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Citizen Journalism Combating Chinese Censorship
teh_commodore writes to tell us that Breitbart has a look at how Citizen Journalism is shining a whole new light on China. "Recognizing the threat of China's growing online community, Chinese President Hu Jintao called in January for the Internet to be 'purified', and the government has since launched a number of online crackdowns. [...] 'One cannot truly say that the Internet in China is becoming more and more free, because at the same time as the development of citizen journalists, the government finds ways of blocking or censoring content,' Pain said."
Interesting article, showing how even as the national authorities tighten the reins on internet communications, people in China still make use of the internet to expose corruption & apathy within their local governments.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Interesting to see this posting just a few hours after the posting about our Mechanized Future. Couldn't we say that the internet is helping Chinese fight unwanted censorship... thus improving their lives..
Whenever I hear people in "dear leader" positions throwing around words like purify, patriotism, freedom, etc, it makes me cringe. This is doublespeak; "purify" means "purge."
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
Do they not get what they deserve?
Have they forgot how Chinese invaded Tibet and displaced the Buddhists?
Has anybody forgot Tiananmen Square? They hunted down amateur and professional footage alike so they could go and assassinate the dissidents.
Or in recent times, have they forgot about the forced abortions that the Chinese government puts women through for violating "Birth Law"?
And now they wish to "clean up" the Internet. Awwww. It doesnt fit in their view of authoritarian communism.
Who I do feel sad for are the people who live there, as many of them did NOT bring this upon themselves, however, it IS up to them to free this country of an evil tyranny.
I admit I'm a hopeless optimist, but look at it this way.
Censorship is a tool used when you're losing control. Scary things are about to happen, and China doesn't anyone to know.
Chinese President Hu Jintao called in January for the Internet to be 'purified'
Yes, purified I say. And, squish all bugs. Yes, every single bug is to be found and squished....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
until the government starts spreading fear and terror and death threats.... you know, old commy style, so that even if it is easy to circumvent censorship, people will be so afraid to do so. And then they will have won the cat and mouse game.
There's not really any tech angle here. You've never heard of The Great Firewall of China, I suppose.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I don't know why all these "China & censorship" stories are relevant to slashdot. There's not really any tech angle here.
Ever hear of the term 'IT' ? Informational Technologies?
I'd say this certainly involves the transfer of information, or lack thereof.
No, it's not the same. Let's take into account the advertisers, first.
Let's say you write a fairly Apple- and Linux-centric blog (we'll call it 'athloidot') and your advertisers, who are Microsoft-centric, demand that you start posting nice things about Microsoft products. You, as the editorial staff, can either bend over and grease up, writing some nice stuff about Vista, or, you can tell the advertisers to politely fuck off and go get yourself another set of advertisers.
Now, the bloggers in China cannot tell the Chinese government to politely fuck off, because that would be a crime punishable by imprisonment, torture, or both.
As for whether it will offend anyone -- well, it hasn't seemed to stop Slashdot, now has it?
My blog
Instead of titling this article: Citizen Journalism Combating Chinese Censorship, wouldn't it be more accurate to have said: Chinese Censorship Combating Citizen Journalism.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Perhaps Google, Yahoo, and other bastions of the Internet will get right on this if they're asked nicely. They've got a proven track record when it comes to assisting oppressive governments.
I mean, in the first case, even if you say, "Damn the consequences, I'm going to write that article!"... the article gets removed and no one can read it. In the second case, the article remains published any you suffer the consequences. To me, there is a huge distinction there.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
How do you organize the memory hole? The problem with censored electronic media is that it eliminates the ability to reference. If your references disappear and organizers are put in jail, there will only be one coherent story.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's not that easy for an oppressed people to free themselves.
.. they murder and rape etc. not just the dissident but also people he/she cares about. So if a dissident is going to mount a resistance he/she has to be aware who else they're "involunteering", because it won't just be the dissident paying the price.
For one thing, you have to hope that a George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc. exist simultaneously around the same time. And also that they have the tools need to mount an effective resistance. Not every country is lucky enough to get people like that.
The other MAJOR problem is the lack of weaponry. You see, people seem to be willing to give up all kinds of liberties when the slightest amount of feart is introduced. Now imagine the threat against you if you government is evil
It may be self satifying to place the blame on being oppressed on the oppressed (after all it liberates any feelings of obligation to help) but that doesn't mean it's the truth.
Amen, brother. It never ceases to amaze me how many people on /. argue that US censorship isn't really censorship because it's "appropriate censorship". We'll be oppressed, just like the Chinese, until more of us finally start to realize that we are.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
My parents just got back from a 4 month stay in China. Holy Good Heavens are you wrong in comparing the USA to China. Read about Mao's rule and it's lasting effect on China today. Read about people who were driven out of business and rebuked BECAUSE they were working professionals.
When my parent's showed local friends a family picture (5 children), a few women wept because of a government mandated law of one child per couple.
One interesting thing they noticed, though, is a positive side effect of their freedom being suppressed. Many people in China they met had an innocence that has been all but destroyed in much of America. What I'm referring to is the moral depravity found in the US's pop culture that is largely suppressed in China.
My heart goes out to those overseas who are fighting for the basic rights of freedom that I've enjoyed all my life.
