"The Paradox of Registering Blogs" - A Chinese Blogger's Argument for Anonymity
Thu Oct 26, 2006 at 12:13:00 PM PDT
Crossposted at
Surf Putah
From the China media watchers at Danwei comes this article by Sanlian Life Week editor Wang Xiaofeng (the Chinese original is here for those who are interested) on the Chinese government's plan for force Chinese bloggers to register and post under their own names, ostensibly to crack down on insults, curses, libel and fraud.
Wang's caustic retort is a wonderful example of typical Beijinger gruffness, and ought to remind American bloggers that the conversations and debates that we deal with here are going on globally, concurrent with the spread of the decentralized infrastructure of the internet. China has a thriving, bareknuckled sort of online community, with something along the lines of 17.5 million blogs and countless BBS communities, and for all the talk about Chinese government censorship and firewalls preventing Western media sites from being accessed in China, Chinese bloggers are a pretty stubborn, resiliant and creative bunch.
The whole article is worth a side-splitting read, but I'll excerpt some of the opening rant:
Insults and swearing did not start because of the Internet or blogs; libel started when people first started writing. Fraud and confidence tricks are ancient crimes, you can't just blame them on the Internet. Is it possible that the real name system will solve all these problems? It's like that old joke: if the eighth steamed bun is the one that makes you full, why bother eating the first seven?
A real name registration system would certainly cut down on filthy language on the Internet. For example, a lot of people swear in the comments section of my blog; with the real name system I could find out who it is writing such things -- "Ah, so it's you, you little fucker". There would be fewer backstabbbers and fewer people saying "if you've got balls, don't delete my abusive comment". The Internet would be cleaner, and happy looking.
But even though I am often at the receiving end abuse from the trolls and pests of the Internet, I don't want a real name system. Being uncivilized is one of the important features of the Internet.
Being uncivilized is also an important characteristic of Beijingers. You can't just pretend to be civilized for a few days because you're holding the Olympic Games, it's not realistic. You can't just prove that you are civilized by forcing people to use real names on the Internet, that's just cheating yourself and everyone around you.
Rather than seeing the Internet become completely civilized and perfect, I want to see it with warts and all. This is the best way to understand China's real situation. There are fucking idiots everywhere, especially on the Internet. Just because an idiot is prevented from saying uncivilized things, doesn't mean that he is not still a fucking idiot.
Hear, Hear!
His bit on the Beijing Olympics and Beijingers' practice of cursing at soccer games are great as well.
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