Chinese Internet Firms Punished For Permitting Spread Of Political Rumors 75
First time accepted submitter rover42 writes "Major Chinese sites Sina and Webo 'have been legally punished for permitting the spread of unfounded rumors. Specifically, the report cites unfounded rumors that were spreading like wildfire on Sina Weibo of an attempted coup d'etat happening in Beijing.' The source is the state-run Xinhua." Sadly for the people of China (even if they like it this way), this seems to be in line with the Chinese government's general attitude toward the Internet.
Slightly inaccurate post (Score:4, Informative)
"Weibo" is the name of Sina's microblogging service ("Sina Weibo") and also the Chinese word for "microblogging." Tencent Microblog and other sites have also come under fire and restricted commenting today.
The crackdown has been a long time coming, as Sina and Tencent, among other online microblogging sites, have basically said that they would be laxer than the government would like in cracking down on online discussion, mostly as a way of building their user bases.
More information about the crackdown and the reaction is at http://www.rectified.name/2012/03/31/and-the-reaction-becomes-the-story/.
Re:Public opinion in china is an oxymoron. (Score:3, Informative)
"That domination is complete in China. Everything is censored, controlled, tweaked, threatened, bullied, or groupthinked into "order".... The chinese neither like nor dislike it. They have no right to an opinion either way."
This is utter and complete bullshit. I'm an American professor of history, and was in China no more than two weeks ago. I had frequent, open exchanges about politics, economics, society, the Communist Party, Hu Jintao, his likely successor, and even Tiananmen Square with numerous Chinese.
Stop making shit up about China and the Chinese to fit your own agenda.