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Chinese Version of Wikinews Blocked In China
DragonFire1024 writes with this story from Wikinews that says "access to the Chinese Wikinews website has been blocked in China. Wikinews can also confirm that the English version of the website is still available in China. ... Users using the social networking site called Twitter have reported that the site was "blockade[ed] today by the mainland" of China. Others, writing on the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list also state that the Chinese version of Wikinews is blocked in major Chinese cities such as Beijing."
Just imagine if the Chinese government used all this effort on something that was actually productive.
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If I understand correctly the situation in China, the main reason why the Chinese people let the Communists in power is their double digit yearly economic growth. Since the recent economic downturn, it seems very unlikely that China will manage to maintain a satisfactory growth, which would trigger unrest.
A quick googling brought up this recent article which seems to confirm that what's been predicted since the global economy crashed through the floor is bound to happen in the near future.
So the blocking of Wikinews in China fits in the picture in the damage control part of it, that is pretty much "let's make sure as little of our people learn what's currently happening in our country right now". Failing to control the information about protests across the country means empowering these movements, and the stakes are the future of Communism in China as a whole, although it won't go without a fight either.
You just got troll'd!
Wait till they start learning the tricks of Western governments. IOW, less emphasis on blocking and more emphasis on spin, misdirection, and obfuscation. Of course, all governments use both to different extents, but the Western governments are masters at the latter. At least with blocking, the government gives away the fact that something is being hidden.
block : encryption :: spin : steganography
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
In the context of damage control as the Chinese government is trying to do, the problem is not creating airtight censorship, because the news they try to silence come from mainland China itself, they just try to make sure as few as possible gain access to the news in question.
Because for some reason, when you're pissed at your government because you emigrated from your village to not find a job and still be in a crappy situation, when you learn that people all across the country are protesting and on strikes, it makes you want to do the same thing. Revolutions are like Mexican waves, you can only help them happen if you know what your peers are up to.
You just got troll'd!
Censorship is a subject of interest of Slashdot. It interests many people here, including myself. When Australia, US, France, Russia blocks a website of importance (or even a small website) for whatever reason, it is reported. What is gained by publicizing them is information. We know that if we go to China, Google won't yield trustworthy results about recent events concerning China. We know that Wikipedia, Wikinews or even Slashdot may be blocked. We know that Tor works to circumvent this. We know that the Chinese people is informed by biased media.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The trick though is with a country like China you can pay 1,000 people 1,000 dollars to read every news site and most major web forums in order to 'know what we know'.
Updating a firewall with IP and DNS information is relatively trivial with solid reporting. Like you say you can't stop it all but you can stop anything popular. It's the paradox of counter-censorship. In order to advertise a piece of information to a large number of people-- a large number of people need to be made aware of the information. Keeping the 'secret' distribution methods secret is as difficult for the other side as it is for the government. There's no way for either party to keep what they know completely secret but seeing as the government doesn't have to stop 100% of it they have an advantage. They just have to keep the number of people who know about it less than they can deal with. That number is by definition larger than themselves therefore as soon as you can spread the information to a group larger than the government then the source becomes identifiable.
Whackamole can be suprisingly effective.
It's also important to note that while the communist party doesn't like being undermined they are religious in their zeal to stamp out corruption. They recognize that they can't fully control the population and their presence must be desired.
All of the people I talked to in China (even in private) seemed to be proud of their government and their country. They all got incensed when I made any sort of inquiry into what it's like to live in a communist nation or their thoughts about communism. "We are not communist! We are a republic!" That was the answer I always got or something to that effect. They elect their leaders and if those leaders in any way do anything which could potentially embarass the party they're sacked. Immediately and with almost no investigation. If the people are dissastisfied with a communist official they can report them to headquarters and action from on high will be swift.
The communist party's crackdowns are not just on dissidents and undesireables. It's also directed at itself. Party First. You dishonor the party and you better jump on your sword or face the consequences--harsh consequences. They certainly learned from the Soviet system in which the soviets become complacent and over confident in their power. Revolutions are inevitable. The best way to quell revolution is to keep the people happy. In some ways the single party system in China is more accountable than our multi-party system in America.
*yawn*
Child of Chinese government lackey studying abroad fails to see the utility of reporting censorship while living large on the spoils of corruption. Big surprise....
I can confirm that the English version is available in Beijing while the Chinese version isn't.
And yes, you're right that most of the clods here just don't care that their news is fondled en route to their tv/monitor/radio/etc. In that sense, the cretins with guns have won.
Best,
Go to ay school computer lab that has external internet access and blocks MySpace and FaceBook.
Stay there all day and offer $50.00 to any kid that can get to one of those sites.
By the end of the day you will be broke.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo