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China Blocking Access to Google News Site 451

Posted by timothy from the backyard-smelters-and-now-this dept.
loconet writes "BBC and Reuters are reporting that China is blocking access to the Web site Google News according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. The organisation also accused Google of being complicit by filtering its Chinese-language site." From Reuters' version of the story: "The Paris-based group said the government had been blocking Google's English-language news Web site for about 10 days, after the company launched a Chinese-language version that removed politically sensitive reports."
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China Blocking Access to Google News Site More

China Blocking Access to Google News Site

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  • Backyard smelters (Score:3, Informative)

    by panxerox ( 575545 ) * on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:13AM (#10960527)
    Ahh the great leap forward [umd.edu] kinda sounds like the Chinese equivalent of the 90's tech bubble (although the tech bubble didn't have that whole widespread famine thing)

    • I find it highly dubious that this was marked flamebait when it's merely explaining a reference from the headline! I would make far unkinder comparisons than holding the GLF to the dot com bubble.

      YLFI

  • Shame on Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dshaw858 ( 828072 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:14AM (#10960535) Homepage Journal
    I have to say, I'm pretty disappointed in Google making a "local" version of their news feeder for China. It's not local news, it's censored news. That doesn't sound like the Google I know and love.

    - dshaw

    • Re:Shame on Google (Score:4, Insightful)

      by krbvroc1 ( 725200 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:23AM (#10960587)
      Its pretty sad. It seems most businesses are willing to look the other way, deal with a communist regime, and even lobby for China--all in the name of 'getting a foot in the door of the largest growth market opportunity'. What I think these folks are missing is that China doesn't care. They'll use us for a time, but in the end they will control things internally the way they want.
      • It's not googles' fault China is tight so fisted with the media and it's not its responsibility to change that, that is up to the chinese people. Just like we don't like our views imposed on us, please allow the chinese the same respect.

        • Re:Shame on Google (Score:3, Insightful)

          by krbvroc1 ( 725200 )
          How is it up to the Chinese people? They live under a Communist system. It is not a Democracy. There is a difference between 'imposing our views' and human rights. For those of us in the US who voted for 'Moral Values' as a significant issues in the recent election...think....

          • Re:Shame on Google (Score:2, Insightful)

            by klubkid79 ( 792253 )
            The point of view I was trying to express could be viewed metaphorically, what if a group of Iraqi soldiers drove onto a US military base and told everybody they were free and no longer had to suffer under a democratic government.

            Such a liberal application of freedom of speech in China might have catastrophic consequences, undoubtedly the civil war that could erupt would spill over into many neighboring countries. Just as distributing pornography out in US schools in the name of free speech isn't a terrib

      • !HA (Score:2)

        by starm_ ( 573321 )
        Now you know how the rest of the world feels about the US.

      • Isolationism is powerlessness (Score:5, Insightful)

        by poptones ( 653660 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:56AM (#10960747) Journal
        Method a: we refuse to deal with china. China remains a thid world country with no middle class, few trade partners, and a growing population of pissed off peasants. They have rockets, missiles, nuclear bombs - and then they revert to civil war. And unlike those poissant countries we're been meddling in for decades, "liberation" is not an option here, lest we lose NYC and LA in giant red clouds. Meanwhile we lose completely Japan, Taiwan, and dozens of other trade partners who now find themselves in the middle of a war zone.

        Method b: we make china a trade partner, export as much of our culture as we can, and china becomes a nation of the fastest rising middle class in the world. Even if it's only a 30% middle class that's still more middle class citizens than there are people in the entire US. They pick the best of these new influences, and evolve their own governance through peaceful means - lest they face sanctions and risk losing all that new wealth and comfort.

        Which way do you think is better for world stability?

        China's affairs are their own. Everyone dies - even dynasties. Let them take the best from western culture and evolve their own ideals about liberty and freedom.
        • Method a: we refuse to deal with china. China remains a thid world country with no middle class, few trade partners, and a growing population of pissed off peasants. They have rockets, missiles, nuclear bombs - and then they revert to civil war. And unlike those poissant countries we're been meddling in for decades, "liberation" is not an option here, lest we lose NYC and LA in giant red clouds. Meanwhile we lose completely Japan, Taiwan, and dozens of other trade partners who now find themselves in the mid

        • Re:Isolationism is powerlessness (Score:5, Insightful)

          by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:51AM (#10961158)
          You do have a point. Some cultures for one reason or another are not ready to embrace American style democracy.

