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China Blocking Access to Google News Site
loconet writes "BBC and Reuters are reporting that China is blocking access to the Web site Google News according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. The organisation also accused Google of being complicit by filtering its Chinese-language site." From Reuters' version of the story: "The Paris-based group said the government had been blocking Google's English-language news Web site for about 10 days, after the company launched a Chinese-language version that removed politically sensitive reports."
Ahh the great leap forward kinda sounds like the Chinese equivalent of the 90's tech bubble (although the tech bubble didn't have that whole widespread famine thing)
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed in Google making a "local" version of their news feeder for China. It's not local news, it's censored news. That doesn't sound like the Google I know and love.
- dshaw
China is a sovereign nation. I don't think you'd hear the end of it if you suggested that Americans be required to have their votes counted in the open.
Leave China alone and pay attention to the problems in your own country.
Maybe they missed the one about Canada Arresting Bush?
If you are in China, use the following link to read the stories: Link
Criticise China but be capable of listening to and considering criticism of your own country too.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
What's the Chinese word for proxy server? Probably 'jail time' if you mispronounce it.
The BBC article says that "the site does not filter news results to remove politically sensitive information." I wonder what exactly gets through. I've heard that certain American political sites (nationalreview.com, democraticunderground.com) are not filtered in China--I don't know if that's true, but it suggests an alternative strategy for finding interesting information.
I find it hard to believe that they could censor *everything*, unless they set the default to 'banned' and allowed sites on a case-by-case basis. But even that's hard--a seemingly innocuous site could suddenly have "objectionable" content one day.
meanwhile Iraq disappears from frontpages even though more US soldiers where killed this month than any other month so far, if google censored US news how would you know ?
of course the Whitehouse wouldnt attempt to hide politically sensitive stuff about Iraq now would it ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/01/opinion/01kristo f.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
China's Donkey Droppings
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
For the last century, the title of "most important place in the world" has belonged to the United States, but that role seems likely to shift in this century to China.
So what are China's new leaders, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, really like? Are they visionaries who are presiding over the greatest explosion of wealth the world has ever known? Or are they ruthless thugs who persecute Christians, Falun Gong adherents, labor leaders and journalists in a desperate attempt to maintain their dictatorship?
There's some evidence for both propositions, and they are probably both true to some degree.
When Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen rose to the helm of the Communist Party two years ago, many Chinese hoped they would bring a new openness to a nation that is dynamic economically but stagnant intellectually. Instead, China has become more repressive.
The repression has now engulfed a member of The New York Times's family. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The Times, has been detained by the authorities since September and is not allowed to communicate with his family or lawyers.
Mr. Zhao is accused of leaking state secrets, a very serious charge that could lead to a decade in prison. China's government may believe that he was behind the September scoop by The Times's Beijing bureau chief, Joseph Kahn, that China's former leader, Jiang Zemin, was about to retire from his last formal position.
While The Times's policy is, wisely, never to comment on the sources of articles, my own private digging indicates that Mr. Zhao was not the source for that scoop. He is innocent of everything except being a fine journalist who, before joining The Times, wrote important articles in the Chinese press about corruption.
(In fairness, sending journalists to prison for doing their job is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon. Several American journalists - Jim Taricani of NBC, Judith Miller of this newspaper and Matthew Cooper of Time - may be sent to U.S. prisons in the next month or two for refusing to reveal their sources.)
Mr. Zhao's case is depressingly similar to that of another Chinese journalist, Jiang Weiping. He is serving a six-year sentence for "revealing state secrets," even though his real crime was exposing corruption.
"China has changed so much economically, but not politically," Jiang Weiping's wife, Li Yanling, told me. "It's a puzzle to me."
The authorities ordered Ms. Li to keep quiet about her husband's arrest, and detained her when she didn't. The couple's daughter, now 15, was traumatized at losing first her father and then her mother to the Chinese prison system. When Ms. Li was finally released, the daughter called her constantly from school to make sure that she had not been arrested again.
Mr. Zhao's arrest is just the latest in a broad crackdown in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 42 journalists are now in prison in China, more than in any other country.
"There was a period of openness, a period of hope, when the new leaders first came to power," said Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University. "But now they've consolidated power, and everything has closed up again."
