Cartoonist Taken Away by Police

Girlfriend warmheard1984 of famous cartoonist Spicy Pepper aka Wang Liming posted on Weibo that the visual artist had been taken away from home by police 11 o'clock pm. The charge on the warrant was 'inciting public disturbance'.

The cartoon on the left was created by BWRLG32.

Although Spicy Pepper's drawings are often inspired by social events, he is considered a moderate, restraint, reluctant and hesitate criticizer of government and policies. Readers often find more helplessness than criticism and more cynicism than anger in his otherwise humorous cartoons. Those who enjoy his drawings are mostly wealthy middle class who prefer a smooth and progressive evolution rather than any violent revolution which may trigger social instabilities. It would be real troublesome for the society if government push people who had sitting in the middle to the other side.

Spicy Pepper is arguably one of best known cartoonists in China today. Many western media's outlets in China have been closely observing the developing of this saga. Yuan Li, chief editor of Wall Street Journal's Chinese edition, also retweeted, and asked for legal input from her readers.

Having witnessed the unprecedented nationwide mass crackdown of online speech in the past few weeks, Spicy Pepper published this drawing on Oct 13. Two days later, he became the newest victim himself.

A few hour later, a Chinese e-business pioneer Laorong went missing after a last post of hearing someone knocking his door at 1:57am. Laorong, aka Wang Juntao, is a busy businessman, but sometimes makes comments on quasi-sensitive issues online.

Rumors had it that both arrests were linked to public mocking of the propaganda article 'Lee's Ten Crimes'.

Update: Laorong resurfaced, but would not elaborate his whereabout in the hours when he was missing.

Update: the next morning, Wuyuesanren aka Yao Bo, Spicy Pepper's friend, went to the police station to turn himself in because he believed he must have committed the same crime. Wuyuesanren was briefly detained then released. People who care about their reputation are feeling ashamed when they were not arrested by police for something, especially after their close friends had been rounded in. Wuyuesanren forecasted and broadcasted his self-submission in high profile style on social networking sites.

Professor He Weifang, researcher Yu Jianrong, writer Li Chengpeng, commentator Zhao Chu, real estate mogul Pan Shiyi all called for release of Spicy Pepper.

Searching of 'Spicy Pepper' is blocked by Sina, "because of law and policies".

Update: evening the same day, about 21 hours after Spicy Pepper was taken away, he was released.

1:2,000,000

After a magazine under the CCP's Central Propaganda Ministry (CPM) published an editorial in which Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, a renowned scientist, entrepreneur and angel investor was accused of committing ten horrendous crimes (Lee's Ten Crimes), the CPM had given a green light for mass attack.

A screen shot, via Ranxiangmm, circulated in Chinese blogsphere read: All websites and networks should aggressively forward or post the Lee's Ten Crimes article in the form of user-generated-contents (forums, comments). In the mean time, strictly moderate posts attacking the author of the article.

At RMB 769 billion ($130 billion), China's expenses on interior oppression, aka maintaining stability or Weiwen in Chinese, surpasses national defense according to national budget published in March. This ratio made China the first major power to spend more to defend against its people than to defend against outside threats. An Oct 3 article published by official media New Capital revealed that there were over 2 million Chinese working as online speech monitors and inspectors. The figure also shadows the 2 million strong active duty military personnels in the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Armed with his PhD in Computer Science from CMU, and senior executive experiences at Apple, Microsoft and Google, Lee had been fighting smartly, utilizing Big Data tools such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining to amass a fans (avid followers) base of over 51 million on Sina Weibo.

It will be difficult to foretell the outcome of a battle in which one free soul leads a community of 51 million to fend off aggression of an army of 2 million. It may be even more difficult to assess the long lasting impact regardless who is the winner on the battlefield.