          Look at the people of Iraq, and how they have embraced their liberation. It makes you wonder if they want to go back to days of Saddam.

          And for those that criticize me and say that it's not the general population that is causing problems in Iraq, the fact is the general population is giving refuge to the insurgents, rather than chasing them out of their neighborhoods and mosques (where the US army is increasingly finding large caches of weapons). Or we wouldn't be having the second most marines killed in one month (November). Not to mention that the airwaves are filled with "let's hate America" programming.

          There are over 1 billion people in China. If they all were to get mad at once they could overthrow the government in one breath.

          The problem is the graft runs so deep that everybody looks the other way.

          Sort of like here in the US.
          • The diffrence between Iraq and China is that in Iraq, this change in culture is being forced down by the sheer might of the US army in a relatively short time.

            In China, things are going slowly and progressively.

            The way to fight the radicals in ideology (be it political, religious etc) is not to forcefully replace those in charge, but to slowly influence away their followers.

            There is an inertia that needs to be counteracted when changing cultures, and just like physical objects, rapidly counteracting iner

          • Re:Isolationism is powerlessness (Score:4, Informative)

            by glesga_kiss ( 596639 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:18PM (#10964281)

            Some cultures for one reason or another are not ready to embrace American style democracy.

            Look at the people of Iraq, and how they have embraced their liberation. It makes you wonder if they want to go back to days of Saddam.

            It has nothing to do with that. You invaded their country under false pretences, killed over 15,000 innocent people (non-combatants), god knows how may combatants as well.

            Their hatred has nothing to do with their thoughts on democracy. The US has completely destroyed their country. You've turned it into a relavively sane state in the middle east, into a hotbed of racist and religious violence. There weren't any Al-Qaida in Iraq prior to the war, now it's a magnet for anyone with a desire to fight.

            As Bush said, "you're either with us or against us". And from the Iraqi in the street, who's lost 50% of their family, who's lost what little facitilites they had (even health care is still much worse than it was under Saddam), who's lived in a war zone for months, who's had friends sexually molested and raped by soldiers; are you really going to consider the US a friend?

            9-11 was mainland America's only taste of what it's like to be attacked by a foreign aggressor. Why can't you see that others, such as the Iraqis', feel the exact same way when YOU attack them? Honestly, it's fucking unbelievable how stupid this is. I don't care who the leader of my country is, if you start chucking explosives at me and my family, I'm going to come hunting you. And as you'll have the superiour manpower and weaponry, it'll be hit & run insurgent attacks. This was all so predictable, even in the early days an attack being discussed.

            Acting surprised is not an option. Your leaders either knew this was coming, or they are moronic. Read some history; nothing that has happened in Iraq came as a surprise to anyone. War is not a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

        • Re:Isolationism is powerlessness (Score:5, Insightful)

          by jandersen ( 462034 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @04:37AM (#10961536)
          Hey, wake up mate.

          China is no longer just 'a third world country', and as opposed to USA they don't have a proven track record of aggression and meddling in other countries' affairs. America is already trying to shut out China, and has been for years, but the world is more and bigger than America, fortunately.

          So in reality it is the other way round:

          1. America continues to shut the rest of the world out and slides further down towards becoming a 'third world nation'.

          or

          2. Americans get their act together, open their eyes to their own failings and weaknesses, clean out the corruption, take away the ridiculous amount of power held by big business and religious extremists, and grow up to become a TRUE democracy.

          No I don't believe you will be able to either.

        • Then appeasement is just plain dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by zanderredux ( 564003 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @08:04AM (#10962176)
          The argument in Method b suggests some kind of appeasement approach towards China: we do not irritate them and they will become fair player in the world scene, because once they attain a significant level of comfort (due to economic improvement), it will be harder for the Chinese not to play nicely given the risk of sanctions.

          If I may abuse the parallel, wasn't exactly this what France did to Nazi Germany? I mean, France won WW1 and they pushed the Versailles Treatise down German throats. One of its provisions was to make sure Germany would not develop a military force. After a while, Hilter began to restructure German armed forces. France knew this was happening and could enforce the Versailles Treatise but decided to step back and just warn Hitler. That's appeasement -- trying to use a peaceful and submissive solution for a big problem and is still getting bigger. After a while, abuses were beginning to show up, but France thought if they just pointed the errors, eventually Hilter would stop with it. Nope.