Mr. Jiao should know. He wrote an essay this year denouncing censorship, and it was immediately censored. Now the government has banned Mr. Jiao from teaching.
I've felt this cooling as well. I was planning to visit China this month, but the government has declined to give me a visa. It's the first time I've been refused, and the State Security Ministry may have worried that I would write a column about its unjust imprisonment of Mr. Zhao.
I love China, and I share its officials' distaste for those who harm it. That's why I'm angry that hard-liners in Beijing are presenting China to the world as repressive, fragile, tyra
I'm sure the repressed Chinese appreciate not being bothered by getting to see the results to their illicit queries.
Freedom starts with you.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I know people who are both perfectly reasonable and intelligent, but having grown up in China, know nothing about Tiamanmen. They also claim that Tibet was never invaded; it had always been a part of China. Some are even willing to confess that they formerly hated anything Japanese (including people) due to the nature of the propaganda in its schools. Of course, I'm not saying that everyone who comes out of China's education system is like this, but surely an environment which fosters these views is is bad enough?
China's economy is growing fast; soon it will be too bit for anyone to speak out against its sensitive policies without major fear of reprisals. If something isn't done now, it may never be.
Evil isn't just a philosophical construct, nor is it a metaphor, it exists.
There is very little that we can do about this other than refuse to do business with Chinese companies, which is nearly impossible unless you want to go live in a mud hut someplace.
When someone lies, they're wrong, and obscuring information is just another form of lying.
Hopefully one day freedom will come to China, but not today.
Actually it is North Korea that the world needs to focus its attention on. The sooner Kim Jong il is removed from power the better. As bad as Saddam was, he's a frelling nobel peace prize winner compared to Kim. A very special place in the fires of hades is even now being prepared for his punk ass.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I'm in China. Google News is working fine at the moment. I had never tried it from here before, so I can't verify whether or not it was ever blocked. BBC NEWS is, as always, blocked. BBC World News however, does work.
Dear Citizens of China,
If you click on any of those links, we'll know about it.
Love and Kisses,
Your beloved Government.
Collaboration with an evil is as good as being evil. Sorry Google. Perhaps we could add an additional meaning to the phrase "to google?" Activities like talking endlessly about how good you are, and then silently supporting the worlds largest oppressive regime would fall into that category. It is almost like bad science fiction. There is no excuse for enabling oppression. I don't care about markets. This gives the average Chinese citizen the impression that the rest of the world (e.g. google) supports their intellectual imprisonment. Conversely, having a site like google firewalled would underline the level of their oppression.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Method a: we refuse to deal with china. China remains a thid world country with no middle class, few trade partners, and a growing population of pissed off peasants. They have rockets, missiles, nuclear bombs - and then they revert to civil war. And unlike those poissant countries we're been meddling in for decades, "liberation" is not an option here, lest we lose NYC and LA in giant red clouds. Meanwhile we lose completely Japan, Taiwan, and dozens of other trade partners who now find themselves in the middle of a war zone.
Method b: we make china a trade partner, export as much of our culture as we can, and china becomes a nation of the fastest rising middle class in the world. Even if it's only a 30% middle class that's still more middle class citizens than there are people in the entire US. They pick the best of these new influences, and evolve their own governance through peaceful means - lest they face sanctions and risk losing all that new wealth and comfort.
Which way do you think is better for world stability?
China's affairs are their own. Everyone dies - even dynasties. Let them take the best from western culture and evolve their own ideals about liberty and freedom.
The war of definitions is such a game which cannot be won. There are, as I see it, at least four different and completely unrelated definitions for the words, "Liberal" and "Conservative".
On the one hand, "Liberal" implies to some the idea that governments should not allow personal gain or individuality of any kind so that all people are treated equally, --an ideology which would certainly lead to fascist nightmares like China.
On the other hand, "Liberal" implies to others that people should be treated with healthy respect and given the room to grow and live in freedom. Liberal = Liberate = Free. This is how I define the word, and I define, "Conservative" as the opposite view point. By this definition, China is the product of Conservative ideology. --Where only a small group of people have huge freedom while the masses suffer under Draconian controls.
When it comes down to it, these words are pretty useless for describing different view points, exactly because there are multiple definitions for each and high emotions attached to the different concepts.
