Absurdity, Allegory and China

This from Reuters, via Yahoo: China targets big websites in Internet crackdown.

China has launched a crackdown against major websites that officials accused of threatening morals by spreading pornography and vulgarity, including the dominant search engines Google and Baidu.

China’s Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies announced the campaign at a meeting on Monday, state television reported, showing officials hauling digital equipment away from one unidentified office.

Now wander over to the People’s Daily Online and drift a little down the page and find a photo of three women in a cage, which links to three photos entitled Mexico nude activists potest [sic] for animal rights . The women are, in fact, not “nude” as the People’s Daily claims. They are showing quite a bit of uncovered territory, though it is obvious that they are wearing their skivs. The two major Chinese official news websites – People’s Daily and Xinhua – always have a tabloid thumbnail photo section somewhere on their main pages linking to scantily clad women from around the world, though they are never nude.

In the words of Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office, “Some websites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations. They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the Internet.”

And this on a day when the People’s Daily shows a trio of Mexican women in a cage and redefines the term “nude” as females in bras and panties. Don’t know if there is anything one can really make from this one. Just another day in the lives of the “brain police.”