments such as Internet cafes be certified by local authorities. The certification usually concerns fire safety, hygiene, opening hours and compliance with a national law barring youths under 18 -- rules that were routinely violated by the cafe owners and their informal operations, Che said...
Shanghai has tried another approach. Hao, of the Communist Youth League's Internet association, said 268 community computer centers have been set up there to give young people free and easy access to Web sites with "healthy content."
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