Slashdot Mirror
China Wants US-Owned Hotels to Censor Internet
jp_papin writes "The Chinese government is demanding that US-owned hotels there filter Internet service during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, US Senator Sam Brownback has alleged. The Chinese government is requiring US-owned hotels to install Internet filters to 'monitor and restrict information coming in and out of China,' Brownback said Thursday. 'This is an insult to the spirit of the games and an affront to American businesses,' he said. 'I call on China to immediately rescind this demand.' US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he wasn't aware of those specific requests from the Chinese government, but Brownback said he got the information on Internet filtering from 'two different reliable but confidential sources.' The State Department is apparently continuing dialog with China about freedom of expression."
A senator quoting "reliable but confidential" sources on the internet? It's most likely from his pal, the Nigerian Prince, and also that nice wife of Mbutu Seke-seke. I've gotten reliable but confidential email from them, too, but they asked me not to talk to anyone about it.
John
I'm failing to see why this is a shock.
Do these US senators expect Chinese hotels in the US to follow US law? If so, then why the shock?
My Journal
So you're saying that the Chinese authorities wants the hotels that operate in China to follow Chinese laws and regulations? Shocking!
Next you're going to tell me that American citizens have their right to bear arms violated when they're in Europe.
And the Chinese have never really worried about foreigners with VPNs. Its the locals that need to be kept in control.
I think this senator got his information from the same reliable sources that found proof for Iraqi WMDs.
what did the US (and any other freedom loving person) expect when giving the Communist Chinese the Olympics?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I'm sure the American government has never asked foreign owned businesses to do anything they wouldn't like. I love the smell of politics in the morning. It smells like hypocrisy.
The way I see it, someone didn't do a proper business risk review when they made an investment in China, and now they are seeking help because things are not working as they planned.
Their rules.
If you don't like it, then leave.
If you want somebody to blame, then direct it to the International Olympic Committee. Each country took a vote and China was selected.
Like or not....
Why not pull out our athletes out of the games until China adopts a default policy of Freedom and Liberty?
Fuck that Censorshit!
I'll take good old US Style Blanket Surveillance any-day!
Thanks AT&T! For keeping us safe by spying on us for the Bush Gang -- even if it is completely unlawful to do so!
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
How is that different from what's happening now? I stayed at the Hilton in Beijing (supposedly property of an American company) last year, and they of course filtered the net connection. No boobie pages, some political pages didn't work; even SSH connections were impossible for one whole day during my stay.
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
Don't like it? Then don't do business there.
While I don't like censorship in the least, I also don't like US hegemony either -- either by the government or the businesses. China -- its people and its government -- need to work out their own issues with regards to privacy and censorship and freedom of access to information.
Oh well -- China has the US by its financial balls, so all I see coming out of this is a bunch of whining on the US part with little to no real action.
And of course, the question of what form any possible "action" would take, anyway? Pulling out of the Olympics? That's not fair to all those athletes who devoted a good portion of their lives preparing for this event.
Gotta love geo-politics.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Aren't all of these hotels behind the Great Firewall of China anyway? How are they getting their Internet connections if not? Something doesn't sound quite right about this. I don't see how they can NOT be filtered, even if they didn't want it.
Let's work on freedom of expression in the USA before we go telling China how to run their country. It's sick in this day and age that you can get arrested for flag burning, protesting outside of a "free speech zone", or because you criticize the rulers a little too loudly. Until we fix these things, I think a little Internet filtering in another country is the least of our worries.
Hell, a lot of hotels in the U.S. aren't even owned by U.S. companies, their owned by the Japanese. That's true, at least, of every single hotel in Hawaii.
Of course we expect these hotels to operate in accordance with U.S. law. Of course, the thing is that the Japanese tend to always seek excellenece in their endeavors -- and, in their view, excellence includes strict compliance with the law.
OTOH, many hotels owned by American companies and individuals don't operate in accordance with U.S. law -- cleanliness standards that aren't up to state and federal health codes, employing undocumented workers as housekeeping staff.
So uhh...what is it they're screaming and handwaving about again?