          So, lets see what would be a more realistic Method c (given the situation described in Method b): China actually becomes a huge, immense trade partner and begins to realize its own importance and start to push Chinese values into the world.

          For example, the US has pushed democracy and freedom (with varying degrees of success) into other countries. China finds this unnecessary or obsolete and starts to preach that such liberties should be restrained.

          Another Chinese value: attitude towards press. The US also find important important to have a free press -- a sine qua non condition for a working democracy. Since China determined that democracy actually hurts their commercial interests worldwide (see previous paragraph), China uses its influence to restrain press.

          Let's get this straight: Method b is naive. If China gets the opportunity to use its newly found economic - and military - power to interfere in other countries to get away from the risk of being subject to sanctions mentioned in Method b, they will do. The US has been doing this since WW2, the argument to convince American opinion was that something - any perceived threat - from other countries could mess up with the American Way of Life. I also do not remember one single occasion when the US was threatened by an economic sanction.

          The UK did it (defend its interests) during Industrial Revolution. France did this with Napoleon and his Continental Blockade. Heck, even Romans did it.

          Expect China to protect firecely its Chinese Way of Life and to export it, eventually.

      • Re:Shame on Google (Score:4, Insightful)

        by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @01:58AM (#10960989)
        I am sorry but US hides news equally as much as China. All nations do it. Except it's easier to hide news among a population where sports pages are read more than frontpages.

        U.S news are often delayed, sometimes you can go to ctv.ca (common canadian site) to get news first. Most of the time the news is selectively picked for the general public. Half the time, certain news are picked cause they generate better ratings.

        Just remember, many foreign websites disclosed about the Iraq prisoner abuse first. The fact that U.S waited so long before they broadcasted this... shows that we are equally as selective as China.

        • I am sorry but US hides news equally as much as China.

          Suggestion for you: save up a few dollars and travel the world a bit. You will see how absolutely and completely not grounded in reality your post is.

          At the risk of stating what is blatantly obvious to everybody else:

          • government censorship of news is completely different than editorial decisionmaking in a free press.
          • in china, if you want to write something critical of the government, then you best be prepared to spend some time in prison. in th

    • Re:Shame on Google (Score:4, Interesting)

      by skids ( 119237 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:25AM (#10960596) Homepage
      I'm no real googlephile, but I'd take a moment to think about it for a bit. If China was going to block a news site you owned entirely, unless you provided a censored version, it's not like you could do anything to stop them.

      So you have to decide whether your service is still going to do some good to the people over there even if it is censored.

      I only hope Google has enough social conscience to find a sneaky way to hint to users over there that they are not getting the whole story. I could see if you provide a service that gives people the impression of uncensored impartiality while doing the censoring, then maybe in that case you are doing more harm than good, and just being censored entirely would be better.

      • "Don't be evil." (Score:2, Insightful)

        by acidrain ( 35064 )
        Collaboration with an evil is as good as being evil. Sorry Google. Perhaps we could add an additional meaning to the phrase "to google?" Activities like talking endlessly about how good you are, and then silently supporting the worlds largest oppressive regime would fall into that category. It is almost like bad science fiction. There is no excuse for enabling oppression. I don't care about markets. This gives the average Chinese citizen the impression that the rest of the world (e.g. google) supports

        • Re:"Don't be evil." (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pnuema ( 523776 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @01:47AM (#10960939)
          Collaboration with an evil is as good as being evil. Sorry Google. Perhaps we could add an additional meaning to the phrase "to google?" Activities like talking endlessly about how good you are, and then silently supporting the worlds largest oppressive regime would fall into that category. It is almost like bad science fiction. There is no excuse for enabling oppression. I don't care about markets. This gives the average Chinese citizen the impression that the rest of the world (e.g. google) supports their intellectual imprisonment. Conversely, having a site like google firewalled would underline the level of their oppression.

          In the world that I live in there is this thing called compromise. And Big-Picture world view. Principles and ideology are great, but in the real world they often get in the way of doing the right thing.

