Adopt a [Chinese] Blog

malorkus writes "Here's a great way for bloggers and others with decent web hosting to help fight internet censorship in China and other restrictive countries. Adopt a Chinese Blog aims to match up censored bloggers with volunteer hosts."

Comments

Re:Fighter Censorship at Home!!

[archmagusrm]

Methinks the distinction here is censorship of information and legitimate opinion rather than censorship of trolls. We like to censor trolls, nobody wants to wake up to one in the morning...

Re:Block

[AKAImBatman]

There are no rights violations. It is Chinese law that is, in our opinions, flawed, but what gives you or I the right to say so?

I thought the same thing, but several very intelligent posters pointed out that there *are* rights being violated. Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution states:

Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Now I realize that the Chinese Constitution may not be worth the paper its printed on (I know of many violations of the constitution, including friends who fled China due to religious persecution - read: arrest/jail - directly in contradiction to article 36), but that shouldn't stop the Chinese from fighting for rights they've been explicitly granted.

A good writeup on the situation from a Chinese Law Professor is here, with a well reasoned rebuttal here.

Let's hope the Chinese people are able to fight for their constitution. If only it was as easy as taking the case before the Chinese Supreme Court. :-/

Re:Free Blog Hosting?

[lb746]

It's already blocked to them. Here's a short list of some sites blocked by China already
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/China -highlights.html

This whole idea seems a bit pointless. It just means they will block more sites. Think of it this way, you may be helping them post a blog, but as soon as your site gets blocked, now no one can visit your site from China. Currently most smaller sites are ignored. If you have any current chinese readers or visitors you'll possibily end up ruining it for them.

Communitycolo.net is the answer

[Tairan]

Community Colocation Project is part of the Online Policy Group which provides Free (as in speech AND beer) hosting to any individual or non profit entity. They're the peoeple who fought Diebold, refuse to work with unacceptable takedown notices, and in general, are here to host these kinds of sites.

Re:Block

[AKAImBatman]

If you're a product of the US education system, go ask for your money back, because you didn't get what you paid for. Rights are not granted by a constitution. Rights are inherent (at the 'certain inalienable' ones).

Man, I'm glad I didn't go to your education system. You have a pretty warped view of history.

Our declaration of independence says the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

1. You'll note the suspicious lack of "Freedom of Speech".
2. Our founding fathers recognized that while rights are not granted by a government, it is the governments job to ensure the rights under which the people will live.

Something else to note is that the US Constitution went into effect in 1789. Yet the First Ammendment (the right to free speech) was not added until 1791! The exact origins of the ammendment are complex, but they stem from the desire by the early American government and populace to provide a method for the general public to keep tabs on what their government was doing. Thus protection was set up to provide for freedom of speech and press. NO OTHER COUNTRY RECOGNIZED THIS FREEDOM. In fact, many governments went as far as to explicitly censor the newspapers of time.

So the origins of the freedom of speech are nowhere near as simple or "inalienable" as you make them out to be. If I were you, I'd ask for my VAT back.

Re:This sounds like a good idea, BUT...

[Klaus Obermeyer]

Yes, sadly China is paranoid enough to "make a list of a few people and try to filter them out" out of the millions of visiting tourists every year. This is especially apparant in the case of Falun Gong where foreign citizens are currently being held without trial for speaking out against the wrongful treatment of their fellow practitioners.

American citizens such as human rights activist Dr. Charles Li have been arrested and dissapeared into the black hole which is the chinese justice system never to be seen again.