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China Blocks YouTube, Again
cryfreedomlove brings news that YouTube has once again been blocked in China. The Google-owned video site was censored in China last year because of videos about the protests in Tibet, and that may be the impetus behind this latest restriction. According to a New York Times report,
"'The instant speculation is that YouTube is being blocked because the Tibetan government in exile released a particular video,' said Xiao Qiang, adjunct professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley... Mr. Xiao said that the blocking of YouTube fit with what appeared to be an effort by China to step up its censorship of the Internet in recent months. Mr. Xiao said he was not surprised that YouTube was a target. It also hosts videos about the Tiananmen Square protests and many other subjects that Chinese authorities find objectionable."
My initial response is that Google should just ignore the blockage -- stick by the free speech principles that they purport to support.
But it is my hope that Youtube, blogs and similar sites have a positive effect on subverting the PRC government's policies of censorship and thought control, even when censored. Wikipedia suggests that this is true, with sexual content becoming less censored around 2004. It's also clear that the Chinese populace is willing and at least somewhat to subvert such censorship, as indicated by the "Ten Mythical Creatures" meme.
So, though it galls me, perhaps Google should aim for some sort of middle of the road response to maximize the subversion of China's anti-free speech policies.
--sabre86
I'll alert the presses!!!!!
Secret footage of Mao Tse-Tung wearing a really comfy pair of Italian loafers. The Tibet stuff is a cover story.
I can't believe this isn't talked about more. I can't believe it didn't come up before they decided to let them host the Olympics.
You guys know they put a bunch of farm boys into tanks and had them roll into Tiananmen Square and start shooting students, right? Shooting from their tanks onto balconies.
What do you think happened to that guy standing in front of the tank (you know the picture)? You think he's still alive? Can you imagine the courage it took to do that?
And the world rewarded these murderers with the Olympic Games.
In Soviet America sites block you.
(I am glad I can't moderate myself, as I would have no idea wether this is troll, funny or insightfull. Oh well. I have way too much karma anyway.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Okay, seriously; They've invested tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars into a national infrastructure informally known as the "Great Firewall of China". And yet they block sites wholesale rather than by keyword, URL, or a dozen other possibilities? If they're trying to keep this as transparent to the population as possible, why constantly block and unblock popular sites? It just compels people to ask the question "Why do they keep blocking/unblocking this site?" And the answer is only a google query away.
I'm not arguing for or against censorship here, I'm merely pointing out that it's difficult to imagine that they lack the most basic capabilities of censorship software that is sold commercially and globally elsewhere, and that it is not technically challenging to impliment those features. Why spend millions on an infrastructure item that lacks even the most basic features needed for its intended use?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I guess the YouTube posters got all cocky when "The River Crab Wears Two Watches" and "Grass Mud Horse" didn't get it blocked...
This is an unfortunate development. For a bit there, it looked like China might be going more open, but I guess the infantilization of their people is more important. :-/
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Turkey (don't mention the "genocide" against Armenians
Killing hundreds of thousands of people deserve a bit more than quotation marks, don't you think?
Germany (no holocaust denial)
Which is fucked up itself. Any historical truth is only worth as much as it is allowed to research. Jailing people for asking "has that really happened?" is not freedom of speech.
Lying about a massacre of that degree should or should not be a crime, depending on your political views, but researching it? And if I find something contrary to the "truth" set in law, am I a criminal for saying it? Does even a historian not have the right to his own opinion anymore?
I don't deny the Holocaust, but there's a certain amount of doubt in me against any fact you have to protect by force of law. That's Thought Police, even if what they're defending is true.
That would be Commodore Matthew Perry, who opened up Japan by threat of force.
I wasn't sure if you were just trying to be funny...
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
What got censored are only those official news/reports/articles. If you live in China and surf the web, you'll know that almost any information can be published in an alternative way, and the government is doing nothing about it. Just take one example, 'Tiananmen Massacre' or '6.4'(the date it happened) is banned, but you can always use something like 8^8 to say 6.4 in another way, and every Chinese reading the post knows what it means. Or you can Acronym of Pinyin for a word, such as ZF for 'government', GCD for 'Communist Party', FLG for 'Fa Lun Gong', etc. I am a Chinese working in the US and I post on popular Chinese web sites almost every day for all contents I want, never a problem. The key is, you have to understand the culture background to get around the censorship. Getting blocked by posting 'let's over throw the communist party' in plain English or Chinese only shows you lack the basic common sense to deal with censorship, which is a skill many Chinese are good at. An added benefit of censorship is it makes people very skeptical and critical on whatever is being reported by media. While I found many American blindly believe what was reported by BBC/CNN/NYT, most Chinese take the news report with a huge grain of salt. That is why CCTV of China is officially called CCAV (adult video) by many Chinese citizens. As a Chinese who has deep root and understanding with China's culture and current development, what I want to clarify is, most Chinese don't care about censorship. Because most ordinary Chinese only cares about economy (like most people in other countries do). The current law and policies in China offers relatively fair and open environment to most citizens. People have no right for direct vote, but you can mostly joke around most political stuff without the worry of being thrown into jail (if you know how people call Hu Jintao 'bro Hu', Wen Jiabao 'baby' in his face (bao can mean baby in Chinese), that's enough for most people -- even in America, with so many Bush haters, they only provide lip service, how many of the Bush haters actually sued him in court or draw a gun and start shooting in Crawford? I often found Westerners have a laughable and condescending view upon China. They tend to think Chinese government is evil and Chinese people are stupid, they label all Chinese people who don't agree with them as 'brainwashed', they refuse to call the Muslims who blew buses packed with innocent people terrorists simply because they are against Chinese government, and they foolishly believe Dalai Lama is a peace lover even he never apologized for his past as a slave owner and was on CIA payroll for more than 20 years (as a slave owner in Tibet you can legally kill a slave and use his skull as a bowl). btw you don't get killed by having the same name with the emperor, but you do need to change your name. It is a tradition in ancient China that emperors use very rare words as their names so most people don't have to worry about this kind of 'naming collision'