I was reading that the Chinese Government is to tighten its control on blogs.
According to Reuters, “the director of China’s General Administration of Press and Publication, Long Xinmin, said the administration was forming rules to further regulate Internet publishing, including the country’s legions of bloggers.”
The Chinese government blocked access to LiveJournal on March 2nd and it has a history of blocking Google’s Blogger.
According to GreatFireWallOfChina.org, China had blocked access to bloggingfusion.com on Monday, but a search today shows it as unblocked. The site also comes with the following disclaimer.
“This version 1.0 may report sites as being ‘blocked’, while there are only technical reasons for their unavailability.
It’s greatfirewallofchina.org’s aim to collaboratively build a community that will be able to visualize Internet censorship in an increasingly accurate way.”
Therefore it may of just been a technical glitch that showed us blocked.
John Chow has reported China doesn’t like him as GreatFireWallOfChina.org shows his domain as blocked.
What are your thoughts on this Chinese censorship?
If you liked this post, why not buy me a coffee?Technorati Tags: LiveJournal, Blogger, Chinese censorship
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8 responses so far ↓
Wrote: Mar 14, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Basically this just comes down to censorship, and while I believe the censorship is just not right, I think disputing it with the country of China is perhaps beyond me.
But to be honest with you, if China wants to censor websites, then it’s the netizens of China who should really be speaking out. Their business is theirs and not ours.
Wrote: Mar 14, 2007 at 6:45 pm
The same as thoughts on any censorship. The reason, and who does it affect and how. In this situation, it seems most of the censorship in question may be aimed at political blogs or people who are related to China in some specific manner.
Censorship; what is it? It’s the same thing we do when moderating comments. It is also the same thing we do when not not mentioning important details in a post. The thing that the government of China is doing is hurting many people, including the people who are being jailed because some companies are forced to hand over information, like Yahoo. Of course, companies can simply say “No, we cannot and will not give out the identity of the blogger who wrote about corruption in the Chinese government”, but doing that means losing business in China and losing support from the Chinese government. It then boils down to whether companies want to put up a big fight, or simply not take the side of individuals in certain situations in order to hopefully gain trust from such governments and thus have increased business in the long run.
Wrote: Mar 14, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I don’t know what they are so afraid of.
Wrote: Mar 15, 2007 at 12:58 am
Hammer, they are afraid of free thought and free will by the people.
I am not surprised that China censor’s a person’s private thoughts as well as the written word. They have been doing it a very long time.
The “netizens” of China cannot speak out. That is the whole point of their censorship. Do you think that China’s censorship applies only to the internet?
Maybe it is not our business but it should be our concern.
Wrote: Mar 16, 2007 at 7:35 pm
I just read somewhere that all the wordpress blogs a blocked. And I think we should be concerned if the Gov. doesn’t let view certain stuff, that’s the beginning of another Nazi Germany.
Wrote: Mar 16, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I’m not blocked in China Nick.
Wrote: Mar 16, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Nick, can you please elaborate more as to how this is going to be another Nazi Germany? I already know that this is bad, though I am trying to understand what you meant by your comment.
Thanks.
Wrote: Mar 19, 2007 at 9:06 am
Blocking isnt going to get the govt anywhere.. its just going to increase the number of hackers who are going to find a way out how to view the sites otherwise.
D