Sunday, October 20. 2013
China employs two million microblog monitors state media say
Via BBC
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Sina Weibo, launched in 2010, has more than 500 million registered users with 100 million messages posted daily
More than two million people in China are employed by the government to monitor web activity, state media say, providing a rare glimpse into how the state tries to control the internet.
The Beijing News says the monitors, described as internet opinion analysts, are on state and commercial payrolls.
China's hundreds of millions of web users increasingly use microblogs to criticise the state or vent anger.
Recent research suggested Chinese censors actively target social media.
The report by the Beijing News said that these monitors were not required to delete postings.
They are "strictly to gather and analyse public opinions on microblog sites and compile reports for decision-makers", it said. It also added details about how some of these monitors work.
Tang Xiaotao has been working as a monitor for less than six months, the report says, without revealing where he works.
"He sits in front of a PC every day, and opening up an application, he types in key words which are specified by clients.
"He then monitors negative opinions related to the clients, and gathers (them) and compile reports and send them to the clients," it says.
The reports says the software used in the office is even more advanced and supported by thousands of servers. It also monitors websites outside China.
China rarely reveals any details concerning the scale and sophistication of its internet police force.
It is believed that the two million internet monitors are part of a huge army which the government relies on to control the internet.
The government is also to organise training classes for them for the first time from 14 to 18 October, the paper says.
But it is not clear whether the training will be for existing monitors or for new recruits.
The training will have eight modules, and teach participants how to analyse and judge online postings and deal with crisis situations, it says.
The most popular microblogging site Sina Weibo, launched in 2010, now has more than 500 million registered users with 100 million messages posted daily.
Topics cover a wide range - from personal hobbies, health to celebrity gossip and food safety but they talso include politically sensitive issues like official corruption.
Postings deemed to be politically incorrect are routinely deleted.
The most pirated movies are the hardest to buy online
Via TechHive
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Hollywood likes to paint movie pirates as freeloaders without morals, but maybe those so-called dastardly downloaders are simply under-served.
A new website called PiracyData.org tracks the most pirated movies of the week, as reported by TorrentFreak, and taps into Can I Stream It? to show whether file sharers could have bought or rented the movie online instead.
As PiracyData's chart below shows, four out of the 10 most pirated movies cannot be purchased legally online. Out of the remaining six movies, three are available for full-priced purchase, but not for rent. None of the top 10 movies can be watched through subscription streaming services such as Netflix.
On its face, it looks like a missed opportunity for the movie industry. Viewers may feel pushed toward piracy when they can't purchase or at least rent the movies they want to watch.
But it's also worth noting the release timing of these movies. Every single movie on the list came out this year, but is no longer showing in major theaters. With the exception of three films, most of these movies are now in an awkward stage where you can buy them on DVD, but cannot rent them online.
DVD sales are plummeting. People are growing accustomed to pressing a button and streaming a movie instantly. The idea of withholding new movies from digital rental just to juice DVD sales looks increasingly antiquated as people move beyond the optical disc. For disposable films that people only want to watch once, a mandatory $15 or $20 purchase is undesirable as well.
Of course, there are exceptions. People do have rental options for The Lone Ranger, After Earth, and This is the End, yet they remain popular to download on BitTorrent. Unscrupulous freeloaders do exist, and are not going away. But when the only legal options are DVD or mandatory purchase, it's no surprise that potential paying customers will turn to piracy instead.
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