China Blocks YouTube Over Tibet Videos

Screaming Cactus writes "Internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the site. 'Chinese leaders encourage Internet use for education and business but use online filters to block access to material considered subversive or pornographic. Foreign Web sites run by news organizations and human rights groups are regularly blocked if they carry sensitive information. Operators of China-based online bulletin boards are required to monitor their content and enforce censorship.' The blocking added to the communist government's efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule."

psiphon

[hey]

Maybe you want to consider hosting psiphon server?
http://psiphon.civisec.org/ [civisec.org]

Unimpressed

[Forrest Kyle]

I remain unimpressed with George W. Bush's magic plan to spread democracy by borrowing billions of dollars from China and doing business with them whenever possible. Articles like this only reinforce this feeling, as if it needed reinforcing.

Re:China = Muslim?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not likely, religion is tightly controlled in China but it's kept on a tight leash so as not to become too big to threaten the authoritarian government. Even a group of a few hundred could be threatening to the 75 million member Chinese Communist Party.

Re:Why only Tibet?

[crianp]

Well all those countries you listed are Free which Tibet is not... simple as that, China has no historical claim over Tibet because as far as History goes, it was the Mongols who took Tibet and not the Chinese. The Dalai Lama is the designated leader and widely supported. The worst part about the whole Tibet situation is that the Chinese government have been moving in their supporters in the region so that Tibetans are now the minority.

Re:urgh

[slashkitty]

Even better is this article that describes the serf existance of most tibetans before the 1959 : http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html [michaelparenti.org]

Re:any chinese comments?

[Graftweed]

if we get some chinese comments, perhaps people here can translate them

Someone already did [blogs.com]:

For those living in the West who didn't realize that there's little sympathy for Tibet independence among ethnic Chinese in the PRC, this blog post on Global Voices [globalvoicesonline.org] will be a shocker. John Kennedy has translated chatter from Chinese blogs and chatrooms that generally runs along the lines of: those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us... where have we heard this before? Reuters has a roundup [washingtonpost.com] on the Washington Post that begins: "a look at Chinese blogs reveals a vitriolic outpouring of anger and nationalism directed against Tibetans and the West." (...)

"Davesgonechina" at the Tenement Palm blog has been translating the chatter coming from Chinese netizens on Fanfou and Jiwai - Chinese versions of Twitter. Click here [blogspot.com], here [blogspot.com], and here [blogspot.com], specifically. Dave has done more than translate: he points out that this Tibet situation is a real challenge to all people who believe that the Internet can help foster free speech and bring about better global understanding. Here is his challenge to all of us [blogspot.com]...

The above info, plus a great deal of other material well worth spending the time to read, was aggregated [boingboing.net] by boingboing's Xeni Jardin, who since this situation has erupted in Tibet has kept a close eye on the whole thing and provided some very good info like the above mentioned post.

Re:craziness

[blind biker]

I can't believe it completely myself - to be exact, I can't believe the degree people allow to be brainwashed. I have a few chinese colleagues at the uni, and it's extremely interesting that otherwise intelligent people believe things that a few minutes of autonomous research could easily dispel.

Anyway, did my modding there, now I have to wait.

Re:How long...

[imkow]

thanks for the info. actually, there is a chinese version of slashdot, called http://solidot.org/ [solidot.org] Solidot,or Qi-Ke(strange vistor) website..
the news on it is not up-to-date like here..and commentors also are fewer than here. that's why it not well known to many of my folks.

Re:Is blocking even necessary?

[empaler]

I would like to recommend to you the documentary Manufacturing Consent [google.com] for a levelheaded insight into how we have gotten to the media picture we have today. Interesting, and if not agreeable, at least insightful.

you probably talked to Han Chinese

[Trepidity]

Especially in the western regions, Chinese authoritarianism is mainly directed at preserving Han-Chinese supremacy over separatism among other ethnic groups, such as the Tibetans (in Tibet) and Turkic groups (in Xinjiang). This involves both the sort of direct control and suppression we see here, and more subtly and long-term, a program of sending Han Chinese settlers into those regions to dilute the non-Han majority.

As you might expect, you get different views on this issue if you talk to Han vs. non-Han Chinese citizens.

Not accurate....

[gzipped_tar]

In fact, YouTube had been banned even before Sunday in China. Since the Icelandic singer Björk's gave her live performance in Shanghai lastweek, singing a song "Declaring Independence" with the cry "Tibet! Tibe!", the trouble with YouTube began.

I haven't checked the TFA from Wired though. It seemed to be banned also. (I'm here in China.)

Re:Why only Tibet?

[MechaStreisand]

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. - The Dalai Lama, 2001"

What is wrong with that? Are you saying it's not reasonable for someone to defend themselves?

And interestingly, he apparently wants to kill off retarded children:

Of course, abortion, from a Buddhist viewpoint, is an act of killing and is negative, generally speaking. But it depends on the circumstances. If the unborn child will be retarded or if the birth will create serious problems for the parent, these are cases where there can be an exception. I think abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance. - The Dalai Lama, to the New York Times.

That's not killing off retarded children, that's potentially aborting fetuses that would grow up to be retarded. That's something that a lot of reasonable people would do. You are deliberately misrepresenting what he said.

Re:urgh

[urbazewski]

A rebuttal of Parenti's warmed-over Maoist fantasies about the "liberation" of Tibet: A Lie Repeated - The Far Left's Flawed History of Tibet [studentsfo...etibet.org]

The core problem with Parenti's position is that it is simply at odds with the statements, testimony, and shared history of the Tibetan people themselves - the people Parenti is supposedly defending. The view of Tibet that Parenti ascribes to has been commonly put forward by Chinese government officials - particularly the ones in the ministry of propaganda. Once upon a time it was a view embraced by a handful of British historians - most of them turn of the century explorers and colonists in their own right. But it has always been an outsider's view, completely divorced from the reality of how Tibetans of all walks of life view their own society and their own history. ...

For the most part, Parenti and the handful of historians who have adopted the view of old Tibet as a despotic feudal theocracy have had little if no contact with actual Tibetans either in or outside Tibet. Therefore, they have no real way of gauging the sentiments of the Tibetan people....

...the true testament to the fact that Tibetans have been far from content under Chinese rule lie in the actions of the people themselves. Ever since the Chinese invasion and occupation there has been substantial popular resistance to Chinese rule in Tibet. This resistance has taken many forms over the years - leafleting, public demonstration, mass non-cooperation, economic boycott, and armed uprising are all forms of protest have been practiced by Tibetans inside Tibet, at the risk of their own lives.

The Chinese government has faced phenomenal opposition from the Tibetan people, certainly far more opposition than the Lhasa government ever faced from its own population, which does not do much to further the argument that 'old Tibet' was a terribly repressive society. Nor does the fact that Tibetan refugees continue pour out of Tibet at a rate never seen prior to 1959. In a classic case of uninformed conjecture, Parenti supposes that Tibetan refugees never left prior to 1959 because the 'systems of control' were so deep and that Tibetans were 'afraid of amputation'. Any quick glance at a map of Tibet, with its vast, unpatrolable borders, or any basic knowledge of the structure of Tibetan society would quickly reveal that Tibetans - should they have wanted to escape their 'feudal masters' - would have had little problem doing so.