Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Bloggers vs. The BBC
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. "
The Chinese hate the BBC interviews because, supposedly all the BBC cares about is the censorship in China. I failt to see how this is interesting - anyone would be pissed when the only thing your asked about is not at the forefront of your goals.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
How do we know that the people who are 'speaking out against the BBC' aren't themselves being coerced into doing so in an attempt by the chinese govornment to negate the BBC's coverage of Chinese freedom of speech issues.
Damn I'm paranoid
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
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.
"Please BBC, stop highlighting our plight for freedom on the internet."
Hmmm I wonder who could possibly be behind this...
I love the way the writer of the BBC article completely failed to notice that the issue was not 'whether China censors' but 'whether the BBC would shut up about censorship for five seconds please'.
The dialectic basically seems to be:
Some Chinese Bloggers: "Man, the BBC keeps harping on about this shit. And BBC interviewers tend to be excessively confrontational and persistent."
BBC Journalist: "Oho! You say there is no censorship in China?? Well I guess AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL must be wrong then, eh? Eh??"
If I were given to making mean, snide remarks, I would say that the BBC's remit is to be the voice of the British people, and if that means being arrogant, politically correct, and ever ready to force narrow definitions of acceptable behavior on the rest of the world, then... well...
But I am not given to such nasty remarks. No, I am an angel, a lovely angel
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
so now we post this link on slashdot, so that the blaming and troll-accusations may continus onward!
From the BBC article: .......
We don't know why Chinesse have the idea we censor them, when they state that "BBC MAKES ME **C*"
The writer continues:
" Being **ed by BBC is no fun, it is a **ing experience. At times, ***rs can get very ***.
Recently over a ** in the ** ****. BBC news reader Jonathan asked the Home Secretary: 'Did you threaten to **ck him (a junior minister)?',
the home secretary replied calmly: 'I *ed him'.
Jonathan: 'Did you *** him!'
Secretary: 'I *ed him'
Jonathan again Did you **** him'
Secretary again: I *ed him
Jonathan again: Did you **en him?'
**ed 9 times, ** Jonathan *ed: 'You are a *ard, aren't you? Why can not you just admit that you *ed him!'
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
These articles are a bit like FOX running a story about the anti-FOX News camp and their books and blogs, or Anderson Cooper insisting that an "anti-gay" politician's stance unfairly impacts "us" during an interview. Always interesting, but there's simply no way to apply the objective label to this reporting.
I don't think Chinese people expect the sort of combative, probing, in-your-face interviewing techniques that the best of the BBC journalists employ.
IMO, most BBC journalists really do the job - i.e. asking questions of the 'high and mighty' as well as the 'man in the street' that the viewers/listners would like to ask themselves, and not taking waffle and bullshit for an answer.
I'd love to see the BBC's Jeremy Paxman interview George Bush, for example - nah! never going to happen.
From one of the bloggers complaining about the BBC's aggressive interviewing:
No shit. Did you ever think that it's because, particularly in the case of politicians, they are unwilling to tell the truth, or at least give a straight answer?
The example given is a politician dodging the question of whether he threatened somebody or not. The (repeatedly asked) question was "Did you threaten him?" and the (repeated) answer was "I warned him.", without any clarification of the distinction being drawn. Why couldn't the politician say "No, it wasn't a threat, because..."?
This is very reminiscent of Paxo's famous BBC interview, in which he repeated the same question twelve times when the politician dodged the question. I think it's a good thing to do. If you defer to the interviewee and don't call them on it when they dodge the questions, you are, in essence, just giving them a mouthpiece to offer their unchallenged claims. That's not an interview, that's an advert. They might as well do away with the interviewer altogether if they can't get answers to their questions.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
If I were a reporter interviewing chinese bloggers, censorship would be high on my list. Some of these bloggers maintain there's not much censorship going on. Have they forgotten the whole MSN Spaces fiasco? In my book, government censorship is never acceptable, and we should never stop criticising it. That includes journalists being annoying and asking tough questions.