Beneath this shouting match, I see only two different approaches:
1. People who believe in, "Me First, Screw Everybody Else." (An ideology, which if left to its own devices, ultimately results in the pooling of power within very small groups. It is upon this model that Fascism is based. --And societies which live in the illusion of freedom, but which are anything but free. --Like the U.S.)
2. People who believe in, "I'll share with those who are also working to build a better world and who are also willing to share". (A model which the 'Me First' people despise because it would stop them from enslaving and raping and building Walmarts.)
These two models cannot co-exist, and neither model can ultimately prevail in this world. This is why there will always be strife and war in this reality. This level of existence is a giant stew pot designed to teach the basics of civility and appropriate behavior. --Those who learn all their lessons and get fed up with trying to make sensible systems work here, will finally move on to higher levels where entire non-selfish paradigms can exist. Those who decide to embrace selfishness can also rise to levels where pure selfishness can also exist. Service-to-self people are prevented, however, from moving beyond that point.
-FL
The fascination some Americans have with thinking Slashdot is a strictly American phenomenon is telling...
It was blocked for a week or so, but is fine now...
/. for a few months about this time last year.
Par for the course. They blocked
No big deal, if you ask me. Just annoying.
Max.
I have read about the first point on many semi-official sites, although the estimates of the number of deaths there is 10~40M, which is still staggering. Government officials do not seem to mind these articles much, and maybe it is published on something official.
As for the rest, since no one around me know the fact, I find it safer not to firmly believe anyone's opinion.
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It's weird, just about every screenshot people post on here is from a windows PC. Granted, most people are running Firefox instead of IE at least, but still - I thought we would have a higher % of Linux/BSD/Other users on this site.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
I'm sitting in Southern China, about an hour north of HongKong, in Shenzhen, and I can surf Google news all I want...
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Speaking as someone who's been working here for a bit, I have to say two things.
First, all this shit about the Chinese Government being the evilest thing on earth is nuts. The government here manages to keep social order such that people can get up and go to work everyday, and such that an increasing number of this generation of children have a shot at the kind of economy we like to talk about in the USA; work like a dog and get yourself a better life. Sure there's a ton of people (80% of 1.3 billion) who are farmers and will never see this. Do you think a liberal democracy based on egalitarian ideals could just be stuck onto a society like this where so many people are completely uneducated? The current government is doing the right thing; focusing on decreasing the population to a level that the economy can comfortably support (keep in mind China has very VERY little in the way of natural resources). Granted there are massive problems here, particularly institutionalized corruption of the beauracracy, but you could do a lot worse. China is a police state? The US is MUCH more heavily policed, although if you DO manage to catch the attention of the real Chinese police they WILL shoot you in the head. Nothing ever shows up in the Chinese media that's critical of the government? SO what?! Nothing ever shows up on the USA's useless fucking media that hasn't been approved by the station's marketing department. Besides, you think Chinese people here don't know what's going on? Christ, of COURSE they know they're not getting the whole story. You think these people are stupid?
Which brings me to Google. Given that these days China is hardly Nazi Germany (or Stalinist Russia or even Maoist China), saying that making censorship concessions with the PRC government. is tantamount to an act of evil is just dumb. You have the choice of not giving the Chinese people access to an information retrieval tool that will further entrench the Internet in their lives as a useful (and possibly eventually liberating) tool OR you can just do what you can. I'll take the second one any day. Look, nothing is going to piss the Chinese off worse than a hairy fucking big nosed foreignor walking in and tellin' the way it is about free speech. That's just a dumb idea.
The breaking up permenantly of China is very unlikely given the history of China. For over 5000 years, since the Xia dynasty, China has been united and split apart over and over again; but it always manages to come back around and recover. Of course, the times spans we're talking about are 100-200 years, but then the racial memory is over 5000 years.
China proper has been unified by a common written language and a national indentity for a long time, and even most of the people of Taiwan and Hong Kong still long to be part of one China, despite what the American media may report about seperatist movememnts there. Recent Taiwanese polls indicate that most Taiwanese resent intervention by the mainland, but believe eventual reunification is good and inevitable.
*Taiwan's own constitution calls for eventual reunification of the mainland!*
A short break-up is possible, but China will once again unite, just like in the opening paragraphs of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" - as applicable as it was today as hundreds of years ago.