          Any coward can die for what he believes in. It is easy to die. Its much harder to live and bear the burden of compromising your principles for what you know is a long term good. Trading with China is short-term bad, long-term probably a whole lot better than the alternative.

          This is why idealists tend to be young. They aren't old enough to have had to compromise.

          Google is smart enough to start small. You can't win if you don't play. Good for them.

        • Re:"Don't be evil." (Score:5, Insightful)

          by shirai ( 42309 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:03AM (#10961018) Homepage
          The news is going to be censored whether or not Google decides to remove politically sensitive news or not. If they don't remove it, ALL of Google news is censored. If they remove part of, then yes, those parts will be censored.

          But don't mix up the bad guys. The real bad guy here is the Chinese government, not Google.

          I know this is unpopular with many Slashdot readers and often, these sorts of posts got modded as trolls, but why are corporations so quickly and easily linked to *evil* and get modded up? It's rare and hard to take the side that perhaps corporations aren't evil while still being profit motivated without being modded down. It seems to me that branding corporations as evil is somehow popular and, regrettably, posts like this are often unpopular.

        • Re:"Don't be evil." (Score:3, Insightful)

          by MMaestro ( 585010 )
          Collaboration with an evil is as good as being evil.

          The Americans and British collaborated with Stalin and Russia during World War II, but I don't see people saying 'FDR and Churchill sent those poor defending German soldiers to die in the gulags! They're as evil as Stalin!'

          Sometimes you just gotta take one of two evils. Either work with Communist Stalin or risk letting Hitler take all of Europe. Or in this case, work with Communist China or risk a civil war erupting in a country with NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

    • Re:Shame on Google (Score:5, Informative)

      by skraps ( 650379 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:27AM (#10960601)
      If this is anything like their censoring of the regular web search, then it's not as bad as you think.

      For the chinese web search, they remove listings that are unreachable from China. China's internet is filtered, regardless of anything Google does. Google simply saved the chinese users' time by hiding the links to content that they can't access anyway.

      • I'm sure the repressed Chinese appreciate not being bothered by getting to see the results to their illicit queries.
      • I'm sure google cache is not blocked by the great firewall of china, otherwise google itself would be blocked. So yeah google is not just filtering out "blocked" sites, it is effectively filtering out content.

      • For the chinese web search, they remove listings that are unreachable from China. China's internet is filtered, regardless of anything Google does. Google simply saved the chinese users' time by hiding the links to content that they can't access anyway.

        I think that's a fairly shallow way of looking at it. There is important information conveyed when one learns that there are sites (search results) that one is not allowed to reach. Put another way, there's a difference in the ideas you get in your hea

      • It's (apparently) called "open-proxy servers" and it's a way by which our network-proficient Chinese brethren apparently access censored websites.

        While I fully understand the business compulsions Google operates, I think Google, of all companies, can definitely do better than this; they can, at the very least, give a non-obvious link to this third-party site [harvard.edu]. I mean, that's what they did with DMCA [harvard.edu], didnt they?

    • Re:Shame on Google (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Caseyscrib ( 728790 )
      Tell me about it. It must suck to live in a shell where other people deem what news is appropriate for you to here. Many people take free speech for granted, and fail to realize that in the most populated country on earth, this is how people live their day-to-day lives.

      That said, I'm very grateful to live in a free country, and I think everyone needs to quit bitching about political differences and appreciate what we have.

      Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.

      • Re:Shame on Google (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sabinm ( 447146 )
        I think everyone needs to quit bitching about political differences and appreciate what we have

        Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty

        So. . . which one is it?

        Eternal Vigilance of Freedom is not convenient or popular. That's why we've chosen to protect our freedoms under the American Constitution. Now if you're talking about quit the pandering to soundbites and blatent lies that our representaives tell us, I'm with you.

        I dream of a day when Republicans and Democrats can sit down at the table of br
        • Eternal Vigilance of Freedom is not convenient or popular. That's why we've chosen to protect our freedoms under the American Constitution. Now if you're talking about quit the pandering to soundbites and blatent lies that our representaives tell us, I'm with you.

          Yes, thats exactly what I'm talking about. I think its wonderful to have debates about meaningful issues... flat vs progressive tax, domestic spending issues, healthcare reform and so on. I just hate hearing candidates talk about personal crap

    • Re:Shame on Google (Score:5, Insightful)

      by waynelorentz ( 662271 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:47AM (#10960703) Homepage
      Repeat after me: "Google is a business."