Online Defamation Lawsuits Swamp Courthouses Around Globe

A lady in London was facing a libel action (HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION. Claim number HQ12D05081 Mr Kirby Kearns and Mrs Lesley Kemp) after she complained about her employer on twitter. Lesley Kemp was paid £146 for her translation work by a company Resolution Productions. However, £25 were deducted as bank fees. Kempt rented on her twitter account and called the company 'disgraceful'.

Qatar based Resolutions Productions paid the £25, then sued her for libel over her tweets. They are seeking £50,000 in damages and £70,000 in cost.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, Amy Nicholls of South Carolina was sued (The Court of Common Pleas in Medina County, Ohio, Case No. 13CIV0351) by an Ohio-based company Med Express over a negative review she left at the company's eBay seller account. Nicholls was surprised by a postage-due for products she ordered online which she paid in full plus shipping fees, and left a negative review "'Order arrived with postage due with no communication from seller beforehand." on the transaction. Med Express admitted the comment was true, but nevertheless not happy it might hurt their business.

What was absent from the picture was eBay, the ecommerce giant where the transaction and user feedbacks took place. EBay set up a reviewing system as an essential and critical feature to remedy the uncertainty and unfamiliarity of an online auction place. If eBay did not back up its user who used the system exactly as it is supposed to work, then eBay literally set up a trap for its users. In this case, standing by is not only coward, unethical, but also suicidal.

So you could be sued for comments made on Twitter, or negative reviews left at eBay even though they are truthful and factual. You might find a lawyer who thought your case was significant enough that they would defend you pro bono. However, for every publicized cases with happy ending, there are many who have concluded the other way.

An Anatomy of Free Press

For photojournalism, when you have to take the shot right there and then, there's no skill or preparation can guarantee technical perfection. Photo editor Joe of a local paper portrait in length of a discussion with his colleagues on whether or not it's ethic or professional for a photojournalist to remove red-eye effects with photo editing software. Joe used the opportunity to illustrate the high bar a photojournalist must pass in daily working.

I had an experience covering a same game with Joe once. That was the first game in the season. At the beginning, the players received a ring from the club. Of course that's one of the photo moment you have to catch. Each ring comes in a small box, which made it difficult to find a good angle to shoot the picture. Joe approached one player, ask him to 'show' him the ring, and took a shot. I noticed John, another photographer on the scene, shook his head in an apparent despise. This begs the real question: how much editing is acceptable?

There's actually no standard, and most people follows the practice of reputed larger firms, such as NYT. Then who decides the ethics laws at NYT? Recall the famous and iconic scene when Iraqi people pulled down dictator Saddam's statue after the liberation of Baghdad in a celebration. The pictures released by Reuters and AP made it look like thousands of local people joined the celebration, while in reality only dozens of airborne Iraqi Americans exiles took part. In that case, pictures surely did not reflect the fact, but would that (shooting from weird angle and cropping) be considering photo manipulation? In another example, NBC digitally replaced the backdrop of their Evening News, so that the Time Square buildings carries a Toyota logo in place of a real Honda logo (for the sake of argument). Should this be considered digital manipulation? The third strike came recently: court ruled that news agencies produce news as a product, and had lawful right to process the 'news', without no obligation to the truthfulness of it. This was regarding the milk case if you remember.

See, there's really no real ethic standard in the news media after all. The perceptive meaning of a free media is that the media is free to tell the truth, while in reality, it's that the media is free to make up any story that sells.

Proposed Security Rules for Internet Cafe Raised Concerns

A new rule to be enforced by the end of year raised concerns of privacy violations. Evil always comes hidden beneath a glorified name, to protect our children from harm of Internet pornography.

Beijing Municipal ruled that all Internet Cafe must install scanners and video cameras by the end of 2008. When an individual citizen enters an Internet Cafe, his ID card will be scanned, photo taken, and information registered online at a designated government website. Surveillance cameras should also be installed and must be able to capture a clear head shot of all surfers. Communism net police will then be able to remotely monitor and verify identify of each Internet surfer in real time, with precise information on his identify and the IP address of the computer he is using.