Around about 12 months ago, plus or minus several months, I noticed a very sudden reduction in the number of pro-Arab articles in the English-language Google news for USA readers. There used to be heaps of articles from English-language newspapers in the Arab world (mostly translations), expressing the Arab points of view on the various modalities of massacring Arabs in the last couple of years. Does this indicate that Google "changed their algorithm" again? That's what they say whenever the general search changes drastically. I suspect that Google got a lot of comments from the vast right-wing conspiracy about the "anti-American" views in news articles about the wars. It's a pity, because now the Google news only contains pro-USA or very mild articles. Blood-curdling reports on US and Israeli military actions don't get linked any more.
I live in China. Google news was blocked for about 4 or 5 days, but it's been accessable again for the past week or so. I noticed that the news of Russia granting a visa to the Dalai Lama was out around the same time that the block was in place.
I've lived in several countries outside of the US (including China), and I'll be the first to admit that a lot of what the US government does I disagree with. But your post reeks of bigotry--and the fact that it's bigotry within a post flaming another group of people for their own bigotry makes it smell far more awful.
Do us all a favor and grow up. If there is to be an end to all the excriment that exists in the world that we all seem to unanimously agree upon, let us stop flinging our own, shall we?
China's censorship and Google's response have nothing to do with Fox news or any American media outlet. Our media has many problems, which definately need to be addressed, but you're being over dramatic to say the least. I hate how this stuff gets modded up.
I'm sure you're very bright. Why don't you use your brain to come up with ways of solving these problems? The inability to do so will leave you in the same quagmire of ignorance and "cluelessness" that the very people you're attacking are supposedly in.
I can assert that you care nothing about fixing the problem because if you did you would have thought about how your average American would respond to your post. Clearly, the average American would just get defensive and forget about what you have to say--which is, I think, exactly what you would do if I did the same thing to you.
Must be the education system over there.
P.S. I'm currently suffering from heavy jet lag, so I apologize for any incoherence or if it seems to harsh. You're probably not such a bad guy. Heck, if I were in the neighborhood, I'd buy you a brew at the pub. But what makes me so mad is that I agree that Americans are being largely deceived and intentionally kept ignorant, and I find it both sad and disheartening. I want to change it. You don't seem to want to--and because you both set really high standards for other groups of people to meet, and yet feel comfortable shooting your mouth at them in a very uninformed and bigoted fashion, you seem to me (who has lived in Central America, Europe, USA, and China) to be every bit as bad as the "Americans" you're so rabidly attacking.
I've heard enough rednecks and their "those two-bit good-for-nothing ignor'nt back-stabbing $nationality_of_choice" tripe.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
By the way, if we could get some Chinese citizens to come over here and correct the problems in our government, that'd be great. I'd love for them to fix our political problems if they could.
The general idea behind that quote is that you shouldn't help fix someone else's problems very if you're in worse shape. You don't seriously think that the US is in worse shape than China on the freedom front, do you?
The last war protest we had that someone died in due to protest was Vietnam, and that was a matter of a few nervous national guardsman with guns and a lot of violent protesters with stones than willfully running people over with tanks. Further, I can say "George W. Bush was given Hitler's Brain in a ceremony performed by Nazi-Satanic brain surgeons" without getting a knock on my door tomorrow.
Keep things in perspective.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
(I emailed this comment to the author. My slashdot Login is Shaneh0, I'm posting as A.C because after writing the author I wanted to share it with you)
... Al queada links? How many of you think most of the world support your actions?"
I modded your comment down, "-1 Overrated."
I did this because I think your post is every bit as ignorant as you claim we are.
"China may not have googlenews, but how many subbed Chinese new stations do you have in America?"
While we don't pick up any Chinese TV networks, Google News does sample Chinese news sources--which, from what I've seen, are about as reliable as Pravda--sometimes even linked as the top story. So it's ironic that you argue our ignorance to the Chinese press. I wouldn't have the world Xihuana (sp?) in my vocabulary if that were true, and I'm certainly not the only one.
'Is it not America that closed down reporting of Iraq from stations like al jazeera"
The fact is, we are AT WAR with Iraq. Like it or not, it's true. Part of war is controlling propaganda, and it's been that way for a long time. I disagree with the war in Iraq but now that we're involved, I support doing what it takes to win.
