Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Chinese Bloggers vs. The BBC

Posted by Zonk on from the not-always-about-the-free-talking dept.

Sandra writes "The BBC has an article about how chinese bloggers hate BBC interviews, as from their point of view all the Beeb cares about is censorship in China." From the article: "This being the internet, the conversation also involved various members of the community accusing each other of having ulterior business interests, being "trolls", or covertly blogging on behalf of the state. But overall, it looks as though mutual trust will be regained. And as well as the specific dynamics of talking about China, there's a new phenomenon here of what happens when bloggers are quoted. "

4 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. What else? by HugePedlar · · Score: 4, Informative

    What else are the BBC going to be interested in? What flavour rice the bloggers prefer?

    Seriously though, the BBC is a major news site. Censorship in China is a major issue. What other issue measures equal in magnitude to prompt the BBC to interview a Chinese blogger?

    --
    Argh.
  2. Doesn't ring true by sane? · · Score: 4, Informative
    A quick look at the Asia-Pacific BBC page has the following stories on China:
    • Toxic leak in river
    • Bird Flu Death
    • A WTO conference
    • Torture
    • Art on show in London
    So maybe not overflowing with positive stories, but this IS typical news coverage. You have to wonder if these Chinese Bloggers are paid/told to put forward that censorship is somehow a non issue.
  3. Freedom of Association anyone? by Chaffar · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the blog mentioned in the article http://www.chinatopblog.com/?p=6:

    The first sentence was misleading and wrong. BBC said something like this- More than 300 bloggers attended the conference.

    Yining corrected the BBC woman."No. you are wrong, the meeting participants are less than 200."

    According Chinese law, any assembles by more than 200 people should be approved officially.If not, it's illegal.

    Clever clever boy Yining... he caught the BBC in a lie. However, the Chinese "Law" he mentioned, interestingly, says waves more than anything he could've said in any interview. I don't know if he did it on purpose, but that by itself should give the BBC enough to write about. Right of association anyone?http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/constitution/ amendment01/12.html

    The beauty of Yining's comment is that he takes such laws as accepted truths, and uses it to disprove the BBC's claim the same way a physicist would disprove a certain claim using Newton's or Einstein's theories.

  4. censorship in china by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, I am an Chinese. Few things to say here:
    1) The censorship really exits in China.
    2) The censorship is not techinically hard to be breakthrough.
    3) The censorship is not efficiently enough to censor all things that suppose to be censored.
    4) The censorship is loosening but will still be there in the near future.
    5) The censorship is just a small piece compared with the control of media and lots of other things on the dark side of china.

    So what should I do as an Chinese?
    I will try to tell the truth to my compariot about the censorship and the way to break it.
    I am not supposed to be exposed by westen media like bbc that maybe noticed by the censorship.

    However not everyone tends to help others.
    They just keep themself safe that is reasonable after things happened in 1989 Jun 4.

    For those /., you can also experience the censorship in China.
    i.e. The current headline of the people's paper (ccp's official paper) is now:
    http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/3887454.html
    add some parameter to it you can still visit it, i.e.:
    http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/3613060.html ?x=abc
    add some censored word in parameter then you will not be able to visit it, i.e.:
    http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/3887454.html ?x=%B7%BD%D6%DB%D7%D3
    (%B7%BD%D6%DB%D7%D3 is some censored chinese word in hexadecimal coding)
    and you will be not able to access the page in certain period of time.

    It interesting that sites censored are mosty in chinese and sites like slashdot and bbc are not censored.

    Finally thank you all care about the censorship in china.

    For those chinese who are not censored or breakthrough, do something positive but not keep silence.
    "They came first for the Communists,
    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
    Then they came for the Jews,
    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
    Then they came for the trade unionists,
    and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
    Then they came for the Catholics,
    and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
    Then they came for me,
    and by that time no one was left to speak up."

    ---by Martin Niemoeller on the New England Holocaust Memorial