China's kids can gripe online

Could this be a) a step toward greater democracy for China, b) the proverbial genie out of the bottle, or c) a chance for kids to rant about their parents and nothing more. I'm sure Young Pioneers, the youth wing of the Chinese Communist Party sponsoring ChinaKids would say the answer is "c." But the Wall Street Journal reports that in April a group of the site's young social networkers "posted a list of 10 'outrageous and intolerable crimes'," referring to "spanking, putting too much pressure on children, and playing too much mahjong" on the part of their parents. The Journal adds that another "ChinaKid," a blogger from Shanghai, wrote about how terrible it feels "to be censored by somebody else." The site has "800,000 registered preteen bloggers," most of whom "have no interest in sensitive political issues. But the Chinakids community does explicitly teach kids to speak out, sometimes against authority." The article includes a chart showing that China's biggest age group of Internet users is 18-to-24-year-olds (35.1%), followed by 25-to-30-year-olds (19.3%), and then this group, under-18s (16.6%). Meanwhile, "Hao Wu, a Chinese independent filmmaker and blogger arrested by Beijing police in February, was released from detention yesterday [Tuesday, 7/11]," the Journal reports in a separate article, citing a post on his sister's blog.