With everyone else distracted by the financial crisis, high oil prices, the Iraq war, and the battle against al Qaeda, it is a relief to know that some folks in the U.S. Congress have their priorities straight. Right now, the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is hosting a hearing entitled "Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium." Watch it live here.

You might very well assume that most Chinese people are angry about the Great Firewall of China. But if this new poll highlighted by Pew researcher Deborah Fallows is accurate, you are dead wrong:

[I]n a new survey, most Chinese say they approve of internet control and management, especially when it comes from their government.

According to findings from the fourth and most recent of a series of surveys about internet use in China from 2000 to 2007, over 80% of respondents say they think the internet should be managed or controlled, and in 2007, almost 85% say they think the government should be responsible for doing it.

One major reason for this overall finding, I'd have to think, is that 93 percent of respondents say that "much of internet content to be unsuitable for children."

When asked which online content they thought should be controlled, more internet users targeted the most offensive or annoying content: 87% of internet users would control or manage pornography; 86% violent content; 83% spam or junk mail; 66% advertisements; 64% slander against individuals.

But what about political content? Actually, a growing number of people think that is a problem, too:

Since 2005, the percentage of users who say that online content about "politics" should be controlled or managed jumped from 8% to 41%, by far the biggest increase of any items tested.

[Guo Liang, deputy director of the Research Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences] said that the explanation for this increase probably lies in the spate of widely publicized incidents of fraud, blackmail, sensationalism, and other abuse of Chinese citizens via the internet. The Chinese word used for "politics" in this survey, zhengzhi, is not confined simply to political rights or competition for political control but may be understood to include larger questions of public morality and social values.

There are plenty of other fascinating findings in Pew's report, so read the whole thing.

Last month, pro-Palestinians, who hope Jerusalem will be the capital of a future Palestinian state, were angered when the board game Monopoly listed "Jerusalem, Israel," as a candidate city for its world edition. Recently, though, the controversy went the other way around at Facebook, the social-networking site.

Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank, in places such as Maale Adumin and Ariel, were angered when Facebook automatically listed their hometowns as being located in Palestine. Facebook heard their outcry, however, and now residents in Israeli West Bank settlements can choose between with Israel and Palestine.

Of course, opposing Facebook groups are now looking for members. The group "ITS [sic] NOT 'PALESTINE'- IT'S 'ISRAEL'" has nearly 14,000 members, while the group "If Palestine is removed from Facebook... Im [sic] closing my account." has around 4,600 members.

It all goes to show that on the Web, nobody has a monopoly on outrage.

Since it's the fifth anniversary of the DHS, we've got homeland security on the brain today. So it was fitting that this terrifying little tidbit just came over the AP:

The Pentagon has banned Google Earth teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases.... Michael Kucharek, spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the decision was made after crews were allowed access to at least one base. He said military officials were concerned that allowing the 360-degree, street-level video could provide sensitive information to potential adversaries and endanger base personnel."

Um, no duh. Considering that Google Earth is a favorite tool of terrorist groups -- including the Palestinian al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which uses it to target and kill Israeli civilians -- this strikes me as a pretty common sense decision.

And it begs the question: Who the heck allowed a team from Google Earth, presumably carrying all sorts of video and mapping equipment, access to a U.S. military base in the first place?

We tend to imagine Hong Kong as a free-wheeling, anything goes kind of place. But in many ways, it still reflects the conservatism of the mainland, as a recent sex scandal reminds us. Edison Chen, a Canadian-born star who has done movies, albums, ad campaigns (I first got to known him as the face on my Pepsi cans in China) is now finito in the Hong Kong entertainment industry after indecent, OK, overtly pornographic, pictures of him and fellow female stars rocked the Special Administrative Region and spilled into the mainland and Taiwan. Here's the basic rundown.

When Edison took his laptop to get serviced, somebody found extremely graphic photos of sexual encounters with various actresses on his hard drive and published them on the Internet. Various local newspapers then splashed partially censored photos on their front pages for 10 days straight (the uncensored versions were accessible online, in separate magazine supplements, and were passed around on mobile phones or e-mail). What made the scandal especially shocking was that some of the female stars in the photos have built their careers on "innocent girl" images. The damaging coverage of the starlets has led to alleged death threats against Edison, and odd Hong Kong gang bounties like HK $500,000 (about USD $91,000) to chop off his hand, leading some to speculate that the women's management has mob ties.

While the overwhelming majority of people in Hong Kong didn't approve of the photos, polls also show that those who did see them sure seemed to keep clicking as they voiced their disapproval.

Edison has apologized and said he's stepping out of the industry once his current obligations are complete. Given the public outrage over "Sexy Photos Gate," saving face is probably the wise move for now. But I don't foresee a young star with so much of his career ahead of him staying away for that long. Something tells me he'll come through.

