During the provincial elections in British Columbia, where politicians are constantly forced onto stress leave because west-coasters are so laid-back (Svend Robinson and Gurmant Grewal to name two—OK there’s only two), the BC government officials issued a stern warning to me via email, ordering me to register my anti-NDP web site with the official government agencies, on official government formdom, or face severe official penalty.
To avoid the said severe penalty from my government, I complied. I also made sure that this web site and other sites I operate comply with the government regulations against bloggers and other such evil citizenry. They said that all bloggers were subject to the official crackdown on citizenry spouting off about things they have no business spouting off about: politics.
Here are the three main blog entries I wrote, which raised the ire of absolutely nobody—I suppose because I’m not a pretty girl and because I’m not in Ontario—so, you know, WTF?
Blogs are advertising: Elections B.C.
“Progressive”, the word liberals prefer these days because they’re finally embarrassed by the word “liberal”, in Canada means being even more progressive than the communists. And we are! The Chinese are a little slow on the uptake is all.
China orders all websites, blogs to register with government or face shutdown
SHANGHAI, China (AP) – Authorities have ordered all China-based websites and blogs to register or be closed down, in the latest effort by the communist government to police the unruly world of cyberspace.
Commercial publishers and advertisers can face fines of up to one million yuan, or the equivalent of about $120,000 US, for failing to register, according to documents posted on the website of the Ministry of Information Industry.
Private, noncommercial bloggers or websites must register the complete identity of the person responsible for the site, it said. The ministry, which has set a June 30 deadline for compliance, said 74 per cent of all sites had already registered.
It sounds like they got their manual from the BC Government.
And by the way who, you might ask me if you cared which you don’t, did you seek help and guidance from on this outrageous issue?
Well I wrote to the National Citizens Coalition, of which I am (or was) an actual dues-paying member, and explained the situation to them. They, after days of urgent coffee drinking and crossword puzzle completions, wrote back and said that that sounded just awful and that they would send this information to someone who knew more about it. I thought that’s what I’d done. mmmbut anyway.
I don’t know if they did, because I never heard another thing about it. I mucked my way through arguments with government bureaucrats, got things wrong, paid money, took time, finally complied.
Then the CBC broke the story (yes they did, not me, see?) about the fact that the bloggers all had to register with the government in BC. Well not eight seconds passed before the National Citizens Coalition raced to issue a sternly-worded press release to the nation condemning this action as unjustified intrusion into our freedoms and Hoi, Freaking, Toi.
I guess it was soon after that the esteemed point-man at National Citizens Coalition, Gerry Nicholls, suddenly remembered about me, and wrote me a sheepish email telling me that since they’d issued that CBC inspired news release, the CBC had contacted him asking if he knew of anybody who might want to talk to the CBC about it for a story they were going to run, since they of course “broke the story, see”.
I returned the favor and I didn’t reply to the National Citizens Coalition. Instead, I wrote a blog entry warning all bloggers to NOT talk to the CBC about this story, which, as best I can tell, nobody did.
Anyway, see if a few more passages from this China story sound familiar to us Canadians (and yes, BC, though seemingly temporary, is in actual fact a part of Canada).
I believe the Chinese might be interested in our “CRTC”.
“The Internet has profited many people but it also has brought many problems, such as sex, violence and feudal superstitions and other harmful information that has seriously poisoned people’s spirits,” the MII website said in explaining the new rules.
All media in China is controlled by the state, though limits on the Internet have tended to lag behind as advances in technology outstripped Beijing’s ability to keep tabs on users and service providers.
The government has long required all major commercial websites to register and take responsibility for Internet content. But blogs, web forums, chat rooms and other virtual venues have been harder to police.
Now, however, the government has developed a new system to track down and close those caught violating the rules, the ministry said.
“There’s a ‘Net Crawler System’ that will monitor the sites in real time and search each web address for its registration number,” said one document listing questions and answers about the new rules. “It will report back to the MII if it finds a site thought to be unregistered.”
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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