China Got Nervous, Now Says Will Censor Internet
Just like I mentioned in a previous post, we're about to see a real tussle between the broadcasters of this spectacle and a very jittery totalitarian system that's not used to scrutiny. It's not the internet access that will be the main bone of contention, it will more than likely be China's attempts to censor journalists' output.
China to limit Internet access in games
"Organizers of the 2008 Olympic Games say that access to the Internet by foreign journalists will be restricted during the games. The announcement is in contrast to an earlier pledge by Olympic organizers to soften China's Internet firewalls and press censorship. Kevan Gosper, the head of the press commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said he would take the matter up with Chinese authorities. Australian Olympic team chief, John Coates, also an IOC member, expressed frustration with the decision to continue to censor Internet access from inside China. "IOC President Jacques Rogge and Gosper would have very serious discussions with the Chinese authorities about the issue," Coates said."
Well, those talks sure straightened things out - IOC agreed to censorship
netcops can be so darned cute
China to limit Internet access in games
"Organizers of the 2008 Olympic Games say that access to the Internet by foreign journalists will be restricted during the games. The announcement is in contrast to an earlier pledge by Olympic organizers to soften China's Internet firewalls and press censorship. Kevan Gosper, the head of the press commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said he would take the matter up with Chinese authorities. Australian Olympic team chief, John Coates, also an IOC member, expressed frustration with the decision to continue to censor Internet access from inside China. "IOC President Jacques Rogge and Gosper would have very serious discussions with the Chinese authorities about the issue," Coates said."
Well, those talks sure straightened things out - IOC agreed to censorship
netcops can be so darned cute
posted by nolocontendere at 6:33 AM
3 Comments:
China is just going to produce more propaganda B. S. that no one in the world will buy.
I have to chuckle a little when people express surprise that China has stubbornly clung to authoritarianism. I mean, they STILL have Mao's portrait hanging in Tiananmen Square. So many people bought into the Wall Street horseshit that China will become a wonderful, freedom-loving land as long as we keep pumping capital into their country and they become more prosperous. No, they simply exchanged doctrinaire Marxism for state capitalism (i.e. fascism/national socialism), and have kept the old team colors of red and yellow.
Fascism is fascism, mth, but the happy face slapped on that totalitarian regime was only because of the deep dependency on them our overlords found themselves saddled with financially.
Anon - that's probably going to be the biggest news story of the games. There's one HUGE fact that no one is talking about, and that is the fact that China was ill equipped to face the onslaught of media scrutiny and will wind up looking like the world's laughingstock as they fumble around with their censorship and propaganda.
In hindsight it will probably have been a very bad mistake to have given Beijing this olympiad.
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