China Continues to Shut Down Video Sites

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It's not just YouTube that's blocked in China. After the unrest in Tibet, at least 25 video sharing sites have been shut down and others have been penalized. While the Chinese government is not admitting that violence in Tibet had anything to do with it, they do have a sudden interest in strictly enforcing licensing restrictions that require video sharing websites to register with the government. Among other things, Chinese video sharing sites must promise not to show videos that inspire fear, contain pornography, or endanger national security."

It's not YouTube, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I seem to remember someone claiming that the Abu Gharib photos endangered US National Security...

It should also be noted...

[rindeee]

I posted the following info on a previous thread a few days ago, but it was long enough after the story had been posted that it got buried. Anyway, because I believe that it's significant, I will again point out that Google would seem to be coalescing to the wishes of governments such as China. Google's automated the process of blocking particular videos in particular countries via new country blocking XML tags ([media :restriction type="country" relationship="deny">CN]") that they've added in YouTube/Google Video. If you're not familiar with Google's latest (Do no evil???) addition to YouTube, see the write-up that YouTomb did on the matter. Anyway, I can think of no other reason that Google would add in such capability, but I've admittedly not devoted much time to pondering it.

Re:long live Tor

[gzipped_tar]

In Beijing, many of the TOR nodes are operated by the govn't.

Re:It should also be noted...

[hayagriva]

True, but not new. I've been in China since 2004. Every time I've clicked on a Google Video link, it hasn't been blocked by China, but it's never worked. They're very nice about it, though: "Thanks for your interest in Google Video. Currently, the playback feature of Google Video isn't available in your country. We hope to make this feature available more widely in the future, and we really appreciate your patience." Do no evil, or, if you have to, be polite about it?

Proof that rule by a few elite results in stupidty

[CrazyJim1]

China is fighting unarmed(or lightly armed) monks in clear view of the world. While they can censor their own media, everyone else sees China as a bully. The Dali-Lama is actually being given an amplified voice. I sincerely do not believe that China wants the person they're trying to repress be given a bigger soap box, but that is what is happening in reality.

Re:China fatigue...

[Sepiraph]

There is some truth to that, as much as we like to think what a particular country's government should be, ultimately it is up to its people to decide their own fate. While the (perhaps ignorant) individual may not consciously think of how their country should be governed, the mass which makes up the society as a whole does ultimately, whether consciously or not, ended up dictating the type of government that it deems unacceptable (at least in the sense that they would rather live with the government than revoke against it).

You see, the U.S. people got their freedom as their British ancestors who immigrated to North America decided to revoke against its government for paying too much tax (they had the geographical advantage of having an ocean divde), and the French followed similar course of action (their people were desperate). Their people, as a whole, paid its due for the price of freedom and fought through it. However, it should be noted that each culture and nation has its own unique situation. In the case of China, ultimately it'd be up to its citizens to decide.

Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The real issue is that over the next 5 years, this will get worse, not better. As it does, the leadership will want to hold on to their country (and their position). They KNOW that their citizens are a much bigger threat to them than any other nation. So what will happen? They will take the fight out of the country and go elsewhere. IOW, they will attack another country. It could be taiwain. It could also be a country like Russia (great resources for them) and a fairly easy target if they blitz it. But make no mistake. Chinese leadership will have to do something. And it is very doubtful that they will do a number of attacks on the local citizens. Far better to wipe them up into attacking somebody else. Perhaps allow a sky scraper to be taken out by some other group of people, or even bring it down themselves and blame others.

Re:Proof that rule by a few elite results in stupi

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

I spend a lot of time in China. The Chinese media is actually portraying the monks as aggressive "counter-revolutionary" types. The language is similar to what you see western press doling out to Al Qaeda. The typical educated Chinese (I happen to be in Beijing) is buying into it because that is what they see and hear from the "news" on a regular basis. The deaths of civilians is being blamed on them too. Apparently, all the dead civilians "burned to death" even though there is gunfire all over the city. The westerners just roll their eyes.

Re:China fatigue...

[matria]

We might also consider the difference between lightly armed civilians attempting to fight armies armed with horses and muskets and swords, and these same civilians attempting to fight armies armed with tanks, jets and helicopters and modern mass killing weapons.

When your whole neighborhood can be flattened with one rocket, it's kind of hard to do much. I seem to recall reports of our late unlamented friend Saddam using chemical weapons against rebels. How do you fight against that kind of thing being used against your wives and kids?

Re:It's a Buddhist phrase (and philosophy)

[aedan]

The London Labour government tried to placate Scotland with a devolved parliament 10 years ago. Their stated aim was to spike the nationalist guns. We now have a Scottish Nationalist Party government here and things are moving along nicely.

Spread a little thought-provoking happiness

[Anonymous Bullard]

Does this [stage6.com] link work from behind the Chinese Communist Party's firewall?

This [phayul.com] one's certainly blocked since it belongs to exiled Tibetans' domain which has for years been under heavy attacks by the CCP's electronic warfare corps.

Since the biggest problem with China is that the masses simply don't know anything else other than the "information" managed by the Party's Ministry of Propaganda, it is imperative that the West begins to pay more attention to the right of the Chinese people to access news sources outside their regime's control. It'd be a start if the US and the EU would not just approve of but actually promote the creation of peer-to-peer filesharing and streaming sites. Strangely, most of the current p2p streaming sites seem to operate from China and Taiwan, but they're strictly centered around "harmless" stuff like sports, entertainment and local dramas without a whiff of anything resembling social or political content.

knowledge begets knowledge....

[3seas]

... and specific knowledge begets its own increase.

I find it interesting that it appears that most of the sites that point to pages that were installed on my site without my knowledge (just under 2500 pages), are Chinese in origin.

google "threeseas.net" then google 'threeseas .net -"blogger/log/cache"' and see the different in result count. and look at what sites are pointing to those hacked in pages.

It seems the Chinese people are bored and have taken up internet hacking for censorship as a hobby. And hey, even their government is doing it.

What are the effects such hacking has thru AUTOMATED crawlers and AUTOMATED analysis of search engines like google?

Watch as google finds more and more of these pages "not found" on my site (as I have removed them and redirected all hits to those pages) and google finds redirection.... to eventually reduce my legitimate listing in their search results.

Imagine that, Chinese site hacking reducing search results of sites in other countries for the citizens of other countries.

Google and other search engine companies have things they really need to deal with regarding such indirect manipulation of their automated systems.

Until they get a better handle on it, there are far bigger and wider scope issues regarding Chinese censorship then what the article is about.

Re:Everyone Says "Fuck China"

[vertinox]

Heck, last time I was in Target shopping with my significant other, I was bored out of my mind so I decided to play a game called "Find something not made in China" it took me 30 minutes or so until I found a candle holder made in India.

Everything else was made in China.

Re:What is wrong with the IOC

[Machtyn]

Interesting you point out Nazi Germany and Commmunist Russia. Both goverments fell within 10 years of hosting the games. Perhaps the IOC knows more than we might think.

/not holding breath.