My blog
The press release can be read in its entirety on the official Sam Brownback site.
Seems a fair enough position for a politician to take, given that he sits on one or more subcomittees that are involved with international/human rights types of issues.
On the other hand, he is a Republican.
And he's from Kansas.
If you're not prepared to fill in your own joke, the Wikipedia article on him should give you some ideas.
In China, even *Americans* must obey Chinese law! Gee, who would have thought?
Don't like it? Your options are:
1. Don't do business there.
2. Ask them to change their laws. Good luck with that.
3. The Iraq thing. Good luck with that too.
A hotel is not an embassy; Chinese law applies within its walls.
No matter how much you dislike the chinese government's position, what this is nevertheless is enforcing rules on them, in their own country. Who cares if the hotels in question are "US-owned"? Would you accept that "chinese-owned" factories in, say, Texas, operate according to chinese rules?
If you start a hotel in China, you know that you're in China, and that chinese laws and customs apply to you. You may not like them, for whatever reason. You may think they are inhuman and evil, but they are the law of the land.
If you don't like it, there's a simple solution: Don't do business there!.
But no, our corporate masters want to have it both ways. None of the large international corporations would want to leave the huge chinese market to the competitors.
I don't support the chinese government in their position on censorship, oppression or the liberal application of the death penalty, but I do support them on their strong stand towards international corporations and anyone else messing with their internal politics. I think right now China is the only government not falling over backwards when some RIAA or Microsoft comes calling, and instead reminding them just who owns the land and the tanks.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Dutch MP's are demanding that the US lifts its ban on prostitutes, calling it an affront to capitalism's oldest profession. Film at 11
It seems rather hypocritical for US politicians to criticize censorship in China when they refuse to do anything to stop censorshop right here in the US and often support it. I am referring to the lack of action being taken on net neutrality and prohibuting corporations from censoring the internet. People think that because its a corporation its not a real threat, but it is. These corporations become de facto governments when they can control so many resources, such as major communications infrastructure, these corporations through their policies can have the same effect as government in effectively limiting free speech.This is why ISPs must be common carriers and required to carry all information over them verbatim.
Sometimes it seems the real reason the politicians criticize china is to cover up the fact that they allow censorship right here, and are representatives of the corporations that carry out this censorship. Politicians in the US take campaign donations from corporations, essentially the corporations elect them and they represent the corporations interest. Whoever has the best funding has the best chance of winning so corporations can control elections through who they give donations to. Add to that most of the US media is controlled by a few large corporate conglomerates who basically can filter and conspire to propogandise the ignorant and gullible public. People are not really the ones making the decisions anymore, the process is controlled by corporations and special interests, the american people are brainwashed into thinking they have a choice, when they really do not. You have a media which basically controls most of their information, and can tell them who to vote for, by excluding or including information you can control the available information they have to work with and thus their decision making. The way you make people think they have a choice is by giving them options, but controlling those options. A politicians campaign can easily be destroyed if their funding is withdrawn and the corporation and establishment can weed out those it does not like (like Kucinich, Paul, etc). The media simply ignores them or gives them a fraction of the attention of other preferred candidates.
News flash for those that don't know. This is old news.
The "westerners" only hotels in China are censored. It is a little less lax then normal Chinese hotels (for example you can watch BBC). But there is censorship and even other rules, for example the only chinese allowed on the hotels premises when I was there had to be working in the hotel.
The censorship is more directed at the population though rather then to external sources.
Lastly it is their country, even if like me you don't agree with this. If you don't like, then don't go to the country.
The shock comes from China's promise to bolster freedom of expression and human right during the Olympic Games when Beijing was chosen a few years ago.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In February 2006, the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton hotel (a franchise of the Sheraton group) in Mexico City was ordered by the US Treasury Department to throw out a group of Cuban officials who were staying there, because their presence violated US law and the Sheraton Group was an American company. In complying with the requirement, the hotel broke local law and faced $500,000 fines before the situation was smoothed over.
