The hottest people on the internet in China in 2009 – China News

H/T TPD - To understand the Internet, watch how rumors spread. Too many people evaluate stories by how well they match their preconceptions. Since few “nodes” on the Internet bother to check sources — or even care about sources — the Internet often makes us dumber. Today we examine a rumor spreading like wildfire on the Internet, on a subject of vital importance to America.

I was reminded of this piece of news after reading on CBS:

The Chinese internet is full of people who, though often entirely undeserving of attention, receive copious amounts of it for seemingly no good reason. Whether arriving at momentary fame through careful corporate promotion or sheer dumb luck and timing, each of these individuals has managed to secure a place in the Internet Hall of Fleeting Fame

One of the Chinese internet phenomena is that anybody can be famous or infamous, made popular overnight via the internet. I mean anybody, sometimes for no apparent reasons other than just being who they are. Ok, a lot of them were actually hypes purposely done for some unknown reasons by some people behind the scenes usually for (personal gains).

Recently, the Chinese internet has been abuzz with the term yakexi [亚克西]. Yakexi is the Uyghur word for good...but it took on new meaning at this year’s Spring Festival Gala, where one of the performances was a song called “The Party’s Policies are yakexi“.

The Chinese government is imprisoning and giving electric shocks to people it thinks have become addicted to the Internet.

Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation.

The Internet Society just issued a notification, saying in order to ensure the quality and safety of the meeting, the "2009 China Internet Conference" and related activities, would be postponed to November 2-4.

China arrested more than 5,000 people in a crackdown on Internet pornography in 2009, officials said, vowing tougher online policing in the new year as a key element of "state security". In December, you'll recall, China offered rewards of up to 10,000 RMB to people who reported porn sites.

If you're wondering what IPv6 day is, stick around. IP is short for Internet Protocol, which assigns an address for each Internet users, just like every mobile user is identified by a number.