If what they're saying is true, it's kind of an interesting problem. On the one hand, interviewers should stay on the topic at hand. No use asking about the Great Firewall when the topic at hand is the toxic water flowing through Harbin right now, ya know?
But at the same time, from a socialogical perspective, the Firewall is fascinating. How selective can you make such a firewall, and in what ways are the people still happy knowing that they are being sheltered from things. Is this brainwashing (as it must certainly appear to a Western perspective) or is this simply a different view on the world that the West cannot wrap their heads around.
It reminds me somewhat of WWII, and the rush during and afterwards to understand the essence of the Japanese people. In short, Japanese were doing things that seemed bizarre and impossible to the Western soldiers, and this set off a near 60 year rush to understand the Japanese people. I think we're beginning to see the inklings of the same thing here (for more information, go look up nihonjinron, or Ruth Bennedict, author of the first book of these studies.)
>and if that means being arrogant, politically correct, and ever ready to force narrow definitions of acceptable behavior on the rest of the world, then... well...
Get your facts right. Thats the *Labour Party*
Brits are polite to the point of annoyance, slightly foppish, and terribly middle class. Have you not seen 'Four weddings & a funeral', 'Notting Hill' etc? Have you learnt nothing?
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
- 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.From the article: "Edwyn Chan's Weblog is among the milder critics, describing the BBC as "annoying" for always asking about freedom of speech when interviewing Chinese citizens."
It sounds like the bloggers are irritated at the BBC for getting stuck on a single issue, Chinese censorship. From their point of view, the BBC is spinning everything the bloggers put out as a symbol of China's repressive government and therefore, in the eyes of the Western world who equate freedom with progress of any kind, a symbol of Chinese backwardness and inferiority. In other words, the BBC is critizing the Chinese people, not just the Chinese government.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
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.
Clearly, the BBC has tons of stories from China that aren't about censorship. For example, this story is not about Chinese censorship, it's about Microsoft's censorship, coincidentally in China. This story about political coersion doesn't even mention censorship. Frankly, with this range of topics, I don't see why these poor people, who are typically subject to such intolerable censorship, have anything to complain about.
there is one thing I would like to say about this isn't necessarily important in the larger context of this story but is very true, and that is that - not just BBC but UK journalists (which in essence what the inteviewers are) - are very, very tough cookies. My friend who is American came over to the UK 5 years ago and was shocked to see the way that people who were interviewed were treated, and it's true, our journalists are exceptionally harsh, taxing and dogmatic. Here is an example that shows the essence of tough uk journalism. This particular interview is notorious for Jeremy Paxman asking Michael Howard the same question 12 times. That is the actual interview quoted in the article called 'Chinese Whispers', and the interview was not called Jonathon. But I believe that is a mistake on the part of the chinese blogger quoted (what, a blogger making a mistake!!).
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
Isn't it funny how all the western countries look down their noses at China and it's state control of information.
And here we all are using various open source software applications...
(I'm not going to join the dots here between communist ideologies and open source, but it does amuse me how jingoistic and easily manipulated western audiences seem to be these days).
(this is the point where I jump off the fence and start running - pulling splinters out as I do so)
Wellybog
http://www.wellybog.com
This is not good reporting. Good reporting, by definition should be reporting the facts, which in this case, are the interviewees responses. If they are not responding the way you would like, then you shouldn't be trying to force them to do so thorugh agressive bully tactics, just move on to the next question.
I do not have a hard time believing that censorship is the last thing on most of these guy's minds. Has anyone even looked at one of the blogs that was probed by the BBC? Does this blog look like it was being censored? (Hint - take a look about midway down the page at "The other side of China" post - not very flattering for the government)
I have no doubt that censorship in China is very troublesome. That does not mean it is troublesome to *everyone*. The guy was asked to give an interview about his blog, he probably wants to do just that, hopefully to promote it and get more page hits. Maybe he does not want to wax philisophical about the problems of his government. That's his right, so stop harassing him! You're supposed to be a member of a country who values freeodom of speech, give him a chance to exercise his.