IOC doesn't even pretend to care about freedom. All they care about is money, while pretending to care about sport. [ Quite unlike the US, which only cares about money, while pretending to care about freedom. ]
This isn't too likely as many Chinese still do not own personal computers. Many obtain their access to the net via internet cafes. If you get your access at a cafe it kinds sucks because you are required to prove that you're 18 or older, which means you must present identification, which is recorded with the workstation you use and subsequently the IP address and time in which you used it.
For home access in larger cities like Shanghai, adsl is the way to go, and you purchase time, and you get a static IP. Also traceable to you.
I was in China for a couple of weeks immediately following the recent Tibet fracas (which is quite perplexing if you listen to all 3 sides of the discussion).
Based on my personal observation, The "Great Firewall" isn't so much a firewall (which in my eyes connotes address/port blocking) but it's more the corporate content filter. Too many keywords and your transmission gets squelched.
Example: The first day I tried to use myspace.com and I couldn't get a single word to load. The next day, Myspace would load, I could log in, but when I selected the option to update my personal Blog, I got half a page of unrendered HTML code. I didn't even bother after that.
Would the USA have allowed Nazi Germany to host the Olympic games? I DON'T THINK SO.
Why is this marked funny? Back in 2001 during their Beijing hosting bid, China promised precisely NOT to do this. They also promised total freedom of movement and reporting for international press, which they have also broken (see: Tibet.) China is hoping you all have short memories, but I forget nothing. I wish I could link to a news article with all the stuff they promised, but going back that far most sites charge for access.
Because they are obliged to not censor during the Olympics. This would actually be one of the things that would get the EU and the US to reconsider their participation in the games, Tibet certainly won't. The Olympic committee (I believe it may be one of those preconditions of holding the games) is obliging China to not restrict (at least) journalists.
To be honest they should just wait until the games begin, then censor everyone themselves. Which they already can and do.
We'll censor our athletes, cause we're helpful like that. And we don't want any ungrateful comments about that smog, making us seem like bad losers. (Us being the UK)
If this were really happening, what would you think?
You see, this could all have been avoided if the IOC had chosen Toronto for 2008 rather than Beijing. Then we could all have had a nice, predictable Olympics games.
ArsTechnica has an article on this topic, and they point out that the allegations don't make any sense - Internet access in China is already filtered at the ISP level.
Unless these hotels are buying direct connections to a provider outside of China (and why would they?), they are already behind the Chinese Great Firewall and subject to its filtering.
Conversely, for China to honor its agreement about allowing unfettered Internet access during the Olympics, they will need to open up the wall for these hotels.
Since the issue of net filtering and censorship in China is largely a non-topic, I asked myself why should the Olympics make any difference when discussing individual Countries Law and expecting exceptions to those Laws. In short, what is so great about the present day Olympics?
- Tradition? Seems to me the original spirit of the games has long been lost. It's all about advertising, ratings, and the almighty dollar bill. $10 hot dog, anyone?
- Bragging rights? Aren't there 'World organizations' for this stuff already? Don't the best of the best already compete against each other?
- Excitement? Watching some muscle-head lob a 15 pound aerodynamic (sortof) rock downrange just doesn't have the same pizazz as watching CNN-cam on the front end of a Sat-Killer. Ditto on the ice thing with rocks and brooms (not the vulcanized rock, the other one).
- Nationalism? If they were proud of their country, why do some come to the USA to get professionally paid only to be shipped back home to wear a different uniform for a few weeks? Seems hypocritical.
- Achievement? Oh joy of joys, yet another feel good story about how a gymnast with a hangnail toughed it out. Compare that to the tanks 'guarding' parking lot, I'm uninspired.
- Pride? My valuable medals. 'Nuff said.
This isn't a shock. It's called putting pressure on the Chinese to grant basic human rights to their citizens by using the Olympics. Sorry that you don't feel it's important.
I've seen this argument a lot, and it is terrible. It goes like this:
"We expect foreign businesses to follow our rules. Therefore we can't criticize anyone else's rules."