"China has the great Firewall. - You have Fox."
EXACTLY! We have Fox, and CNN and NPR and CSPAN and Countless others, including ultra-independent bloggers who would probably be arrested in China.
"How many Americans still think Saddam had an active WMD program?
Honestly, I'd say that at LEAST a majority of Americans knows the truth about these things. Contrary to YOUR ignorant belief, most Americans are NOT un-educated or un-informed about domestic and world issues.
I didn't personally vote for Bush (either time) but I do know many people who did. Bush supporters aren't ignorant to his mistakes, or the state of affairs in Iraq, or the worlds opinion of America. They just felt he would be the better president.
If you think America on its worst day is ANYTHING CLOSE to as bad as China on its best, you've completely lost perspective on reality. China rolls over it's own citizens with tanks when they dissent. The government is filthy rich while it's citizens are starving to death in record numbers each year.
There is no due process, no civil liberties and no hope of reform.
America has her share of problems, far too numerous to list here. But you go around the world to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America and you ask them if they'd rather live in China or in the United States.
Cuba has almost nothing. It's a pissant little nation with a militaristic leader and no military power to speak of. Can they feed themselves? Care for their people? Sure they do the best they can.
Cuba is a big black eye on US Imperialism - we owned the place, and over the next half century proceeded to piss it away. Previous administrations (and this one too) would rather push Cuba around because it doesn't have the military strength or alliances to challenge us. They're tightening their alliances with China... but then we get back to that whole "rising standard of living" and "trade sanctions" thing.
Let's see what happens when Castro drops...
When Google wants to operate in the US, it abides by US law. When Google wants to operate in China, it abides by Chinese law. And right now, Chinese law says no polical web content. Who are we to criticize how they live? I know plenty of people who have gone over there and they say that the people of China appear to be rather contect with their situation.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
and it's still crap. If your argument holds, i.e. that anything a business does is OK so long as it's good for shareholder value, then the stock market is inheriently evil, because it's always more profitable to abuse people than to be a good guy (nice guys don't finish last, but they don't come in first either).
This is were responsible governments step in to mitigate the evil, and where the American gov't steps in to encourage it.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If you produced something intented to be fake, you should tell the readers that it is fake.
If you produced something intended to be incomplete, you should tell the readers that it is incomplete.
So, if it is censored, you should tell the people that it is censored. Or otherwise they will reasonabily believe that it is not......
Therefore, Google, please respect your users and tell them the truth.
http://www.ieaa.org/~adrian/
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I sell stuff on ebay. I had a guy from El Salvador win a bid on a hard drive I was selling. He has an "arrangement" with a shipper in Florida to get around the barriers, but otherwise that hard drive that cost him fifty bucks would end up damn close to 200 bucks by the time UPS (or the post office - they're both ridiculously priced) got their money and the tarrifs were covered. Unless I'm willing to get in a car and drive to El Salvador, the barriers to individual trade there are massive. Even sending shit to Canada is a pain in the butt - NAFTA only seems to really apply to the corporations (how surprising).
I'm a middle age child of the middle class - the very last gasp of the baby boomers. And it has never, ever, been my aspiration to spend a third of my life whittling away the hours in a fucking factory. I'm definitely not rich, don't care to be, yet even I can see how free(er) international trade would benefit me personally.
Why is it "globalisation" (a bad thing) when we're talking about trade, money and jobs, but "a revolution" (ie a good thing) when we're talking about the communications tools that have, in large part, facilitated that "globalisation?"
The problem isn't "globalisation" - it's an increasingly topheavy economic strata. And anything that enables individuals to subvert the oppressive upper economic layers (like americans selling used crap to el salvador, and salvadorians exploiting unoffical importation backdoors) helps us all.
Cao ni ma, Ji bai
It means FUCK YOUR MOTHER.. VAGINA?!
eek!!!!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Screw mod points -- this is more important.
"Here's a page which talks about Jasper becker's book Hungry Ghosts, which covers how farm collectivization during Mao's "Great Leap Forward" resulted in the death of some 30-60 million of your countrymen."
We already know. In fact, everyone knows. But what the fuck is anyone going to do about it? The Communist government in China has progress a lot over the last 30 years. Sure, it's not exactly a democracy, but take a good think about American and Europe around the last turn of century.