      It exists to make money for its shareholders. Just because it's an internet company doesn't mean it's allowed to just sit there and spend cash. It has to make some, too, as long as it acts within the law. A public company can't just tell its owners (shareholders) that it's going to turn its back on a billion-person market, unless that's what its shareholders want it to do. At this point, the shareholders appear to be more interested in the cash, so these are the decisions that are made.

      Don't like it? Don't buy Google. Or even better, buy a few shares and voice your opinion at the next shareholder's meeting. That's, perhaps, the most effective way of showing your displeasure.

      • I've been hearing that excuse for years (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:49AM (#10961153)
        and it's still crap. If your argument holds, i.e. that anything a business does is OK so long as it's good for shareholder value, then the stock market is inheriently evil, because it's always more profitable to abuse people than to be a good guy (nice guys don't finish last, but they don't come in first either).

        This is were responsible governments step in to mitigate the evil, and where the American gov't steps in to encourage it.
    • And how is this any different than the american google, which happily excludes all the news sources in the middle east, because the american government wants to keep those publications out of view of americans ?
    • Option 1: Google provides a censored Google News China site; the real Google News site gets chinawalled. People who know how to circumvent the firewall can read normal Google News [google.com.tw]. Everyone else is left having to read the censored version.

      Option 2: Google does not provide a censored Google News China site; the Google News site gets chinawalled. People who know how to circumvent the firewall can read Google News [google.com.tw]. Everyone else can't.

      One could make a case that it's unconditionally unethical to do business w

  • Remove the log from thine own eye (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:15AM (#10960537) Journal
    China is a sovereign nation. I don't think you'd hear the end of it if you suggested that Americans be required to have their votes counted in the open.

    Leave China alone and pay attention to the problems in your own country.

    • On the contrary (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 )
      Criticise China but be capable of listening to and considering criticism of your own country too.

    • Re:Remove the log from thine own eye (Score:4, Informative)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:31AM (#10960623)
      I don't think you'd hear the end of it if you suggested that Americans be required to have their votes counted in the open.

      Actually, we did have international inspectors for this last election. And they found no real problems.

      Leave China alone and pay attention to the problems in your own country.

      So no one can criticize another country until their own is perfect? Which perfect land do you live in?

    • Which is exactly where votes should be counted. I believe it is possible to have 100% secure, anonymous voting, in which ANY person or organization can nonetheless have 100% access to the raw data collected, to perform their own validation of the results.

      In other words, I don't care who is stupid, stupid is still stupid. Yes, that includes when I'm being stupid.

      As for Google, they've IPO-ed. They're now out there to make money for their shareholders, not to win friends amongst the geeks, nerds and news-

    • Well, I'm an American. I voted for Bush, who won both elections amid some calls for better counting.

      And I want EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTED! Even if it means that my choice loses.

      Of course, that means every vote, both the votes in heavily Democratic counties and the military absenteee ballots.

      Even though Kerry conceded, I would like to see a recount in Ohio. I'd like to see it laid open. We claim to be the leaders of the free world. Let's back it up.
    • By the way, if we could get some Chinese citizens to come over here and correct the problems in our government, that'd be great. I'd love for them to fix our political problems if they could.

      The general idea behind that quote is that you shouldn't help fix someone else's problems very if you're in worse shape. You don't seriously think that the US is in worse shape than China on the freedom front, do you?

      The last war protest we had that someone died in due to protest was Vietnam, and that was a matter o

  • Oh yes (Score:5, Funny)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) * on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:16AM (#10960545) Journal

    Maybe they missed the one about Canada Arresting Bush [metlin.org]? ;-)
    • It's weird, just about every screenshot people post on here is from a windows PC. Granted, most people are running Firefox instead of IE at least, but still - I thought we would have a higher % of Linux/BSD/Other users on this site.

  • If in China.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by lou2ser ( 458778 )
    If you are in China, use the following link to read the stories: Link [google.com]

  • Hmmmm (Score:3, Funny)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:20AM (#10960574)
    What's the Chinese word for proxy server? Probably 'jail time' if you mispronounce it.