I hope the flaw is apparent. We ALWAYS have the right to complain about nasty rules -- including our own nasty rules! That's right, if we force foreign businesses to do awful things then we SHOULD be criticized for it. Likewise, we have the right and duty to call out other countries when they pull this stuff.
http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_299.pdf
THEME 16: COMMUNICATIONS
AND MEDIA SERVICES
Concept & Communication
The Beijing communications strategy is based on
a desire to provide greater opportunities for more
people to share the excitement of the Olympic
Games.
It was confirmed to the Commission that there
will be no restrictions on media reporting and
movement of journalists up to and including
the Olympic Games.
I could easily see media companies getting together and being willing to pay a premium to a willing hotel so that their reporters could have unfettered access to the Internet during their stay. I could also see how China might get wind of this and decide they don't like it.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Rather than a country's athletes boycotting the games, why don't the media boycott it instead? China spends billions hosting the games and the only coverage they get (apart from that of the torch relay, which has been a PR disaster for them) is a couple of column inches reporting who won each event. No opening ceremony, no 'look at the country' type reports. Nothing.
If there is one thing that reporters really don't like it is having their ability to speak and report freely curtailed. You can bet your bottom dollar that if China follows through with this policy then they will be called out on it by western journalists during the games and reminded of their previous assurances. The 2008 Beijing Olympics are shaping up to be the most politically charged games in a generation, even the Moscow games of 1980 and the subsequent Soviet boycott of the Los Angeles games in 1984 did not draw as much world wide attention and controversy as the upcoming Beijing games have. The Chinese are proving to the world once again that they have a tin ear for international public relations with their handling of the torch relay and the Tibet issue.
Given that the very act of a torch relay (not the use of the Torch itself, but the relay) came about as Nazi propaganda for the 1936 Olympics, I think it's a bit short-sighted to say that the political protests surrounding this year's relay are a "disgrace." I think that the athletes should be able to compete all they want, free of political pull, but the relay is historically a political act.
The only way to get rid of a totalitarian system is to bankrupt it. Be it communism or something that we see in China. Helping their government by developing their economy and making them richer will only strengthen their grip. Thinking that it may make people more aware and demand freedoms was naive and shortsighted at best and IMO it was a plain lie produced by (mostly american) corporate drones. It was an excuse to make better profits in exchange to feeding one of the most bloody regimes in the world. In a totalitarian state people care less about freedom if a regime makes their economic situation better over time. In such conditions, regime can easily strengthen its grip in exchange of a better material situation of state's citizens. It can easily squash any opponents - citizens won't mind see them killed.
When I was a child in 80's, we had communism here in Poland. There were bad times in terms of both freedoms and economy (virtually everything was limited - including such basic products as butter, sugar or milk) - there was nearly nothing in stores and if there was something, you could buy only limited amount of it. People were staying hours in queues to buy a piece of meat and one adult person could buy some around 1kg a month, no more. People were VERY angry, so communist government decided to waive their powers in exchange to a convenient and fairly safe retirement. Basically - in exchange for freedom and hopes of better economical situation, people agreed to forgive communists' past actions (including many illegal imprisonments, kills and other things regime did in the past) and not to harras them anymore. Many people think that it was a big mistake to let them go away unpunished but I think it was a great achievment to get rid of communism in such a peaceful way, without a single shot. The sole reason of communism fall was its bankrupcy. The same worked in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Eastern Germany, Russia, baltic lands and other countries. Some countries did well and now enjoying freedoms in Western Europe style). Some did not so well and have fallen back into regime (say Russia, Bielarus). But we shared one thing in common - we all bankrupted. In some countries, like Romania, people were starving and their desperacy caused them to revolt and kill regime leaders.
And now look at those RICH regimes - as China or Russia. Their governments don't have ANY inventive to give away their powers. Officials running those countries don't have the same level of empathy that, say, slashdot crowd has (in general). They are damn cold blooded suckers committed to kill everyone standing in their way. On the other hand people also have no incentive to fight with regime - as long as one doesn't complain about government, one does well. At the point one gets in conflict, one gets into a big, bad trouble.