"Here's a page which discusses the genocide rsulting from China's invasion of Tibet, where "over 17 percent of the Tibetan people killed, and 6,000 monasteries ruined."
Did you know that Tibet practises slavery? Which, incidentally, is illegal in China, and has been for well over the century and bit that the corresponding laws have existed in America.
The other two points, I'll concede, however, they are not entirely without reason either. China cannot afford to go all democratic right now, or else you'll get another break up of the Soviet Union on the world's hands. Except this time you can have 1.4 billion people instead of a few hundred million. This, incidentally, is also why the government is so hard on not allowing Tibet to leave China, and to keep Taiwan -- if one exception is made, where do you stop?
"Freedom starts with you."
Freedom is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's all very well for those who have always had food and homes to say that they'd rather starve or die than give up their "freedom". Hunger and poverty can make you see things another way. Until China is strong enough, politically and economically to not be bossed around by America (unlike the rest of the world) don't expect any changes.
Final word -- people in China know about what the government is doing -- propaganda has kinda been done to death by the old Communist government. Chinese these days are a very cynical and skeptical bunch, but just about everyone agrees that the current state and progression of China is as good as it can be, given historical circumstances and external factors.
You need to spend some time with more than one of those links, chief. Here's one for ya. Like I (and you) said: we essentially owned the place. We could have kept it as a state, but we didn't. Ironically, it likely would have been much better off if we had rather than let it become a haven to mob bosses and internal corruption.
I'm in China, and I can read a tons of news sites (yeah, including /., if that counts as news site!). There are some famous sites not accessible (e.g. BBC, except BBCi), sure, but most are ok, including:
...
- CBC
- Globe & Mail
- Radio Canada
- Le Figaro
- Le Monde
- CNN (garbage news anyway...)
- Liberation
- Le Devoir
- Washington Post
- New York Times
- The Economist
- Radio France
- Groklaw
-
- too many to list from my bookmarks
If I can access to so many news sources, I'm sure I have access to a pretty good range of perspectives on any issues.
I've never used google news, but if what google news is about is to index news from other sites, I don't think I would miss anything.
So, what's the big deal about this? Oh, and I have short-wave radio too, and I can listen to a shitload of stuffs out there.
Get your head out of that sand, and come to live in China for a while, and see if you miss anything here.
And another thing, there are a few underground proxies that allow you to get out without any filtering, if you really want. And yes, it works. I don't use it, because I don't need to.
I suppose if you ran google, you'd turn it into a morality-of-the-month kind of business, taking stands on irrelevant issues, and getting your site blocked from the largest market in the world. Good business plan, that.
It may cheer you to know that the U.S. has sharply decreased the number of Chinese it allows to enter the country. China, in return, has increased visa fees for Americans, and heavily restricted business visa holders, which has caused me no end of problems.
I like the dollar sign thing, though. Are you parroting that back from a website you view, or did you think that one up yourself?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Google is definitely complicit, because by removing results that link to forbidden pages they remove the summary and also the knowledge that the result existed at all. Particularly in the context of Google News, this is obviously participating in censorship. It's like hiding the list of forbidden books so no one can even know their names.
The enemies of Democracy are
Suggestion for you: save up a few dollars and travel the world a bit. You will see how absolutely and completely not grounded in reality your post is.
At the risk of stating what is blatantly obvious to everybody else:
*shrug* I Could of listed off all the countries as well, but it would seem like I was trying scoreboard by who went to the most countries. I can only assume when you mean living you never actually bothered to check into more about the country you were living in.
Full of shit? Hardly. UK for example, Stories about the royal family (eg. Charles gay incident) and Blair (eg. childs suicide bid) are routinely censored despite the tabloid nature of the press there.
Ireland censors stories too. For example electronic voting was cancelled in Ireland because it couldn't be proven to be reliable. What wasn't reported about (but mentioned in a dail hearing) was that the company that won the contract to supply the machines was an ex member of the current party in government who won the contract which was millions over expected cost, not the cheapest quote and the company only existed a few months after it was announced they were going to use the machines.
". The USA has the free-est press in the world, full stop."
