What is Internet Politics?
RConversation recently linked to a People’s Daily article, Democracy in China’s Internet politics.
Internet technology seems to provide a natural breeding ground for the development of democratic politics. People like the free, personal and interpersonal communication characteristics of the Internet. They like to express their opinions, exchange ideas and put forward suggestions so as to gain a sense of a new type of democracy. Such direct and comprehensive opinions and suggestions, which represent the ideas of an important group of people, are increasingly becoming an important force behind the impacts on social development and progress.
It sounds like the Chinese government, or at least the People’s Daily, has just learned what the internet is. (Just who the hell are they writing this stuff for?)
Indeed, Internet politics is a fairly new concept. Compared with the true democratic politics, it has its shortcomings.
What is “true democratic politics?” How can it be compared to internet politics? Would true democratic politics not encompass internet politics?
PD continues:
For example, false news and rumors can spread quickly throughout the Internet. It can also disturb the normal order with overly emotional opinions. This is not only a harm to good democratic politics, but also affects social development.
Does this mean that by regulating information over the internet (like by blocking this blog that is full of false news, rumors and overly emotional opinions) the government is trying to create true democratic politics?
What does this article actually mean? That the government is going to allow freer discussion of politics over the internet? That they will be stricter? That they promote it? That they discourage it? That the government is taking the discussion of politics over the internet seriously? It would seem that there is a clear answer to this last question, at least: yes.
Tags Internet Politics, China, Democracy, Censorship, Internet Censorship, GFW
June 25, 2007 at 1:59 am
That is just…bizarre.