Slashdot Mirror
China - We Don't Censor the Internet
kaufmanmoore writes "A Chinese government official at a United Nations summit in Athens on internet governance has claimed that no Net censorship exists at all in China. The article includes an exchange by a Chinese government official and a BBC reporter over the blocking of the BBC in China." From the article: "I don't think we should be using different standards to judge China. In China, we don't have software blocking Internet sites. Sometimes we have trouble accessing them. But that's a different problem. I know that some colleagues listen to the BBC in their offices from the Webcast. And I've heard people say that the BBC is not available in China or that it's blocked. I'm sure I don't know why people say this kind of thing. We do not have restrictions at all."
Despite the fact that many outside of China know that it indeed does exist, this piece of news is more likely intended for those within China.
Well, if his high-ranking government official collegues are able to get an uncensored Internet feed, that must mean they don't have any censorship, right?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Technically... in Chinese legalspeek(tm) he's probably right.
It's not "censorship" it's "protection of the people from incorrect thoughts".
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hs=B4b&hl =en&q=tiananmen+square&btnG=Search
e n+square&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87
VS:
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananm
I think I've found Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf's new job.
Spin for one government is the same as a spin for another government, right?
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your Friend. Happiness is Mandatory! (I'm dressed as a troubleshooter this Halloween, but an Iraqi Information Minister would have worked as well)
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
That's not tr^[NO CARRIER]
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
Despite the fact that many outside of China know that it indeed does exist, this piece of news is more likely intended for those within China.
No kidding. I've met people recently from China and they don't know where we all get off on these things. They claim there are any number of small newspapers and such all over the place. They also think we tend to make a bigger deal of things than we ought and their country is just fine thank you very much.
Of course, if you grew up never knowing otherwise or thinking outside the box someone has constructed around you, you may be so indoctrinated. Same way Brits appear indoctrinated that they must read in the Sun or News of the World what trollop David Beckham is frollicking around Spain with or Americans feel the overwhelming urge to tell others how they ought to live and behave.
Those friends and colleagues listening to the BBC webcast, since we don't know otherwise, may be checking for new words or topics they need to add to their filters.
However you shake it up, China is in for a bit of adjustment when the 2008 Olympics bring people from all over the world into China where they will be expecting access to news and media as they had at home. Perhaps China has already thought of this and is constructing exclusion zones...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The PRoC government doesn't censor the internet. The private sector companies does it for them, "voluntary."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
After 9/11 I was dating a girl from the Mainland. She had been in the states for a few years and still had a really positive view of her homeland. One night we were watching one of the tributes to the heroes of that day (she was really into that stuff) and they showed a quick summary of history for the last 25 years. As it was going on they showed the protest in Tienamen square and the student confronting the tank and then being... well you know.
She had never seen it.
She had no idea that had ever happened.
It's hard to put into words how sad she became and the rage that immediately followed towards her homeland. There's a lot governments are good at repressing things in most any country from public knowledge, but the ability to completely hide something from your people that the rest of the world knows about? That's just criminal.
--- I do not moderate.
The best can still suck, and I think we've long since lost that title (assuming anyone outside the country ever thought we had it). It's rather stupid to think how much worse we could have things because it results in us thinking that we have it so great - it just lowers the standard. Think of how much better we could have things and *raise* the standard we're looking to achieve.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
"China has a political situation much the same as that in the U.S.". What a load of relativistic crap!
Are you saying that the U.S. has forced abortions, political executions (with the executee's family being billed for the fucking bullet), wholesale cultural genocide (Do you know the chinese are hauling ethnic chinese by the trainload into tibet to overrun the place? Look up "tibetan spaniel" sometime to see how the fucking chinese have clubbed to death the entire population of tibet's beautiful native dogs), wholesale censorship of the press and Internet, massive "reeducation" (read: concentration) camps, support for mass-murderer dictators (Pol Pot, "Our Dear Leader", etc.).
Why don't you grow up, pull your head out of your ass and stop spouting "bush=hitler" puke. If you weren't such a skull-full-of-mush parrot for the bullshit your teachers fed you you'd understand that, while the USA is not doing so great now (bush *is* dangerous), there's much worse to be found out there in the rest of the world.