Post by Lantesh on May 27, 2011 22:28:32 GMT -5
So recently this article has been popping up on several other gaming forums I frequent. Since it seems to be a hot subject, I thought I'd share:
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam
I've always heard jokes here and there about Chinese sweatshop farmers, but it seems that those jokes may not be so far off the mark. I realize that China has always had some serious human rights issues, but this is just insane. Some of the responses I've seen to this article in a few other places run along the lines of "So what? They're prisoners, who cares what happens to them?" That just seems horribly wrong to me, I don't think it matters if they are prisoners or not.
In the past I've sometimes seen people state that RMT is a victimless "crime" to justify buying/selling gold in MMOs. However now that it's coming to light that people are possibly being beaten/tortured over it, that doesn't seem to fit anymore. So what do you guys think about this?
Memories from his detention at Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province from 2004 still haunt Liu. As well as backbreaking mining toil, he carved chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and assembled car seat covers that the prison exported to South Korea and Japan. He was also made to memorise communist literature to pay off his debt to society.
But it was the forced online gaming that was the most surreal part of his imprisonment. The hard slog may have been virtual, but the punishment for falling behind was real.
"If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," he said.
But it was the forced online gaming that was the most surreal part of his imprisonment. The hard slog may have been virtual, but the punishment for falling behind was real.
"If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," he said.
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam
I've always heard jokes here and there about Chinese sweatshop farmers, but it seems that those jokes may not be so far off the mark. I realize that China has always had some serious human rights issues, but this is just insane. Some of the responses I've seen to this article in a few other places run along the lines of "So what? They're prisoners, who cares what happens to them?" That just seems horribly wrong to me, I don't think it matters if they are prisoners or not.
In the past I've sometimes seen people state that RMT is a victimless "crime" to justify buying/selling gold in MMOs. However now that it's coming to light that people are possibly being beaten/tortured over it, that doesn't seem to fit anymore. So what do you guys think about this?