If addiction’s the problem, says Phil Ball, prohibition’s not the answer.

This week the Chinese government announced that it will freeze the opening of any new Internet cafés for a year from July 2007. This restriction on computer access has inevitably been interpreted as a further attempt by the Chinese authorities to control and censor politically sensitive information. But the government claims that the move is to protect susceptible teenagers from becoming addicted to games, chatrooms and online porn.

Read the column here.

If addiction’s the problem, says Phil Ball, prohibition’s not the answer.

This week the Chinese government announced that it will freeze the opening of any new Internet cafés for a year from July 2007. This restriction on computer access has inevitably been interpreted as a further attempt by the Chinese authorities to control and censor politically sensitive information. But the government claims that the move is to protect susceptible teenagers from becoming addicted to games, chatrooms and online porn.

Read the column here.