Diamond Online forums told to take a break during the 17th CPC Congress

12659readers Translator: jacobmaom...  09/01/2007 original article Referral Comparison reading

Premier Wen once described the internet as a forum for open, sensible discussions. Indeed, he is known to have quoted opinions and comments from the internet during the biannual National People's Congress meetings. Although the internet tends to receive more official attention during such major political meetings, the Ministry of Public Security (note: in short, this is the official name of the Chinese police department) surprised many observers by shutting down a number of data centres across the country.

According to sources from one such data centre, more than two thousand sites were closed down in data centres operated by the Southern China based Zitian and Lanmang.

Below is a summary of the official position, as told by someone who attended a briefing session organised by the Hangzhou branch of the Ministry of Public Security:

Urgent - After the shutting down of 2000+ servers at Zitian and Shantou's Lanmang, our data centre was invited to attend a briefing session regarding the official plans to crack down on "communicative websites" (forums/blogs/discussion boards) prior to the 17th CPC National Congress.

At the meeting, it was made clear to us that all internet data centre providers must unilaterally close down all forums/blogs/discussion boards. Any data centres found to have more than 7 breaches will be closed down and fined anywhere from $50,000 RMB up to $1m RMB.

In order to ensure continuity of access to our client's websites, we have decided to implement the following measures during this period:

1. All webhosting clients operating websites with a discussion board must close down the discussion board for the duration of the crack down. If the webhosting service is used solely for a discussion board, then the entire site must be closed down.

2. Webhosting clients currently not operating any communicative functionalities must not, during this period, implement any forum, blog and/or discussion board functionalities.

Breaches of the above rule identified by our 24/7 monitoring activities will be treated as a malicious attack of the data centre, and as such will result in the termination of all websites under the offending account. No refund will be given.  We will pursue criminal legal action over those responsible for breaches causing significant losses to our business.

3. Those clients operating a discussion board as its sole business may request for their website to remain online during this period on the following conditions:

Have a representative reporting to us on an hourly basis
24 hour real time monitoring
Payment of a $10,000 RMB security deposit

The deposit will not be refunded if the discussion board causes any loss of service during this period.

4. Any forum, blog and/or discussion board closed down during this period will not receive a refund (translator's note: believe it or not, this is considered to be force majeure!)

5. A deposit of $1,000 RMB is payable for clients wishing to change the source code of the website, in order to prevent accidental uploading of the original source code.

6. If you have any problems or issues with these measures, please contact the Ministry of Public Security.

Please note that these measures will be in place until the completion of the 17th CPC National Congress. Individuals/business found to be in contravention of official requirements will be criminally prosecuted by the Ministry of Public Security.

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