Back to China. Compared to communist Poland from '80s, they have very good economic situation (which Poland lacked) and a BIG MESS in terms of human rights. As I read stories about their practices of imprisoning, torturing and killing people, I doubt we had such a mess in Poland - even in stalinism times, in '50s. Imprisoning and killing someone just to have replacement organs for some f*ck'n official's wasn't seen in Poland since Nazi camps in '40s. Torturing and killing political opponents in such a grand scale also hasn't been seen in most of communist states since '50s. And it is common in China in 2008.
Summary:
- good economy will only strenghten regime, not weaken it; the only way to get rid of a regime is to bankrupt it and let them voluntary give away their powers;
- we should thank our corporate drones for strenghtening chineese regime to the point it got unstoppable and IMO became direct danger to all of us;
- I'm avoiding chineese products as much as possible, I won't go to China and I won't leave a single dime there; I won't watch olympic games in China;
Except for the journalists working for companies owned by Rupert Murdoch (he really doesn't want to upset China - in the past, he's done things like kicking a BBC TV station off a satellite in the region he owns because it's annoying the Chinese government). Then there's the ones working for mega-corporations with interests in China - they'll have pressure on them to not do anything too controversial.
I suspect most/all of the US TV news stations have reasons not to upset the Chinese government. The newspapers won't be quite as bad, nor will non-US news, but it's still fairly significant.
Back when Jimmy Carter was president, a good number of countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympic games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The athletes at the time, as I recall, were devastated.
It would be nice to see some countries put their money where their mouth is (including the US) and boycott the China Olympics.
Not just over this Internet censorship thing; I'm more interested in the fundamental human rights issues than I am in whether they censor the Internet for visiting foreigners. As a basic fundamental principal and statement of support for human rights, events of worldwide importance and recognition should not be held in countries run by oppressive governments.
I assume there's also some sort of preferred trading status between China and the US; that should go too. Why the hell do we need to be flooded with 80 billion tons of poorly made crap? (OK, I just made that statistic up.)
Unfortunately, as so many other posters has said, the US no longer stands for principles and freedom. We stand for profit.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Why, the whole Olympics is a political thing, 1990 was the first modern olympic games without anybody not-turning up through protest. Most of the modern Olympic games symbolism is from the 1936 games (a.k.a Hitler propaganda stunt)
Politics & International competitions never have, are not and never will be separate.
Come on bush just grow the balls that Starkozy & even Brown have got and dont turn up to the opening ceremony.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Actually, there's more to it than that. There was an interesting article in Private Eye about the IOC president at the time China was given the Olympics, Juan Antonio Samaranch. Basically, he's a fascist who was a strong supporter of China's bid for the 2000 Olympics a couple of years after Tiananmen Square. (He even did a photo-op cycling around the square as part of his support. He also gave the highest IOC honour to Chen Xitong, the leader of the 2000 bid, then-mayor of Beijing, and the person responsible for sending in the troops at Tiananmen Square.)
Of course, Private Eye does have a tendency to get successfully sued for libel, but they also tend to be accurate (often even *when* someone has successfully sued them for libel over the claims in question). Besides, this seems to mostly check out.
I was going to Beijing to compete in the beer drinking competition. They are going to filter Internet traffic now? Great, so now I won't be able to look at Internet pr0n after the competition while I am shitfaced? Forget it! I'm staying home!
Kickass Cheap Web Hosting
This news sounds bogus to me, exactly because the Chinese government is already doing the censoring:
While I dislike China's censorship, I think this type of news looks bogus, attempts to get media attention, and has the exact purpose of exaggerating the situation.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
OTOH I think the big surprise here is that the Chinese government doesn't filter the internet themselves at the ISP level. Why do they even need to ask for the hotel's cooperation on this? I was under the impression that the Great Firewall is implemented at the ISP level? Interesting... if this is not the case than what is preventing bootleg ISPs from selling unrestricted access at premium prices in order to turn a profit off of this government imposed censorship? I guess penalty of death would be a good deterrent there. The only reason for censoring your people is for fear that they will become educated to "the outside", realize how good it could be, and stage a Coup d'état. If I were the Chinese government I'd think twice about this and many other policies that inhibit human rights.