Here's a quirky story: The Economist sued Jason Rose, who owns the domain name theeconomist.com, for infringing on its trade name (the magazine is housed at economist.com). The centerpiece of Rose's site is a picture of Alan Greenspan below the title, "The Economist." Below the photograph is this text:

Alan Greenspan, Ex-Chairman of Federal Reserve Board is The Economist of the Century
President Reagan called Alan Greenspan "the most powerful man in the world."
Other Notable Economists.
Submit your candidate for The Economist of the Century.

Other than some legal language, that's pretty much it. Rose insists he had never heard of the magazine when he registered his site in 1996, a claim grudgingly accepted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation panel that adjudicated the case. The panel ruled that Rose can keep the site because it could not determine that he had obtained it in bad faith.

What's particularly odd is that Rose appears to make no money from theeconomist.com. There are none of the usual ads or misleading links typical of domain-name squatters. It would appear Rose either really likes Alan Greenspan or really hates The Economist and wants to lead its readers astray.

Because you are liable to be arrested, blindfolded, harshly interrogated, spat upon, and beaten into unconsciousness, only to wake up and face 5 years in jail. That's the fate of 26-year-old Moroccan computer engineer Fouad Mourtada, who in a statement said:

I actually created this account on January 15, 2008. It remained on line a few days before somebody closed it. There are so many profiles of celebrities on Facebook. I never thought that by creating a profile of his highness prince Moulay Rachid I am harming him in any way. I, as a matter of fact, did not send any message from that account to anyone. It was just a joke, a gag.

His trial starts next week. 

PEDRO REY/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, I noted that rogue French trader Jérôme Kerviel had become a minor-league Internet superhero, largely through Facebook fan groups. (Today, the member count for the group "Jérôme Kerviel should be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics" stands at 2,813.) But along with online jokesters, Facebook's members apparently also consist of highly motivated social activists.

On Monday, hundreds of thousands of Colombians, along with supporters around the world in nearly 200 cities, led protests against the pro-communist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The protests aren't unexpected—the rebel group has been terrorizing Colombia for more than four decades—but the method of organization is what's novel.

Roughly two months ago, after photos and video of FARC captives surfaced, enraged people began to join the Facebook group Un Millón De Voces Contra Las FARC ("A Million Voices Against FARC"). The group then grew with incredible speed to include more than 280,000 members, publishing its pleas for "No More! No More Kidnapping! No More Lies! No More Murder! No More FARC!" in Spanish, English, French, German, and Portuguese. The resulting protests are some of the largest ever seen on an international scale. Not bad for a Web site that started out as a networking platform for Ivy Leaguers.

More than 95 percent of international telephone and data traffic travels via undersea cables. Knowing that, it's still surprising that an accident in Egypt can bring down most of the Internet... in India. Today, Internet users from Cairo to Calcutta are either without the Web or their service is operating at a fraction of its normal capacity. The culprit? A ship off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, dragged its anchor and snagged two major underwater telecommunications cables. Unfortunately for Internet addicts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, and India, the SeaMeWe-4 and FLAG Europe-Asia cables, which carry the majority of Internet service between Western Europe and the Middle East and South Asia, were the ones cut. See the handy map below from the folks at TeleGeography for the specifics:

TeleGeography

Stephan Beckert at TeleGeography told me that cuts to undersea cables are actually quite common, but rarely does it happen to two cables at once—and to cables that bear so much traffic. Of course, disasters do happen: Internet and telephone service in Asia was disrupted for weeks in December 2006 after nine undersea cables were damaged due to a big earthquake off the coast of Taiwan. But there's not as much risk of disruption when there are a host of other cables (such as between, say, North American and Europe) for traffic to spill onto. Here's a fascinating map of the traffic our current system of underwater cables can handle:

TeleGeography

It's unclear when normal service could be restored to the affected countries; it could be a few days or as long as two weeks. The Arabist, an anonymous blogger based in Egypt, sarcastically predicts "complete social breakdown" when people find themselves unable to update Facebook every few minutes. Here's hoping it doesn't come to that.

ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP/Getty Images

Nestor Kirchner may be the former president of Argentina, but there's one person who has refused to obey his ex-presidential orders: his 17-year-old daughter Florencia.

Daddy isn't happy that his adolescent daughter, whose mother is current Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has been posting wild-child photos on her blog. He is reported to have begged her to stop posting images. Like any smart teenager, though, Florencia simply changes her screen name. She has gone from "bananarepublic" to "coffelove" to her present "florkey."

Some photos are innocuous and reveal rare glimpses of the first family's life, such as a photo of Florencia backstage with her brother and two cousins at her mother's inauguration last year. Others, though, have alarmed some in the Argentine press, because they show her wandering around Buenos Aires with no security detail in sight (e.g. a photo of Florencia on the subway with a friend).

