Slashdot Mirror
China Blocks News Websites In Protest of Nobel
DaveNJ1987 writes "The Chinese Government has blocked the websites of the BBC, CNN and Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK, less than 24 hours before dissident Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo is due to be awarded the Nobel peace prize. China has been vocally critical of the plans to award the jailed writer the prize and has even gone as far as setting up its own 'Confucius peace prize' to rival the awards being held in Oslo tomorrow."
Stop being so heavy-handed and obvious. Take a page from the CIA playbook. If you *really* want to discredit Liu Xiaobo, just recruit a couple of women to say he raped them (or some kids to say he molested them, or an old lady to say he beat her, something along those lines). Easy, subtle, and no need to censor CNN. And what's really great is that it works even if he's in another country (if you can recruit locals there, even better!). Pretty soon the Nobel people are backing away from him, Visa won't process donations for his cause, everybody is calling him a rapist/child-molester/wife-beater. And you get to say "Hey, wasn't us, that's his own personal problems" if anyone asks. Now no one will touch him and you didn't have to *directly* come down on anyone.
Just make sure your recruits look credible and pay them/threaten them enough to make sure they never talk.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In protest, the Chinese Government has set up its own rival awards ceremony to the Nobel prize; the "Confucius peace prize".
I would wait a bit before that's confirmed. The only news in English I can find on it seems to indicate it doesn't exist or at least wasn't given to the recipient reported by the Associated Press. Those guys aren't often wrong but this sounds like a satire or problem in translation.
Furthermore, here's the point of view from the horse's mouth (angry version here and refusal to resolve here) and they are propping up external support (though I think it's selective in choosing Heffermehl's words).
So, yeah, censorship is bad in any form and I think the Chinese government is terrible in doing this but they do run things their own special way over there and censorship has always been the norm.
My work here is dung.
Is anyone ready to open source human governance?
... is looking to get itself banned...
Seriously, when are we going to be honest about China's rise as an international bully?
Posting a story that China censors XXX is really not news.
It happens regularly in that country, I have no idea why it would be considered a news story on slashdot.
The Great Firewall is a way of life there, so just get over it and save your righteous indignation for something else.
For all the things China blames other countries for doing, China still is more totalitarian. They oppose the Pope since it takes away control from China, and they oppose the Nobel for it making China look bad. Normally, countries like the US take it in stride.
So much for Deng's whitewash of government action by simply acting as a guard for semi-private entities.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The Chinese gov't is insanely powerful due to misguided patriotism.
Or Misguided in my point of view at least. However if I was a citizen of Shanghai or another wealthy city in China, it would fill me with a certain amount of pride to know that almost every economy on the planet depends on how well that country is doing,
The idea that people with economic prosperity will see their leaders as corrupt is like expecting U.S. citizens to be outraged over Gitmo
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Totally not worth the money, and produced under appalling conditions.
...US buys tons of Chinese-made goods at the expense of its working-class.
Nothing ever changes...
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I think it should go to China, as a whole. What other country or organization has done so much for peace?*
*Peace as defined by the Chinese government. Please check your Official 2011 Redefinition List for true definition. If you have lost your Official 2001 Redefinition List, please report to the nearest detention facility, and the problem will be corrected.
get prize of peace, feel price of war.
They simply just don't like people pointing the facts out. Nor do they like people finding out for themselves.
The people who want to see Slashdot won't be deterred by a ban by the Chinese government.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Confucius was once passing by Mount Tai, when he heard a woman, who was standing in front of a grave, wailing bitterly. He sent one of his disciples to enquire the reason. "By the sound of your lamentation," he said, "you seem to be afflicted by some grievous sorrow." The woman replied, "Yes, a tiger killed and devoured my father-in-law, and then my husband suffered the same fate. Now my son has been gobbled up by another tiger." Hearing this, Confucius asked her, "Then why don't you leave this place?" The woman answered, "Because here there is no tyrannical rule." Thereupon, Confucius turned to his disciples and said, "Keep this in mind, young fellows: tyranny is fiercer than a tiger."
We, the sophisticated western people would never do such a thing. Take a web site like that nasty wikileaks that is publishing our diplomatic small talk. We would never ever dream of kicking them from their hosters, cancel their bank accounts, block/ddos their web sites or imprison their founder.
Cross my heart...
... let peace prevail and we have peace all over China (freedom no, but peace it seems there is).
US, and the entire western world, buys Chinese goods at the expense of manufacturing jobs. Not everyone can work at Wal-Mart.
The existence of the censorship is a news story, as there are nations that don't make a point of plugging up dissent. At least, not as thuggishly or thoroughly as China.
Man who win Nobel prize behind bars values cake with file more.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I wonder what Confucious would think of
1) a peace prize in his honor
2) such a prize being given out under the direction of the current China leadership
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
No, because more manufacturing jobs have been lost to China than Wal Mart could possibly make up for.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If all the major internet routing hubs outside China started dropping packets coming from or going to Chinese IP addresses, I wonder how long it would take for the Chinese government to be on its knees begging for another chance? More significantly, I wonder how long it would take before the Chinese people would finally rise and demand that their government act like a civilized part of the internet community?
