New rules issued by the Chinese government Friday will make it easier to monitor who is using the Internet and tamp down some of the vibrant discourse on the country’s Twitter-like microblogs, Keith Bradsher reported. That discourse in recent weeks has publicized sexual and financial scandals that have led to the resignations or dismissals of at least 10 local officials, as well as accounts in Bloomberg News and The New York Times about the wealth of the country’s top leaders. The rules, which come with much greater legal force than earlier regulations, require Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for monitoring what appears online. The government also included a mandate for businesses in China to be more cautious in gathering and protecting electronic data.
The nation’s public libraries are shifting with the times, recognizing that lending out physical books is only the beginning of their engagement with users, Karen Ann Cullotta writes. In part, the libraries are trying to fill the void left by disappearing book stores — which can mean highlighting best sellers like “50 Shades of Grey” in order to serve the public, who are viewed as “customers.” But also, they have become minor technology centers, both by providing high-speed Internet connections and classes.
- On Room for Debate, there is a discussion of what role libraries should play as books are increasingly read digitally and are stored in the “cloud.” One commenter, Susan Crawford, notes ruefully that for many people, the library is the only way to connect to the Internet — a heavy burden for libraries to bear; another, Matthew Battles, writes of libraries:
They’ve acted as gathering points for lively minds and as sites of seclusion and solace. For making knowledge and sharing change, we still need such places — and some of those, surely, we will continue to call “the library.”
Gerry Anderson, the British filmmaker behind the futuristic marionettes-based TV series “Thunderbirds,” died on Wednesday at age 83, William Yardley reports. The series made its debut in 1965, employing a technique Mr. Anderson called “Supermarionation,” combining the words super, marionette and animation to describe his process, which was later imitated by the “South Park” creators in “Team America: World Police.” Mr. Anderson’s characters were part of an international rescue team that enthralled a generation in Britain.