At least her parents may be happy to know that when she interviewed herself online, she said her favorite country was, "Argentina, I think."

Andrew Sullivan is all over Ron Paul supporters' seeming command of World of Warcraft, and links to a list of 49 characters named "Ronpaul" in the popular online fantasy game.

But that's nothing: There are 69 characters named "Obama" and another 36 named "BarackObama."

There are 71 characters named "Hillary," though a search for "HillaryClinton" comes up dry. Mike Huckabee, with 30 as "Huckabee" and two people going by "Mikehuckabee," is no slouch. There are 27 "McCain" avatars and another four for "JohnMcCain," and even "Romney," with 25 characters, makes an appearance.

Facebook has become a popular platform for public figures to reach out to supporters and fans. Presidential candidates, for instance, can use the hugely popular social-networking site to build official profiles and post updates from the campaign trail. The Facebook gods therefore frown on pranksters who attempt to impersonate celebrities by creating a fake profile. They also encourage legitimate users to report alleged impostors in order to maintain the integrity of the site.

The trouble is, it's often difficult to determine whether a celebrity profile is indeed a fake. This is exactly what happened to British MP Steve Webb, who recently discovered that he had been locked out of his own account and had his profile removed from the site. Several e-mails to Facebook were able to convince the company that the 10-year member of the House of Commons was no impostor. (Facebook eventually reinstated his account and issued the MP an official apology for the confusion.)

I'm surprised that this type of thing doesn't happen more often. But Facebook, as far as I can tell, does a pretty decent job weeding out the fake profiles that seem ubiquitous on other social networking sites. They do it so well, in fact, that perhaps the Department of Homeland Security could contract Facebook to run the"No Fly List." I'm sure Ted Kennedy would be happy to sponsor the necessary legislation.

Al-Jazzeera/AFP/Getty Images

When Ayman al-Zawahiri took to cyberspace on Sunday to gloat about Britain's departure from Southern Iraq, the Islamist websites that carried his video made a startling announcement. Apparently, al-Qaeda's number two wants to hear from you. Wired's Danger Room blog has the transcript:

As-Sahab Foundation for Islamic Media, in coordination with Al-Fajr Center, is pleased to announce the organizing of an open meeting with Shaykh Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he will reply to questions directed to him by individuals, organizations and all information media outlets.

[...] 

Please try to keep the question brief and focused. Organizations and media outlets are requested to give their name at the end of the question, and we request the brothers supervising the collection of questions to transmit them as is without any changes or alteration, whether they be friendly or hostile. As-Sahab will do its best to publish the reply of Shaykh Ayman al-Zawahiri to as many questions at possible at the nearest possible opportunity, with Allah's help and guidance.

Zawahiri apparently plans to respond to the questions in a video sometime next month. Danger Room's Noah Shachtman has already started the ball rolling with some possible questions for him:

Why are you so pissed off? What's your next diabolical plot? Where can a Predator deliver a little present to you right now? And what's up with that big ol' splotch on your forehead?"

The presidential YouTube debates were painful enough, but this whole "Web 2.0" thing has clearly gone too far when even the evil-doers are getting in on it. Though, if that bible guy decides to write in, Zawahiri should have a much easier time answering than the Republicans did.

iStockphoto.com

Catholic clergy in Italy have had a lot to get upset about recently. First, Italian Catholics who have a custom of carrying around tiny pictures of saints in their wallets and purses no longer have to worry about their santini becoming worn and tattered. Instead, they can buy a €3 ($4.50 U.S.) weekly subscription from a Milan-based company that lets them download images of three saints onto their mobile phones. (Did Italians ever consider just laminating their santini?) Accompanying prayers cost about 50 U.S. cents, which sounds like a bargain. But a bishop complained to La Stampa newspaper that the downloadable saints are "in really bad taste."

What's really in bad taste, though, is a recent TV commercial for Red Bull energy drink. It was pulled in Italy after a priest complained that it depicted the nativity scene in a "sacrilegious way." The ad shows four wise men, not three, visiting baby Jesus. The fourth wise man offered the infant cans of Red Bull. The commercial ends with fluttering angels in the sky chugging Red Bull and illustrating the company's slogan, "Red Bull gives you wings." You can watch it here:

Of course, Christianity isn't the only religion in which connecting to God via mobile phones has caused a stir. Ring tones that feature Koranic verses and azan, calls to prayer, have had a mixed reception in the Muslim world, as FP noted earlier this year.

Culture almost always takes time to adapt to new technologies. In the 19th century, Muslims were divided about gramophone recordings of their holy book. Saudi clerics denounced the television when it was first introduced to the kingdom. But except for groups such as the Amish, people the world over seem to have found ways to make religion and technology compatible. Some people just need more time to adapt than others.