It is quite common that the introduction of new technology shakes the ground of tradition methodology and oiled insecurity from the changes. In Classes and Megs article High Tech or High Risk (2008), the authors present the moral panics about girls online and analyze cases happened in the US to argue against the necessity of such panic.
Similar situation has hit the other part of the world - in China, when Internet was introduced to middle class families at the beginning of 21st century.This critical response supports Classes and Megs arguments that the moral panic about girls online is unnecessary and aims to strengthen the arguments with examples of Internet moral panics responses. There are two advantages of examining the same phenomenal in China. First, it provides an eastern perspective and approach. Secondly, the pace of technology advancement in China is slightly behind that in the US. Looking into the recent cases in China facilitates the generalization of worldwide Internet moral panic responses, therefore could be used to help other third world countries when similar phenomenal comes into being.
In High Tech or High Risk (2008), Classes and Meg pointed out that mass media played an important role in facilitating the publics moral panic over girls' online issues. In reporting the nouns female online sexual harassment, the media has more incentive to report severe events than the decreasing harassment rate data. Reporting the exaggerated harassment stories brings far more attention and economic income to the media, compared to reporting the dry facts that the number of harassment events is decreasing.In the early years of this decade, the Chinese culture started to see moral panics about adolescence, especially young girls, using the Internet. There was usually at least one in the top news list that is about online sexual harassment, and the majority of the victims are girls.
On the national major online medias such as Sins, Baud, SOHO, there has always been full of articles about online sexual harassment events, but rarely thoughtful analysis and opinions that overlook this phenomenal. Events like girls got physically or psychologically hurt by people they knew online happened a lot, and the media was never tired of reporting them.There are two reasons for this based on the knowledge about China. On the one hand, t of news agency is to report events of readers' interest.
For a news agency they need to sell their product to readers who are interested in their count ewe agencies have the tendency to exaggerate youth online sexual harass events to attract more readers. The readers, as a consequence, become m about such kind of events due to the overwhelming related reports in the is very similar to what happens in the US. On the other hand, news agency responsible for listing facts, whereas it is the reader's responsibility to par and interpret it correctly.It is not a trivial task to differentiate facts and ex reports. It is also not reasonable to expect the public to extract critical info from an overwhelming amount of biased news reports. In the article, Classes also introduced some US regulations such as Online Predator Act (DOPE), which originated from the publics moral pain Internet.
These regulations restrict adolescences' accesses to certain websites in order to them from those devious intentions. While the intentions of these legislate protect, they limits the adolescences' rights to access Internet freely, and which will do more harm than good in the long run.Undoubtedly, the fear of Internet usage has motivated Chinese government perform more protection to its people and regime than almost any other he world. Policy makers set regulations to put age restrictions on Internet special Internet rules for education institutions. Adolescences under 18 y could not get into the Internet bar without any exception, even under the from their parents.
Besides, young females under 21 could not use certain chatting rooms. The government claimed that these regulations would us prevent adolescences from getting access to unhealthy websites and prop girls from being hurt unconsciously.Apart from above mentioned rules, Ia are trying to put everything under severe censorship. Starting in 1998, the overspent initiated the Golden Shield project, which built one of the MO Internet censorship and defense mechanism in the world - the Great Fire The political background for this project is from the former Chinese lead Eden who designed the market economy in China.
Eden argued that if you the window for fresh air, you had to expect some flies to blow in (Mackinac His fear for the young China to be under the devil intention of the Internet strong analogy to the US publics moral panic for girls' using of Internet.A below is an image illustrating the Internet censorship around the world ( 2011). China becomes one of the black areas called "Internet black holes", where surveillances are found. However, this response to fear does not really hell avoiding the devil intentions from the Internet.
What's worse, the censors economically and politically costly with little effects on young people who about the outside world. The Chinese censorship is clearly a barrier for the flowing of information. The public is very restricted in getting information reasons for this based on the knowledge about China.On the one hand, the incentive of news agency is to report events of readers' interest. For a news agency to survive, they need to sell their product to readers who are interested in their contents.
Thus, new agencies have the tendency to exaggerate youth online sexual harassment events to attract more readers. The readers, as a consequence, become more feared about such kind of events due to the overwhelming related reports in the media. This is very similar to what happens in the US.On the other hand, news agency is responsible for listing facts, whereas it is the reader's responsibility to parse the facts and interpret it correctly.
It is not a trivial task to differentiate facts and exaggerated ports. It is also not reasonable to expect the public to extract critical information In the article, Classes also introduced some US regulations such as Deletion of Online Predator Act (DOPE), which originated from the publics moral panic on regulations restrict adolescences' accesses to certain websites in order to protect them from those devious intentions.While the intentions of these legislations is to protect, they limits the adolescences' rights to access Internet freely, and speak freely, Undoubtedly, the fear of Internet usage has motivated Chinese government to reform more protection to its people and regime than almost any other nations in the world. Policy makers set regulations to put age restrictions on Internet access and special Internet rules for education institutions. Adolescences under 18 years old could not get into the Internet bar without any exception, even under the accompany from their parents.Besides, young females under 21 could not use certain online chatting rooms.
The government claimed that these regulations would successfully prevent adolescences from getting access to unhealthy websites and protect young arils from being hurt unconsciously. Apart from above mentioned rules, laws in China government initiated the Golden Shield project, which built one of the most massive Internet censorship and defense mechanism in the world - the Great Firewall. The political background for this project is from the former Chinese leader Gapping Eden who designed the market economy in China.Eden argued that if you opened the window for fresh air, you had to expect some flies to blow in (Mackinac, 2008). His fear for the young China to be under the devil intention of the Internet is such a throng analogy to the US publics moral panic for girls' using of Internet.
As a result, below is an image illustrating the Internet censorship around the world (Masonic, China becomes one of the black areas called "Internet black holes", where strongest surveillances are found. However, this response to fear does not really help China avoiding the devil intentions from the Internet.What's worse, the censorship is both economically and politically costly with little effects on young people who are curious about the outside world. The Chinese censorship is clearly a barrier for the free lowing of information. The public is very restricted in getting information other parts of the world, and researchers are blocked from getting the cutting-edge research results from their international peers.
The regulations and censorship cannot stop curious young people from exploring the Internet either. Instead, the Great Firewall is pushing them to explore other ways to connect to the outside, which are usually much more dangerous.The essence of Internet is connectivity. By providing even the least possible internet connectivity to networks outside of China, technologies like Internet Proxy, Virtual Private Network (VPN) can be easily set up to avoid all the censorship. Even worse, the blocking of some part of the internet may push the youth to explore the Hidden Services in Deep Web, such as the anonymous Tort network, where drug and gun sales, child pornography, and money laundry takes place.
Limiting the access to Internet by regulation is not an effective way to protect people from the dark side of the network.In conclusion, people's moral panic that underage youth being affected by the devil intentions on the Internet is largely as a result of mass media's exaggeration and coordinators reports on crime accidents. Regulations such as DOPE and Chinese Great Internet Firewall policies is not only inefficient and costly, but also pushing the youth to explore Internet in more dangerous ways. After demonstrating a couple of similarities and analogies between the article's arguments with the situation in China in the past decade, it is clear to see that moral panic not only happens in US but also in China, a big developing country in Asia area.