I forgot how the gov't forces us to use open source applications. And shuts down the press when they talk about commercial software. China has almost nothing to do with communism anymore, and a whole lot more to do with fascism.
I have to admit, I do find some of the interviewers at the BBC a bit too pushy for my taste. But they're just trying to get to the trust beyond the euphenism, beyond the denotations and I can appreciate that. If those bloggers can "really" post what they want. Have them post an entry on 1 of three things. 1) arguing for liberty and personal freedoms for citizens. 2) arguing for Taiwan independence. 3) arguing for uncensored internet in China. Then we'll really see how "free" he is to say whatever he wants... assuming he doesn't disappear before we get to see the posting.
:p
Oh yeah, BBC reports on censorship because a) it's everyday just like the weather b) it effects everyone in China c) because they're being censored from doing other news in China.
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
It may be possible to draw parallels between communist ideologies and open source anything, but does censorship coincide with the idealistic form of communism that you are speaking of?
I'm sure a political scientist could do a better job of categorizing the authoritarian state that China exists in, but the word "communist" seems insufficient and probably inappropriate. If anything, the Chinese government uses the word "communism" to propagandize the necessity of their oppressive tactics (i.e., it's not so bad because we get this perfect, moral society in the end!).
Paxo: So, Mr. Bush. They say you're an idiot. Are you?
Bush: The accusationality of idiocity is only a tool of the widespread international evillism that is todays terrorism. We must spread liberty-ism(tm) throughout the planetiod and hand out billion dollar contracts to Halliburton and other Friends of Freedom(tm).
Paxo: Mr president, thank you. Goodnight.
Paxo: And now a brief look at tomorrow mornings papers...
If I write a blog about Chinese pop stars, and someone from the BBC contacts me about an interview, I naturally assume they want to talk about a) the blog, and/or b) Chinese pop stars. I do *not* assume they are going to start probing me about how the government censors my blog, which they may or may not do. So, if they ask me these kinds of questions, is it unheard of that I would want to redirect the interview to the original purpose ?
The whole reason these people even give these interviews is to promote themselves and their blog. It is not to act as a political messenger. If they are anywhere near as apethetic toward politics as 99.99% of the western world, they likely give two shits about government censorship, since they don't have any radical ideas worth censoring.
Despite what you may or may not believe, the majority of middle-class Chinese are not much different from you ("you" being the average westerner), your'e both happy little consumer monkeys, who swallow whatever the press and big money market toward you, and is too busy obessing about the latest Teen Idol(tm) episode to worry about AIDS pandemics in Africa or anything else worth worrying about. (Seriously - WTF is with all this bird flu paranoia about something that may or may not happen, when thousands are dying daily in Africa from preventable diseases just because they can't afford the few bucks a day for treatment?)
How do we know that you aren't part of a plot by the Chinese government to make it look like the US government's attempting to negate slashdot's coverage of the Chinese freedom-of-speech issues?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
i think you may be confusing communist ideologies with specific forms of communist implementations.
I am unique, just like you, and you, and you...
If the government does not censor my particular blog, then it has absolutely nothing to do with the interview. Whether or not it may be censoring other blogs is irrelevant, and my personal opnions on the matter (if I even have any, most likely don't care since they are simple plebs), pro or con, would likely not have any place in the original subject matter of the interview.
So, either the interviewer was working under false pretenses from the get go, or they are incompetant and have no other questions. Either way, I would want out of that interview ASAP, since it will do netiher me nor my blog any benefit to being in it.
How do we know that you aren't part of a plot by the terrorists to make it look like the Chinese government has a plot to make the US look like its attempting to negate slashdot's coverage of the Chinese freedom-of-speech issue, hence causing conflict between the two countries?
Every Chinese guy hates the BBC. But I think I know the real reason why. It's because of history. Britain is the only country in the world that succesfully conquered China. The Chinese have always felt humiliated by the British. The Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion , still raise deep emotions among people of Chinese origin. It's the same reason why the Chinese hate the Japanese for the Rape of Nanjing. It's all about the loss of face.
