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US Gov't Pushing News Through China's Great Firewall

Posted by Soulskill on from the we-shouldn't-suffer-through-our-media-alone dept.

eldavojohn writes "The US government's Broadcasting Board of Governors has revealed in a completed FOIA request the development, testing and planned use of Feed Over E-mail (FOE) to push news through China's firewall. This FOIA request (PDF) indicates that the US government is interested in making sure Chinese people receive up-to-date news, and it wants to expand the arsenal of anti-censorship tools (for news at least). The FOE project is GPLv3 and maintained by Sho Ho of BBG."

6 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. OSS propaganda is good? by Nikker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Does making it FOSS make pushing one countries point of view make it right?

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    A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
    1. Re:OSS propaganda is good? by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      OK, let's get this out of the way: if a private citizen advocates for 1) freedom of expression 2) accountability of governments to their citizens and 3) some other basic human rights, and sets up a FOSS software project to advocate these things to people living under statist governments, is it good? If his government does the same thing, is it bad? It's the messenger AND the message that distinguishes good from bad, not just a question of who's doing the talking.

    2. Re:OSS propaganda is good? by phoomp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Censorship by the American Government isn't that far fetched of an idea ... if you take the blinders off for a moment. What if the Internet Kill Switch proposal goes through, something happens to make the US government decide to disconnect Americans from the Internet and China offers a tool to help Americans reconnect to the 'Net?

  2. F.O.E. by Emperor+BMA · · Score: 3, Funny

    > The FOE project is GPLv3 and maintained by Sho Ho of BBG.

    Even in your internets... FOE

  3. Isnt it ironic. by unity100 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that american govt is so sensitive about freedom of information of chinese people, whereas trying to censor/suppress anything that wikileaks discloses about american government, to american people ?

    question was rhetorical. it is ironic.

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  4. Waste of US tax payer money by hackingbear · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They had "success" in testing simply because nobody is using this. There are thousands other ways to do the same if only you and the few recipients know the route. Chinese government does not worry the information getting it, today you can read CNN or many other English sites in China unrestricted; they worry the information being spread to wide population and cause social unrest, like in Egypt. If it can ever be popular among to millions of people, say a lot more than the number of people using proxies or reading English news over there, they can find way to shut it down and it will be shut it down.