state media's being mum about the whole thing, as expected. Hoping to keep anyone from actually knowing.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Hoping to keep anyone from actually knowing.
Not really. As even your article says, they're already covering it with their own spin.
The idea is to get their version of the story out before Hong Kong media/social media/word-of-mouth does so that they can control the narrative.
(Which isn't to say that its better or worse, but it is worth being precise so that one has a better understanding of what one is fighting, in order to counter it more effectively)
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They've been remotely shutting off people's phones if they text about it or try to spread the news. They've been all over the Chinese twitter-clones too. The scale of their censorship is actually quite impressive. Last I checked Chinese citizens were using the word 'powder keg' instead of the the laureate's name to spread the news.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Hoping to keep anyone from actually knowing.
Not really. As even your article says, they're already covering it with their own spin.
The chinese media is blatantly trying to prevent people from knowing what is happening with Liu or his wife.
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posted
Only superficially. It is precisely that kind of analysis that will backfire on Western attempts to help out. The strategy is a lot more complicated than that and has been compared by better informed activists as "flood management" as opposed to an actual block.
quote:Reliance on the term "great firewall of China" causes outsiders (especially Americans and Western Europeans) to think mistakenly that the main battle that needs to be fought in order to bring freedom of speech to the Chinese people is to "tear down that wall" - and enable all the good stuff (i.e. "truth") from the outside to get in. The reality, of course, is much more complicated. As anybody who studies (or experiences) Chinese Internet censorship can tell you, the system that filters or blocks external websites from internal view (which in itself is imperfect and full of holes) is only one part of a complex set of mechanisms - and social behaviors - that actually determine how much "free speech" Chinese internet users manage to have or not have. There is a vast system of internal censorship, mainly carried out by the private sector, as well as the seeding of online conversations to encourage them in certain directions and not others. There are also the nationalist "angry youths," there is cyber-bullying, there are flame wars, and "human flesh search engines" (cyber-vigilantes)... not to mention all kinds of porn and rampant distribution of copyrighted works.
Tsui argues that the "great firewall" metaphor has governed U.S. information policy to such a degree that it leads to policies that do not fit well with China's reality, and thus are unlikely to be successful if not counterproductive. He cites the Global Online Freedom Act and its predecessors as one particular example.
quote:... our "all star" panel of Chinese journalists and editors. Dr. Li Yonggang formerly of Nanjing and now at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, whose influential scholarly website "Horizons of Thought" was shut down after 13 months in operation, said he thinks the government's efforts to "manage" the Internet can be best described as a hydro-electric or water-management project. China's current crop of leaders come primarily from a technocratic, engineering background, and thus they apply their engineers' perspective to governance. If you approach Internet management in this way, the system has two main roles: managing water flows and distribution so that everybody who needs some gets some, and managing droughts and floods - which if not managed well will endanger the government's power.
That was two years ago and it's only more efficient now. For example, seeding of pro-government views has already occurred (and been translated!).
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Only superficially.
Well, no. Actually. I know they know that it's a stall rather than a complete block, but it's very easy to look at xinhua and see a complete block on reporting on his nobel prize. That's all that I'm presenting as-is.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: ... it's very easy to look at xinhua and see a complete block on reporting on his nobel prize.
Wrong. And from your own article no less:
quote:Those Chinese media that did make mention of the award ran only a small article from the official Xinhua news wire that quoted a foreign ministry official saying the award could hurt ties between Beijing and Oslo.
posted
Welp, I guess that's what I get for saying 'complete block' after saying I knew they knew it wasn't a complete block.
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