Dogmatic would be if the reporters adopted a bias toward one side of the story and stuck to it no matter who they interviewed. What British reporters--especially BBC reporters--do is treat everyone harshly. They try to put the interviewee under pressure in order to try to get them to defend their point of view. They play devil's advocate. In short, they do exactly what they ought to be doing: getting to the heart of the matter rather than simply let someone get away with saying things that others would challenge.
This is the same kind of culture that carries through to parliament, question time, etc., and it leads to a much healthier attitude toward government, authority, etc, i.e. one of scrutiny and unforgiveness. The way it should be.
Sure, that is fine.
But you should really RTFA, because this is exactly what happens. The interviewer asks them about government censorship, they say it does not really affect them so they don't really have a comment, then the interviewer goes on a crazy tangent where they keep probing about it and basically make the interviewee out to be either a liar or someone who is afraid for his life, neither of which is likely the case.
It is *totally* slanted and bad journalism.
I don't see any articals on censorship with a quick search on china. http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results .pl?scope=newsifs&tab=news&q=china&go.x=0&go.y=0&g o=go
The human race is artificial intelligence created using object orientated programming.
they want us to concentrate on what they can do (and are doing) instead of what they can't? I would be upset if the BBC wanted to interview me about my blog and all they could talk about was my country's politics, especially if my blog was about something completely unrelated.
I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
Any NPR (American "public" radio) listeners here listen to the BBC news programs we get over here? Those interviewers really are kind of pushy. I wouldn't call them "probing", I'd call them biased and rude. The NPR folk tend to ask questions that highlight the flaws in somebody's position, but at least they're polite about it and less antagonistic.
I feel like the BBC is overdoing what I perceive to be an attempt to be "less British": they seem to use people's first names a lot and are a little too jocular w/each other, and they're a lot less reserved in their interviews (i.e., they're pushy).
(Must go, turkey's on fire.)
John.
I'm Irish, we're netutral on everything.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
In slashdot, we talk about stuff that matters, like whether this electric toilet seat can run Linux, is the recent act of MS/SCO/Sony/RIAA/Google.... violates the privacy of the user... It is fine to about that here. I understand what you mean, concern and worries... But, if one day slashdot becomes so powerful that it runs a cable tech news network and start interviewing some random guy in the local mall about the same issue, you can expect they will answer huh!?! It does not really mean privacy, online security etc are unimportant. It just means a large segment of the society has no interest in this in their daily life.
The Chinese bloggers being interviewed by BBC must be feeling the same as the joe sixpack in the local mall being interviewed by CowboyNeal. First, if that guy is a political activist, he or she probably won't have time hang around blogging for unrelated stuff. The other bloggers probably has an interest of travel, career, music, movie and porn. Asking them topics about politics is kind of out of context.
Second, sometimes, the journalists tend to ask questions which has an information content of close to zero. For example, ask if you can freely express about your opinion freely about some banned groups. Okay there are three scenarios. 1) that person answers along the line of "I don't want to talk about this/ I have no interest about this". The reporter reads that the blogger cannot express his opinion freely. 2) that person says no. The reporter reads that the blogger is controlled by the state. 3) that person says yes. The reporter says "yeah. I know the censorship is everywhere"...
While we all know censorship still prevalent in China, conducting such kind of interview is kind of meaningless. Many western reporters tend to have a mindset that there are only two groups of people in China: democratic activists and evil communists... The fact is the China has changed a lot. Most people just don't care about anything, or have an opinion quite different from the stereotype, just like anywhere in the world.
Well, first off, I've talked with Wang Jian Shuo, and he's not that kind of guy. If he were that much of a risk-adverse, self-censoring person he wouldn't have written what he did about Microsoft back when he worked for them. Secondly, he's broken laws about with what he's written multiple times in the past and he's even been ballsy enough to draw attention to it. Finally, his blog gets over a million unique visitors a month and he's financially independent. If he wanted to leave China he easily could.
