This Financial Times article is just so wrong….
With their big blue blinking eyes and their quirky personal websites, there is no denying the cuteness of the cartoon cops at the front line of China’s battle for control of the internet.[...]
The cartoon couple patrol the city’s news and discussion websites to scare off anyone who might be tempted to use online anonymity to break China’s laws, says Chen Minli, director of the Shenzhen City Public Security Bureau’s Internet Surveillance Centre.[...]
Jingjing and Chacha operate by appearing as clickable adverts on local websites and as virtual users of the hugely popular QQ instant messaging system operated by Nasdaq-listed Tencent.
In a demonstration at the Surveillance Centre, part of an internet division that has seen its staff more than double to 100 in less than a year, officer Xu Qian shows how the Jingjing icon keeps pace whenever a user of a local discussion website scrolls down a page.
“He is just like a policeman, interactively moving along with you. Wherever you go, he is watching you,” Mr Xu says.[...]
“In my family, if my child does not lay her chopsticks down properly, then I will smack her, but maybe in your family you are too relaxed about such things,” [Chen Minli, director of the Shenzhen City Public Security Bureau's Internet Surveillance Centre] says. “Each family has its own rules and countries are the same.”
There are a few folks I know who will find that last paragraph particularly telling.
If it weren’t so wordy, perhaps it would be time to update the saying “Smile, Big Brother is watching you” to “Smile because Big Brother and Big Sister are so darned cute (even if they are following you everywhere you go….)