I've been there -- Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo, Guilin, and about eight small factory towns.
There are two things I will not criticize publicly until I'm retired or travelling: Islamic extremists and the Chinese government.
My sense is that it's like those countries with draconian drug laws (e.g. the death penalty for smuggling); you're fine as long as you don't get somehow associated with drugs (e.g. something planted on you). If that happens, you are up the creek...no right to counsel, a fair trial, humane treatment, etc.
www.cgstock.com
This doesn't warrant a response, but at the risk of responding to a troll, I will anyway because its important (and scary that someone might not be able to put this together themselves): Poster, "tech" comes from free scientific discourse. Censorship mutes discourse - both directly and indirectly. In the first case, as in the US, you find a government explicitly muting discourse on a particular scientific subject (stem cells and global warming). In the case of the article in question, there is no specific censorship of a technology subject, but there is a systemic attempt by a government to mute all discourse other than what is deemed acceptable. With that kind of muting, technological development stalls (or stays stalled). Given that China has the largest tech (or any other) market and given what kind of tech China COULD produce if they were allowed to speak freely, Id say censorship is directly related to Slashdot even at with the slimmest of "news for nerds" definitions. (All this aside from the fact that it's technology theyre using to censor, technology theyre using to spread the news, etc).
Here in the US if you want to sell hot dogs you need about a hundred government permits. There are forms and taxes and fees just to hire the guy to run the pushcart and there is a business license and health inspectors and so on and so on. the goernment even tells you how long you can keep a hot dog after you heat it and how and where is get rid of the hot dogs you can't sell. Every stage of a hot dog vending in the US is regulated and controled by the government. In China if you want to sell hot dogs all you need is are some hot dogs. If you want to sell a picture of Micky Mouse on a tee shirt all you need is some ink and tee shirts, no need to ask Disney first I think much of China works this way. People just do what they want and if they don't cause any trouble are left alone. I won't argue it this is a good thing or bad. Maybe it's best to give up some freedom so we can eat USDA inspected hot dogs.
But the governments are different. In the US the leaders know and accept that they will leave office one day and they are pretty sure the system of government will continue on. In China the government took power and holds power by force and the goal of the leadership is to remain in office for life.
So in some way the people in China are more free. They can do as they
like as long is that is no threat the government.
They are blocking on chinese only. By not blocking english, then they will encourage a number of chinese to learn it or some other language.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
from someone who was in Hong Kong: And once again we choose not to focus too much on certain reports. China is in the midst of a historic buildup of its military. China is cracking down on unofficial news sources and asking citizens to report any unauthorized news postings on the Web./quote)
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
What a time to not have mod points. You are spot on.
It's not the case of "We have freedom, they don't!" It's more of a "We have one kind of freedom and one kind of government control, they have different kinds of freedom and government control." It's about time we all stop thinking in black-and-white terms.
China will be truly free from their commie overlords only when a soviet style revolution happens, or if there's a huge general uprising and overthrow of their beloved "leaders".
China will never become another USA and it is foolish to want that. You'd probably see them becoming a socialist democracy sort of like a combination of India, Germany and Russia. That'll do for now.
As for their inter-tubes, till their yoke is lifted, don't expect any miracles under their current administration.
Here is an interesting documentary dealing with American-style censorship and propaganda in the media. The mechanism may be different, but in the end the public is still being fed misinformation.
Maybe we don't need a Big Brother in this country, we're all conspiring to misinform ourselves.
If you can read Chinese, try http://bbs.people.com.cn/
That's the billboard system hosted on China's highest ranking official propaganda website, controlled directly by the top propaganda division of the communist party. Well, just list a few post titles from the front page:
- What does it tell that 70% of the corruptions and bribes are through the wives and mistresses?
- Reporting the "black kiln" in sadness and horrors.
- Is the Nanjing government going backwards in regulating the housing price?
- 24 ways to expose corrupted officials in mainland China
- Black kiln reminds me of the greatness of Mao Zedong
- Why do the officials pretend they don't know?
Does that sounds like a Gulag or 1984 situation? When did you last see similar posts hosted by either CNN or MSNBC?
This is the mother of all tech discussions. Slashdot is all about exchange of ideas and news, censorship is the opposite of that. We understand the issue, we know what censorship smells like, and we have the power to do something about it. That means you, reading this.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
The story is attributed to Agence France-Presse, the French newswire. Breitbart doesn't publish any content of their own; so far as I know, they're just an aggregator.
Dog is my co-pilot.
WTF? Nobody but Disney and the US care about Disney copyrights. Try making "Jintao Sucks" T-shirts like the Bush ones I see and see if they let you. Correction... see how long you last before getting thrown in jail. Correction... see how long you last, PERIOD!
[quote]People just do what they want and if they don't cause any trouble are left alone.[/quote] Correction... People just do what they want and if they agree with everything the government says and do everything they ask only then are they left alone. Sure, that sounds like freedom.
Don't mistake process for impeding on freedom.
PS. That "freedom" the imaginary hotdog vendor has in China results in him/her selling rotten REAL DOG slaughtered last month after he was lucky enough to stumble upon Fido's sickly corpse in the local human waste disposal pit.
That's just my POV... no more, no less.