Total BS, unless you mean free to lie. Just check out Media Matters to see how screwed up the US press is.Any press reporter asking the president a question he doesn't like and they won't be invited back or allowed ask a question again.
In some cases it even gets petty like Bush being interviewed by RTE who went on to tell RTE they would never be allowed interview Bush or anyone again because he was asked a question he couldn't answer.
"I repeat: PRISON."
I REPEAT *DIFFERENT WAYS*.
Just because you don't get thrown into prison doesn't mean you can't be screwed over in the US for reporting something that the administration or media don't want you to. The same applies for other countries as well.
The US is the only country I know where a News Channel can sue for the right to lie and win.
"literally millions of alternatives out there and at the end of the day you're welcome to start your own blog and report what you will."
Having alternatives doesn't mean that your press is free. Generally the alternatives you speak about are outside of the country in question. As for blogs, they are hardly media outlets. Certainly a place to start researching a story for yourself but I wouldn't put them that far above say Fox as reliable sources of information.
The executives at Cisco and Yahoo should be torn from their offices, blindfolded, briefly tried, then hanged for crimes against humanity for having assisted the brutal PRC government with the oppression of its own people.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
If I may abuse the parallel, wasn't exactly this what France did to Nazi Germany? I mean, France won WW1 and they pushed the Versailles Treatise down German throats. One of its provisions was to make sure Germany would not develop a military force. After a while, Hilter began to restructure German armed forces. France knew this was happening and could enforce the Versailles Treatise but decided to step back and just warn Hitler. That's appeasement -- trying to use a peaceful and submissive solution for a big problem and is still getting bigger. After a while, abuses were beginning to show up, but France thought if they just pointed the errors, eventually Hilter would stop with it. Nope.
So, lets see what would be a more realistic Method c (given the situation described in Method b): China actually becomes a huge, immense trade partner and begins to realize its own importance and start to push Chinese values into the world.
For example, the US has pushed democracy and freedom (with varying degrees of success) into other countries. China finds this unnecessary or obsolete and starts to preach that such liberties should be restrained.
Another Chinese value: attitude towards press. The US also find important important to have a free press -- a sine qua non condition for a working democracy. Since China determined that democracy actually hurts their commercial interests worldwide (see previous paragraph), China uses its influence to restrain press.
Let's get this straight: Method b is naive. If China gets the opportunity to use its newly found economic - and military - power to interfere in other countries to get away from the risk of being subject to sanctions mentioned in Method b, they will do. The US has been doing this since WW2, the argument to convince American opinion was that something - any perceived threat - from other countries could mess up with the American Way of Life. I also do not remember one single occasion when the US was threatened by an economic sanction.
The UK did it (defend its interests) during Industrial Revolution. France did this with Napoleon and his Continental Blockade. Heck, even Romans did it.
Expect China to protect firecely its Chinese Way of Life and to export it, eventually.
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Shouting out loud doesn't mean you are right I'm afraid.
No one argues the US has better freedom of expression than China, and I'm all for freedom of expression. However that doesn't entitle you or any US citizen the moral highground. I guess your opposite has a more balanced view and insight into the reality of press freedom.
Putting dissents into prison is a method that has limited effect and won't last. It can only silence the voice for a while, however, at the price of making the government more dissents than they can possibly make prisons to accommondate. That has been proven repeatedly in history. The CCP also knows it. They won't be doing this for long. As things have already changed so much, I have reason to expect the situation will continue to change to the better. Before criticising the political reality in China, please bare in mind that it used to be much much worse 20, or even 10 years ago and that China has only enjoyed growing freedom in its economy system for less than the length of Vietnam War. I'm not saying the CPP government should not be criticised, but it certainly takes a more balanced view to criticise them to the point.
