Last week, a group of government officials and Internet executives announced the first “Netizens’ Day” on September 14th, which apparently marks the anniversary of the first e-mail message sent from China in 1987.
Rebecca MacKinnon blogged this news: “Wang Xiu Jun of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gave a speech. Her remarks are a good illustration of how the Chinese government is putting an increasing amount of energy into trying to shape and guide the Chinese Internet’s development in a “harmonious” direction. She spoke of how, in 2008, Chinese netizens provided support and comfort to disaster victims, and how they showed their patriotism. She emphasized President Hu Jintao’s remarks last summer, in which he said that the Party and government place great importance on the opinions of netizens.”
Here is some additional feedback from the Chinese blogosphere. Cartoonist Guaiguai has published his new work, called “Netizens’ Day“:
Captions translated by CDT:
(1) “September 14 is now Netizens’ Day. We netizens finally have our own celebratory day, Yeah!”
(2) “How should we netizens celebrate this day?”
(3) “Take a day off! I guarantee everyone will be happy.”
“But netizens are from all different walks of life, how can they take the same day off?”
(4) “I mean, let the comrades who are policing the Internet to take that day off…”
