China has issued an edict banning its 2.3 million military personnel from blogging or creating homepages or websites, AP reports. The new rules came into force on 15 June, as part of a People's Liberation Army Internal Affairs Regulation. Wan Long, a PLA political commissar, told Xinhua news agency: "Soldiers cannot open …

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Monday 28th June 2010 14:52 GMT Anonymous Coward

PLA Brothels

Will solve the PLA's lonely soldier problem. Recruiting for the Brothel Brigade might be a bit of a challenge. Or not.

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Monday 28th June 2010 15:39 GMT Lou Gosselin

Censorship is ugly

"Soldiers cannot open blogs on the internet no matter [whether] he or she does it in the capacity of a soldier or not."

Sounds like the modern equivalent of the dark ages.

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1. Tuesday 29th June 2010 09:25 GMT arkhangelsk
  
  ... but common in the military
  
  To be fair to the Chinese, the security risks of the very convenient medium as a blog are well-known. The military has always been supposed to be a restricted human rights instituion, so banning them from blogs simply isn't a huge minus.
  
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  1. Tuesday 29th June 2010 21:42 GMT Lou Gosselin
    
    Re: ... but common in the military
    
    Fair enough, but then why censor a personal blog which is non-military in nature? That seems excessive. It is as though the soldiers have access to (non-military) ideas which the chinese government wants to keep secret from the public and each other.
    
    It's astonishing to me that there are modern cultures in which people are not allowed to think for oneself. I just don't get it.
    
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Monday 28th June 2010 15:53 GMT Anonymous Coward

Corporal Cheng Tweets:

Corporal Cheng Tweets: All v excited, 16, 39 and 40 Group Armies ready to help our N Korean buddies against imperialists. Yankees won't know what hit them.

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Monday 28th June 2010 16:14 GMT Anonymous Coward

Shouldn't be a problem for him...

If memory serves, every morning they blare military music and annoucements from loudspeakers in the streets, at least in the part of Shigatse I was staying in. Surely a "one imperialist communist is feeling lonely, apply at main gate for screening" would be easy enough to slip in :-)

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Tuesday 29th June 2010 09:28 GMT frank ly

I see a solution

""A 32-year-old single soldier in Tibet received letters from more than 30 girls after his family posted a profile of him online to help him find a girlfriend."

It looks like his family did not give his e-mail address online, but invited letters from interested woman. They would most likely get much more than 30 replies so they must have filtered the responses and only sent the ones they thought were suitable.

This arrangement could work well as a filtering system to protect the soldiers. So, protect yourself from internet harm by always using a chinese letter.

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