It would probably be at least as effective as those stupid “internet addiction” camps they make their youth attend. Give them a dose of their own medicine...
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
Are you saying that the US government is trying to supress freedom by setting up rape charges on its enemies?
OR are you saying we can get laid by upsetting the US? Someone give me a flag and some matches. I am going to get LAID!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
He who use my name for lame propaganda stunt, wake up with smelly fingers and look like fools.
So China is taking a cue from the United States and censoring websites it doesn't like, eh?
The working class buys cheap goods at the expense of itself you mean. If America restricted imports too much then you'd be complaining about that too.
which is totally what she said
Of course, I prefer the peace prize in its original Klingon text.
This isn't censorship. China are still letting the News sites say what they want, they're just not using THEIR infrastructure (the roads, telecoms, etc) to push stuff they don't like!
PLUS there is no US constitution in China, so therefore they can't break the rules (since the only source of law is, apparently, the US constitution to many slashdot posters).
If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.
They are being blocked as censorship, not protest. The PRC doesn't care what the BBC says, as long as the Chinese can't read things they don't want them to read.
All they have to do is host their own Peace prize and make Juilan Assange the winner.
Confucius Peace Prize? Bwahahahahaha!! Is China trying to get on South Park again?
THIS is why politicians like Lieberman wants an internet kill switch in the US
Too bad the US has made it d@mn hard for itself to complain over China's Internet restrictions ... all they can complain about now is how ineffective their own control over the Internet is ...
Well of course it is. China is basically a fascist state at this point, no matter what they call themselves.
This is atrocious ! The Chinese should rise up in armed revolt and establish a people's state. Oh wait...
CNN is not blocked. The CNN homepage doesn't pass the keyword filter currently, which may or may not be related to the prize, but any other page works just fine.
Seriously, when will the Chinese government learn?
Liu Xiaobo was a nobody, just one more dissident activist who wrote some pretty crazy stuff. Nobody outside of dissident circles gave a crap about Charter 08 or even heard of it before it got banned.
Xiaobo himself: He's crazy as far as dissidents go. He basically worships everything Western, and has basically advocated China becoming a Western colony. Noone inside of China would take most of his stuff seriously- yet China insists of giving him credibility as a dissident. He'd still be a nobody if they didn't give him so much publicity.
With this, he'll turn into another Dalai Lama, except that unlike the Dalai Lama, he (was) just a nobody convinced that everything Western is good and everything Chinese is bad. If they had just left Charter 08 alone, no problems, it would have been passed around to the usual crowd and quickly forgotten. Instead it has become a rallying point.
Sort of like the "My dad is Li Gang" stuff- instead of censoring the story, if they just let it out and then publicly castrated the fucker, everyone would have been happy.
They really need help with PR. Even when they do the right thing, hushing things up makes it look like they really are up to something. Even when the guy in question really does deserve to be imprisoned (under Chinese law, even if such laws are unjust).
As bad as the Chinese government's actions look to outsiders, we have to remember that ultimately all politics is local. The Chinese government doesn't care what we think only with staying in power at home. And how do you do that? By making sure that nothing riles up the billion plus Chinese citizens most of whom probably don't care much about foreign news outlets or peace prizes anyway. So why get them thinking about stuff like that which doesn't make money and can only cause disharmony? As for a Chinese version of the Peace Prize. I'm sure that will only be awarded to honorable (and safely controllable) Chinese citizens. Can't risk losing face to some gwai-loh who might brazenly refuse the prize. And most Chinese citizens would consider the prize an honor and good for career advancement in China. Again, good stuff for the locals.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
China's government can't take the criticism, so they go about their totalitarian ways and shut it off.
Nobody's been disappeared, executed, or harvested for organs in the US for the Wikileaks events. All those involved have more than the show trials that China gives often, and are not simply removed from existence.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Name a person that is executed, or harvested for organs due to the 08 Charter movement that Liu started.
Don't quote me on this.
China should give Noam Chomsky the Confucius prize for "being a courageous voice in a corrupt and hypocritical nation and having the temerity to call the US the best nation in the world". They should also learn to treat dissidents the American way: let them rant. Pay newspapers to criticise him subtly while praising him over a period of time. Sooner or later, they're gonna get called insane.
When you enter Liu Xiaobo into a Google search in mainland China you get- "This webpage is not available"
Face it China, you suck shit in some ways. Don't hide it, you are just shitty. The more you complain about this, the more light it casts on your shittyness. Vampire motherfuckers. PS: This FU is not to the people of China, but to the body of the government who imprisons them.
Henry Kissinger, Jasser Arafat, Obama... need I say more? I for one salute the Chinese for their efforts.