I'm not Chinese, but even I get pissed off at how slanted western media is whenever China comes up. In terms of basic freedoms, I think most westerners have a very unrealistic picture of both China and their own countries.
I'm a gnu world man.
I'm a university student in England living with two Chinese housemates who came here to study. Neither of them have any kind of political views as far as I can tell, nor have they heard of Amnesty International. It's interesting how this kind of apolitical lifestyle manifests itself; satirical political shows, for example, are to them a genre that isn't even conceivable. So, it seems to me that if my housemates are at all representative of Chinese people in general: however much the BBC writes about censorship in China, it's not enough.
hello sarcasm. trust me, communist and their left wing have killed about 10k people in nepal Gyanendra does not even compare to that. leftists like you should rot in hell.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Well, I am an Chinese. Few things to say here:
/., you can also experience the censorship in China.l l ?x=abcl ?x=%B7%BD%D6%DB%D7%D3
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
i.e. The current headline of the people's paper (ccp's official paper) is now:
http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/3887454.htm
add some parameter to it you can still visit it, i.e.:
http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1027/3613060.htm
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.htm
(%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
right. as if 10s of thousands have not died as a result of the abject poverty they are kept in by the feudal regime, not to mention the countless people victimised by the army and police every day, the journalists 'disappeared', tortured, etc. gyanendra should be tried for crimes against humanity. it's not just the maoists who think so now either--the political parties agree. hopefully soon gyanendra will be rotting in prison in the Republic of Nepal. sorry, you lose, fascist.
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.
Well, why else would the BBC care about a Chinese blog? Few blogs (Chinese or those based in the UK or USA) are big enough, widely read enough, or interesting enough to be worthy of major media attention. Look at all the people who post on Slashdot and I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned in the media. The Brits do care about people being punished by communist regimes and denied the ability to speak out against their rulers, though. And since blogs and other internet activities have allowed many to do so, it's going to be a topic of conversation when the foreign press calls.
I was just continuing the joke. If somebody gets this far they should hopefully have figured this out.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I'm an English guy who's just moved to China this month. I'd heard the BBC's website was blocked in China and trying news.bbc.co.uk seemed to confirm this. But I just tried clicking on this link (mainly so I could post an "the irony is you can't read this in China" comment) and what do you know, it's moved to newsvotes.bbc.co.uk and I can read it. This is great as I've really been missing it, and it should help keep my sanity in smalltown China. I'm hoping this is a new policy from China, and it's not going to vanish in a few hours. With regards to the BBC's coverage, they are very keen on highlighting things like democracy and censorship in China, far more than most other media in the UK, especially in Hong Kong. I guess the real reason they're censored in China though is that they have their own Chinese language site. This still seems to be blocked.
Think about who the BBC are interviewing - bloggers are an internet medium. It makes sense that the BBC would ask about censorship, as it is how the law affects what the media can report.
If they want to ask about politics/industry/the environment, they would ring the government, other political groups, corporations etc. They would not ring bloggers.
The media interviews the media usually to talk about bias, censorship or other influence on how they work, whether internal or external.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
and in your workers paradise people will be slaughtered systematically like animals killed and by famine. Why? because people like you are too dumb to realize that communism is fascism in the name of the people. Ah! the glorious dictatorship of the people except the people do not rule. Are you telling me there is any difference between a monarchy and the workers paradise in N. korea?
If you know anything about Nepal (or actually lived there) you would know that the political parties are weak and corrupt. They have one goal and one goal alone, lining their pockets.
You lose commie, and that not something i need to tell you. Your ideas are so discredited, there are only a handful of countries left that follow it. History and economics is my friend you are all alone bastard.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
wow, such logic! you sir deserve a prize. i wish everyone could see this as an example of leftist wisdom. I am sure King Gyanendera of NEPAL bombed Iraq. What are you smoking?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I'm Norwegian, we're staring at our feet hoping nobody notices us.