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China Blocks News Websites In Protest of Nobel

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the moral-victory dept.

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."

23 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. No appreciation for subtlety in China by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course, make sure they weren't bragging online about having sex with him days after the alleged "rape".

      --

      Technoli
    2. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by pitchpipe · · Score: 2

      China Blocks News Websites In Protest of Nobel

      Why is the Man alway trying to hold China down?! Give them a break. They're just exercising their right to free speech. Oh wait...

      --
      Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    3. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Is anyone even remotely willing to acknowledge the slightest possibility that Assange may be, in fact, a scumbag, and that raping women is just something that scumbags do?

      I'm willing to acknowledge the possibility ... but, these allegations, er, allegedly came about after the two women met up with one another and realized they'd both had unprotected sex with him and wanted him to get tested for STDs. The women (again, allegedly) didn't want him prosecuted.

      I seriously question if Interpol and the whole world would have been notified of this if this was anybody else.

      Are you willing to accept that the whole thing has escalated beyond a point that would have happened under any other circumstances and that this wasn't rape?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    4. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by Nadaka · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He is arguably a scumbag. But going from scumbag to rapist is a pretty big step. And considering the actual allegations? It is disrespectful to actual rape victims.

    5. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      I'm willing to acknowledge the possibility, yes. It's just interesting to me that people are willing to accept their own interpretations of events as fact.

      Huh? I've read probably 30 or 40 news stories trying to sift through what is being said by various sources on this one to try to get a handle on what is being reported. I'm not just sitting around saying "Oh, he did/didn't rape those women because that's what I want to believe".

      I don't think the allegations are character assassination -- I think the women legitimately did go to police, I just don't think the scale of the response of involving Interpol matches what would be happening for anybody else. I do question the underlying reasons for that. You don't call Interpol because someone wants someone they slept with to have an STD test.

      Some people will always cry conspiracy theory. And, equally, some people will always say that if the allegations have been made, they must be true. I don't agree with either standpoint.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    6. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by commodore64_love · · Score: 2

      This world's governments are going down the tube with their anti-free speech practices. And a lot of them are copying China as if that was the ideal model

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    7. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by moondawg14 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you were a Chinese citizen, you'd be so used to the idea, it wouldn't even make you flinch. I visited China during the run up to the 2008 Olympics. I was watching CNN international. The reporter started talking about China's "increased tranpsarency to the press" or whatever term they were using then. The screen went black for about 2 minutes. When the picture came back, the reporter was done. This happened several times over the 2 weeks I was there. I was dumbfounded. It's just a way of life. The Chinese just shrug their shoulders and go on.

    8. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Informative

      Let's put it that way, a LOT of things point towards this being a plot rather than him being a scumbag.

      1. The accusations happen only a few days after his organization starts publishing secret documents that quite a few countries (or rather, the governments of a few countries) would love to see disappear.
      2. The accusations are from a woman affiliated with the CIA.
      3. She first bragged about her night with Assange on her twitter page, then desperately tried to erase it when she suddenly decided it was rape.
      4. Swedish authorities did not want to talk with him while he was still in Sweden, even though he offered repeatedly to come willingly on his own for questioning.
      5. Suddenly when he left Sweden, an international arrest warrant was issued, nearly instantly. This must have been the fastest IAW in history over a kinda-sorta-serious allegation of maybe-rape. For varying degrees of rape, since I know no country aside of Sweden where fucking without a condom can be considered rape. Sidenote: Usually, if you try to get an IAW for something that is not a crime in at least most of the countries involved, don't bother trying. You won't get one. No chance, no way.

      The whole "rape" charge hinges on two feminists who fucked with Assange, not knowing that the other one fucked him too, then both got pissed when they found out that he fucked both of them and retaliated by calling it rape. Usually, as soon as a state attorney gets wind of such a "two dumped bitches" gambit, he drops the case faster than Assange dropped the bitches. Because he knows that any lawyer worth his salt will whack him left and right if he dares to pull something like this to court. But suddenly this is worth getting an international arrest warrant.

      In case someone here does not know the hassle normally involved in getting an IAW: It took me and our state law enforcement agency two weeks and a LOT of convincing paperwork to get a IAW for a person who we could PROVE was involved in fraud, extortion and blackmail, with a damage exceeding a million Euros. And here an IAW is suddenly pulled out of someone's ass for a kinda-sorta allegation of rape.

      Sorry, but believing that this is "real" gets harder by the nanosecond.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    9. Re:No appreciation for subtlety in China by clone52431 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And how did they compile that statistic?

      With all of the ridiculousness of how they decide that someone’s been raped, it’s not at all hard to believe. If you’re a woman and you get drunk and have sex with a drunk dude, you’ve been raped! If you’re a man and you get drunk and have sex with a drunk chick, you’re a rapist! The fact that neither of them feels like they were raped or a rapist (not to mention the double standard) is irrelevant... and they need to be re-educated to “properly” perceive what happened so that they can “deal with it”. Or something like that.

      It never occurs to these people that maybe having drunk sex doesn’t scar you emotionally like actual rape does and that people don’t need to “deal with it”.

      They make mountains out of molehills ... just because they think people need to climb a mountain to get over it. Oh, and it might also be partly because they make money by helping people climb mountains.

      And don’t for a minute think that I’m trivializing real rape. They are doing that.

      --
      Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
  2. Looks like Slashdot.... by BlueBoxSW.com · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... is looking to get itself banned...

    Seriously, when are we going to be honest about China's rise as an international bully?

    1. Re:Looks like Slashdot.... by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We'd have to be honest about the fact that the US is also an international bully first.

      --

      I write sci-fi for metalheads

    2. Re:Looks like Slashdot.... by interval1066 · · Score: 2

      It took 2 seconds for some idiot to turn this into an America Haters thread. Figures. If you're an American, your an idiot. Lets stick to the topic, shall we? Or will you also blame China's internment of Tibet on America too?

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    3. Re:Looks like Slashdot.... by nomadic · · Score: 2

      I just don't understand how you think that China shouldn't be criticized until the US is completely blameless; that would basically mean China has a free ride for eternity.

  3. Re:open source solves by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 2

    Oh wow. This is exactly what I've been looking for.

    Now all we need is a place to institute it.

    --

    Technoli
  4. Confucius Say.... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    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
  5. Re:This Is Not News by somersault · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, if you knew more details you'd know that this story involves them also "persuading" at least 18 other countries not to attend the presentation, and not letting the man's relatives collect the prize for him etc. It's more than just them censoring things in their own country this time. This is just an update on that story.

    It would be funny if it wasn't affecting so many peoples' lives. At least our own governments try to make their lies plausible and their political maneuvers relatively subtle.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  6. Wait a minute, what are you saying? by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2

    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.

  7. Re:Cancer - cut it off... damage - route around it by Tom · · Score: 2

    I was wondering what it'd take for the same people who yell "censorship!" whenever someone proposes to restrict traffic for political, copyright or other legal reasons to come around with their own version of it.

    Not routing to China is censorship based on political views, plain and simple.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  8. Confucius peace prize by kungfugleek · · Score: 2

    Of course, I prefer the peace prize in its original Klingon text.

  9. Lieberman is jealous by atheos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    THIS is why politicians like Lieberman wants an internet kill switch in the US

  10. BS - CNN not blocked by xnpu · · Score: 2

    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.

  11. Barbara Streisand Effect by vampire_baozi · · Score: 2

    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).