The news has been chock full this year about how China hates Google and Google hates China, but how does the largest country in the world feel about the rest of the internet?

Well, not so hot either, in fact China has banned its soldiers from tweeting, blogging and online dating. Apparently, China is concerned that soldiers will be easier to compromise if they are overly available via the internet.

“Soldiers should not take part in any Internet interaction, even if they try to cover up their military identities, because they cannot ensure they will not be revealing any information relating to their job, including something they may consider irrelevant.”

China’s 2.3 million strong army will have to “knuckle down” from now on, since apparently over-zealous soldiers have in the past tried to impress online dates with information about troop locations among other tidbits.

By stark contrast, the US Army encourages the use of social media by its troops as a means of spreading its message to a wider area.

A US Admiral has 20,000 followers on Twitter, although he doesn’t have a MySpace page because he think it’s “icky and sucky and he doesn’t like the way background images don’t tile properly”.

The army, like most employers are constantly struggling with how to regulate and enforce internet use in the workplace, and it turns out China is no different in this regard.

As for lonely Chinese troops, particularly those in remote locations, the higher ups advice on the subject of dating was unhelpful, to say the least.

“Matchmaking for soldiers can be conducted in more serious ways, such as through introductions from families, friends, or their work units.”

I guess soldiers will simply have to take matters into their own hands…

image from thegazette.com