On the other hand, in the US, the government may not have direct control over the media, but the money behind both the two parties certainly has the most sophisticated control of the press. The mass just lives happily with what they are fed with. Few is aware of the wrong doings of their government. Even less is concerned with what their mighty military power is used for. Most Americans just don't care what's happening in the world, they just obsessed with themselves, thanks to the side effect of US-style press freedom.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
>> "Here's a page which talks about Jasper becker's book Hungry Ghosts, which covers how farm collectivization during Mao's "Great Leap Forward" resulted in the death of some 30-60 million of your countrymen." > We already know. In fact, everyone knows. But what the fuck is anyone going to do about it? The Communist government in China has progress a lot over the last 30 years. Sure, it's not exactly a democracy, but take a good think about American and Europe around the last turn of century. Does everyone know? Not the chinese I've met. In fact they believe it's a definete lie. >>"Here's a page which discusses the genocide rsulting from China's invasion of Tibet, where "over 17 percent of the Tibetan people killed, and 6,000 monasteries ruined." >Did you know that Tibet practises slavery? Which, incidentally, is illegal in China, and has been for well over the century and bit that the corresponding laws have existed in America. And... that's a good reason to kill more that 17% of the tibetan people? >The other two points, I'll concede, however, they are not entirely without reason either. China cannot afford to go all democratic right now, or else you'll get another break up of the Soviet Union on the world's hands. Except this time you can have 1.4 billion people instead of a few hundred million. I'll have to agree on that one. >This, incidentally, is also why the government is so hard on not allowing Tibet to leave China, and to keep Taiwan -- if one exception is made, where do you stop? The thing is... why do you want to keep regions of China within the country, if they do not want to? I think you should NOT stop - let regions leave if they want to. Why not? Why does it have to be one big country? I'm from the EU. I believe we should stick together, all european countries, but if there's a country where the population does not want to - let them. Just like China should get the fuck out of Tibet, and forget about Taiwan. Leave them the fuck alone!!! >>"Freedom starts with you." >Freedom is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's all very well for those who have always had food and homes to say that they'd rather starve or die than give up their "freedom". Hunger and poverty can make you see things another way. Until China is strong enough, politically and economically to not be bossed around by America (unlike the rest of the world) don't expect any changes. Freedom IS all that! And much more! What we've seen in Europe is that we weren't able to get rid of most starvation and poverty before we got rid of the dictators. >Final word -- people in China know about what the government is doing -- propaganda has kinda been done to death by the old Communist government. Chinese these days are a very cynical and skeptical bunch, but just about everyone agrees that the current state and progression of China is as good as it can be, given historical circumstances and external factors. I can only judge by the chinese I've talked to myself - and that's not the picture I get. I hope you're right, though.
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
Who cares? We are quite pompous and self-righteous claiming that liberty and freedom of information should be a basic human right, yet, we live in a *very* censored society. No, its not our 'govt' that censors our news (surely there is official spin, but, its still different) - its our 'free enterprise' system. Walt Disney corporation controls the news outlets related to ABC, Billy-Boy-Gates has hands on NBC... c'mon, lets wake up and be real here, our news media is very actively managed and pre-digested by commercial 'sensitivities', and on the whole we *like* it that way. Otherwise, a different news channel would arise to meet the market 'needs'. Seems to me, that the Chinese must LIKE it their way too. That sentiment is even furthered by my travels in China - I walked around and spoken with ppl (had a native Chinese translator to accompany me - no, not a govt minder).
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
The question isn't What's wrong with it, it's What's right with it. Why is the Chinese government (allegedly) blocking a news source like Google? A) Because a freely informed Chinese citizenry is a threat to its autocratic rulers, B) Chinese citizens aren't demanding to exercise their right to free press:
/. is bad for Chinese power? Blocked. "Oh, that's OK, I've got 100 others!", but then they start blocking sites by content, automatically and you have nothing left that is critical of the Chinese government.
"Article 35 [of Chinese Constitution]. Freedom of speech, press, assembly
Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."
http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/ch00000_.html
Now, even if it wasn't in your constitution, it would still be a right, should you choose to exercise it. Ironically, even if it's in your constitution and you don't choose to exercise it, it's as though you don't have it.
You list a dozen sights above. What happens when the next site posts news critical of the Chinese government? Blocked. Or if some lame ass ministry official reads this post and decides
Then you get to relearn the lesson that it's better to include dissent in a civil forum than exclude it to the underground, which, coupled with the inevitable corruption of government without public criticism, leads to bloody revolution. You'd have thought China had enough of that for a while.
Get your head out of your naive nationalistic ass, read some world history and use some common sense.
Any day now, I'm sure that George Bush will announce our intention to invade China and liberate the people from their oppression, just like we did for Iraq. Then we will install a democratic government that...
What? They have a well armed military?
Nevermind.