The CCP’s mass regulation and censorship of entertainment does, unsurprisingly, include pornography. However, even with strict anti-porn laws, the horny populace find a way to consume “content”. With this in mind, China attempted to create a porn-detecting mind reader to out viewers of banned videos.
Has China made a porn-detecting mind reader?
Reported by South China Morning Post, a research team in Beijing has been attempting to create a mind-reading device designed entirely for porn. Yes, a device that can read minds… but only for pictures of tiddies.
In China, large numbers of censors are hired to monitor the internet. The country’s jian huang shi, aka “porn appraiser”(thanks, SCMP) make sure that lewd images are struck from the censored web. However, soon the populace may be able to snitch on itself.
The Beijing scientists are said to have created an early prototype of mind-reading tech that will detect the consumption of pornography. Currently, the technology is a huge helmet that detects brainwave spikes when a person looks at indecent images.
In the experiment, university students ages 20-25 volunteered to look at lewd images — that’s funny — to test the helmet. The helmet is said to have successfully been triggered with an alarm every time an indecent image was shown. To be fair, that seems like incredibly basic technology.
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So, what’s the next step?
The exact purpose of this technology has not really been touched on by scientists or even the reporters at SCMP. In fact, just the existence of the machine is confusing at best.
Yes, the device detects when someone is titillated by an image, but the device is an enormous helmet. Furthermore, the aforementioned “porn appraiser” role already seeks out illicit imagery without the need for a headset.
The only real way for the technology to advance in China’s censor-filled dystopia, would be to enforce its use on civilians using their computers. That seems very expensive. Of course, “brain chips” that detect porn consumption could also be used, which is horrifying and outside the realms of reality at mass scale. At best, this is simply an experiment that aided propaganda.
Why is it believable?
The use of tech-based censorship in China at this scale is believable to some simply because of how much the country uses technology to block content. For example, in recent years, techno-parenting has become huge in the region.
Take video game company Tencent. The massive video game conglomerate has been forced to work with the CCP government to monitor children playing games with facial recognition, banning them from gaming for more than a few hours a week.
It would make sense then that the government would be looking for a way to enforce its pornography restrictions. However, being able to spread the technology across the entire country would be impossible.
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