Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo Confirms Beijing Blocking Flickr
slashthedot writes "In another instance of censorship against websites about anything anti-establishment in China, Flickr, popular among a growing class of digital photo enthusiasts in the world's second-largest Internet market, has not shown photos to users in mainland China since last week, amid rumors Beijing took action after images of the Tiananmen massacre in early June 1989 were posted. "It is our understanding that Flickr users in China are not able to see images on Flickr, and we have confirmed that this is not a technical issue on our end," a spokeswoman for Yahoo Hong Kong said in an email in response to a Reuters inquiry."
Nothing like a country terrified of its own citizens, or the companies out of the supposed Free World who won't pull the plug to prevent their technologies from being used by these kinds of pathetic cowards. It's alright, though. Investors are making money, so fuck liberty.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That is kind of like asking if the US is evil or not. The answer is both yes and no.
You'll find it useful to shed yourself of your current worldview as soon as you can. Start dividing things up differently. What does the word "China" even mean, and does it make sense to prescribe the words "good" or "evil" to it? What does "good" and "evil" even mean? Stop thinking about things in absolutes, and realize that all judgements you come to are done through your own lens. Value judgements are increasingingly arbitrary. Also, everytime you use the word "or", ask yourself if you're creating a false dichotomy.
Who are we to say that our way of life is better? Don't we have rising illiteracy, crime-ridden cities, corrupt politicians, rapacious corporations and wars we don't believe in killing bucketloads of civilians?
Let's be tolerant of other points of view, please! (There may be a large cynical but friendly emoticon attached to this message. YMMV, but TMTOWTDI.)
technical writing / development
I'm dismayed that everything for us in the US (and the western world) has to always be boiled down a simple question of either good or evil. These sorts of simplifications then become the basis of policy for a broader audience even though they neglect to see the subtleties in an entity as massive as a country. So to answer your question... China is no more or less evil than the United States is evil. We just tend to be evil in different ways. How you weigh those differences is based upon your nationality, race, gender, religion, education, socioeconomic status, etc. I'm not one to rant on Slashdot but these simplifications are what have gotten us into the foreign policy mess we find ourselves in today. Unfortunately, Christian societies have always focused on having an enemy and this post won't change the 2,000 years ofsocial development.
the companies out of the supposed Free World who won't pull the plug to prevent their technologies from being used by these kinds of pathetic cowards
Filtering IP addresses is hardly the cutting edge of technology. Which companies are you referring to?
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
you should NOT have done it.
people will be seeing what crap you "people's" republic have pulled on people despite your muzzling attempts. get over with it, "party".
Read radical news here
So they say Flickr was disconnected because images of Tiananmen Square were posted. Who knows if it were even a Chinese national who posted them? Now I'm thinking, we could have us some fun, and help to highlight Chinese net censorship at the same time.
Post pictures of Tiananmen Square EVERYWHERE. Upload photos to Flickr, send video to Youtube and its 100 clones, post accounts on blogs, news sites etc. Let's see them disconnect their populace site-by-site until there's nothing left. Only then might it prompt a revolution that China appears to need so badly. At the very least it'll stop all those random port scans. If anyone's in doubt, it really happened
And in the US when the government did that there was sound objection from within the government and many many political protest about it. Next time someone is run over with a tank for protesting the Bush administration you wont have to wear your captain hyperbole decoder ring to post such a message.
I wonder if it is...since it posts articles like this?
As always, I'm happier when the Chinese are blocking things than when the companies self censor....
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.