The Nanny has just received a facelift. And she’s kinda cute:

The internet nanny is cute, until she confiscates your computer and hauls you away and locks you up for a couple of years on trumped up charges relating to national security leaking national secrets — and then you realize she’s a hard ass. Inspired by the hideous and tacky mascots of the Beijing Olympics, the Shenzhen police devised a way of making their new internet police force (which started work on January 1 of this year) seem more cute and acceptable to the masses — using cartoon mascots of their own. One is named Jing Jing (the male), and the other Cha Cha (the female). ‘Jing’ and ‘cha’ are the characters that comprise the word for ‘police’ in Chinese. Shanghaiist is sure that some of you readers are no doubt Westerners that just don’t get China and Chinese values, which is why the po-lice have to spell it out for you:

网上的各种行为同样有网络警察维护“社会秩序”，网站、论坛等都是网络公共场所，网民要注意自己的言行。

This basically states that websites, including BBSs, discussion groups (and most definitely blogs) are public places, and so internet denizens must likewise watch what they say and do. Thus the two cartoon figures will appear on various Shenzhen sites from now on. Apparently, you can click on either one and then be brought to a page (here or here) where you can talk live with real cops

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