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1.  

   Forget closing cafes...

   

   Mr. X, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 2:02pm

   
   

   China should forget about closing the internet cafes, instead it should just censor out all of the addicting internet content out there so there is no reason for anyone to get addicted in the first place, after all censorship has always worked well for them in the past...
   
   They could always get their pal Google to help them if they wanted to. :)

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2.  

   Electro shock

   

   haywood, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 3:07pm

   
   

   Maybe they need a free internet cafe with metal computers hooked to a stunning charge of electricity. Soon the youths will hesitate to touch any computer.

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3.  

   Temporary

   

   Freeko Deako, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 3:13pm

   
   

   "Internet addiction" is a temporary condition and one even the Chinese will get past. They don't need regulation, they need information.

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4.  

   are we really naive enought

   

   joseph, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 3:50pm

   
   

   to believe that 'Internet addiction' is the real reason for this action. I would be more inclined to believe that control of its populations access to the internet is china's real reason for doing this. While stopping new cyber cafes from opening doesn't seem like much it does seem to fit with there previous actions of censorship and control

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5.  

   

   john john, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 4:11pm

   
   

   i would be addicted to the internet too if it was one of my only sources of outside information (censored as it may be)

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6.  

   Re: are we really naive enought

   

   A Human Mind, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 5:33pm

   
   

   Right, it seems more likely to be about control. Limiting internet cafes is a form of limiting internet anonymity and therefore a form of better tracking of individuals.
   A government "cure" would typically be done through taxation, as on cigarettes, no?

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7.  

   

   n3rdkw, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 7:55pm

   
   

   It's a not a democracy and you don't get to say crap about the government. Internet opens up a whole new journalism and expression of discontent. Anyone with internet connection and something on his/her mind is a "potential threat" to the government because this person is very likely to write something on the internet that is "anti-government." SO... this whole internet thing poses as a gigantic problem to the government. By the way, the officials don't really care if someone says shit about the government, it's the hard-core communists who stick around in the party that stirs up all the trouble.

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8.  

   Re:

   

   n3rdkw, Mar 6th, 2007 @ 7:57pm

   
   

   Excuse me for the excessive use of "government"

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9.  

   

   |333173|3|_||3, Mar 7th, 2007 @ 2:55am

   
   

   Intenet addiction only seems to occur in China and other totalitarian countries. Shock therapy might work, especially if applied with a strpped mains cable by a guard in a re-education facility to which people get sent to in order to re-learn the virtues of peasant labour as opposed to trying to break therought the Great Firewall.

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10.  

    You said it!!

    

    Scott, Mar 7th, 2007 @ 6:15am

    
    

    This is the first really good article I have read on TechDirt in quite some time!!! You go BOEEEEI!!!! I have been saying the same thing for as long as the claims of Internet Addiction have been rolling off the tongues of the Media...so, I guess that is the reason I think this is such a good article, because you are agreeing with me :o)

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