April 11, 2008
Shanghai authorities warn of illegal satellite TV crackdown
Looks like the life of that satellite dish you have covertly installed on your patio may be coming to a premature end if the Shanghai government has its way.
From Shanghai Daily:
Seventeen government departments will launch a joint city-wide campaign to wipe out illegal television satellites that can receive foreign TV programs across Shanghai.
There are a few places where satellite dishes are allowed, essentially military/government compounds and expat havens. If you aren't in one of those places you may run into problems. Evidently, the "authority may dismantle the illegal satellites by force if owners refuse to cooperate", and if you do refuse to dismantle your satellite chances are you will face prosecution.
So in the meantime we recommend watching as much American Idol as possible and find a few good DVD shops near your house. Alternatively, we've heard of camouflaging satellites by hanging laundry on them, but not sure how that affects reception.
Word is it will be a year long campaign so be on the lookout for the man knocking on your door.
Illustration by Joe Hastings
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good news and bad news
it is good, as the cheaters will have no chance to sell their fake satellite dishes.
it is bad, those using illegal satellite dishes will feel inconvenience.
psshaw!
I don't believe, China is becoming a more open, democratic and developed society due to 25 years of free money, preferential trade agreements that left most of developing world in the dirt, the transfer of sensitive military technologies from advanced nations, the selling out of +100 million Tibet, Taiwanese and E. Turkestan lives, improvements to the Golden Shield and the icing on the cake, a unanimous approval to host the Olympics.
This is just some racist, narrow minded China bashing by a few hypocritical whitey ass hippies, ingnorant Koreans and fiendish Japanese and their Cold War EU and American supporters.
bah mantou! China will be the world's ruler because that is how it was written in the ancient times and we shall all greatfully bow in the direction of Beijing on every Chinese holiday, which shall replace all of our feudal holidays, and hand over our best looking female (or male) offspring to our CCPee bosses along with a nice, fat red envelope.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
The good part I would like to comment is, I expect for a more regulated installation. Meaning that the installation of satellite dishes and the service for it can be regulated in a good way. Safety, availability, and if there's something wrong with the installation, there's a place for those who has installed can find someone to fix.
The bad? by just wiping out, we lost some sources of information from the outside world. Take a recent example, the Olympic torch event. The person who protected the torch were shown as a part of heroic act within the mainland. However, the protesters were shown as some terrorist. Plus, medias within this country does has its political agenda. By having satellite dishs, it gives us another source of information so that people can have a wider view.
The ugly, can't say more. This is ugly. What would be the main reason that governments want to "clean-up" the "illegal" satellite dishs? Medias within China can post anything they wanted to publish, but people who read the news merely know the "actual" reason behind it. If we can take a deep look into these kind of policies, it wouldn't be hard to find a lot of ugly reasons behind it.
Yes, China's been openning up dramaticly comparing to the past decades. However, there are still a lot of to be done. And I would not say by blocking information from the outside world is one of them.