    • Re:Hmmmm (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      Probably "jail time" if you DO pronounce it right, but get caught pronouncing it to your browser too loudly. Unless it's to a proxy that beats pron login protections and you "donate" your registration to the appropriate official.
    • In Korea, only the elderly use proxies.

  • BBC article suggests a workaround (Score:4, Insightful)

    by leighton ( 102540 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:23AM (#10960583)
    The BBC article says that "the site does not filter news results to remove politically sensitive information." I wonder what exactly gets through. I've heard that certain American political sites (nationalreview.com, democraticunderground.com) are not filtered in China--I don't know if that's true, but it suggests an alternative strategy for finding interesting information.

    I find it hard to believe that they could censor *everything*, unless they set the default to 'banned' and allowed sites on a case-by-case basis. But even that's hard--a seemingly innocuous site could suddenly have "objectionable" content one day.

  • Politically sensitive ? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    meanwhile Iraq disappears from frontpages even though more US soldiers where killed this month than any other month so far, if google censored US news how would you know ?

    of course the Whitehouse wouldnt attempt to hide politically sensitive stuff about Iraq now would it [whitehouse.gov] ?

  • China also jailing journalists. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by glrotate ( 300695 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:30AM (#10960614) Homepage
    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/01/opinion/01kristo f.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

    China's Donkey Droppings
    By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

    For the last century, the title of "most important place in the world" has belonged to the United States, but that role seems likely to shift in this century to China.

    So what are China's new leaders, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, really like? Are they visionaries who are presiding over the greatest explosion of wealth the world has ever known? Or are they ruthless thugs who persecute Christians, Falun Gong adherents, labor leaders and journalists in a desperate attempt to maintain their dictatorship?

    There's some evidence for both propositions, and they are probably both true to some degree.

    When Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen rose to the helm of the Communist Party two years ago, many Chinese hoped they would bring a new openness to a nation that is dynamic economically but stagnant intellectually. Instead, China has become more repressive.

    The repression has now engulfed a member of The New York Times's family. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The Times, has been detained by the authorities since September and is not allowed to communicate with his family or lawyers.

    Mr. Zhao is accused of leaking state secrets, a very serious charge that could lead to a decade in prison. China's government may believe that he was behind the September scoop by The Times's Beijing bureau chief, Joseph Kahn, that China's former leader, Jiang Zemin, was about to retire from his last formal position.

    While The Times's policy is, wisely, never to comment on the sources of articles, my own private digging indicates that Mr. Zhao was not the source for that scoop. He is innocent of everything except being a fine journalist who, before joining The Times, wrote important articles in the Chinese press about corruption.

    (In fairness, sending journalists to prison for doing their job is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon. Several American journalists - Jim Taricani of NBC, Judith Miller of this newspaper and Matthew Cooper of Time - may be sent to U.S. prisons in the next month or two for refusing to reveal their sources.)

    Mr. Zhao's case is depressingly similar to that of another Chinese journalist, Jiang Weiping. He is serving a six-year sentence for "revealing state secrets," even though his real crime was exposing corruption.

    "China has changed so much economically, but not politically," Jiang Weiping's wife, Li Yanling, told me. "It's a puzzle to me."

    The authorities ordered Ms. Li to keep quiet about her husband's arrest, and detained her when she didn't. The couple's daughter, now 15, was traumatized at losing first her father and then her mother to the Chinese prison system. When Ms. Li was finally released, the daughter called her constantly from school to make sure that she had not been arrested again.

    Mr. Zhao's arrest is just the latest in a broad crackdown in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 42 journalists are now in prison in China, more than in any other country.

    "There was a period of openness, a period of hope, when the new leaders first came to power," said Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University. "But now they've consolidated power, and everything has closed up again."

    Mr. Jiao should know. He wrote an essay this year denouncing censorship, and it was immediately censored. Now the government has banned Mr. Jiao from teaching.

    I've felt this cooling as well. I was planning to visit China this month, but the government has declined to give me a visa. It's the first time I've been refused, and the State Security Ministry may have worried that I would write a column about its unjust imprisonment of Mr. Zhao.

    I love China, and I share its officials' distaste for those who harm it. That's why I'm angry that hard-liners in Beijing are presenting China to the world as repressive, fragile, tyra

    • Re:China also jailing journalists. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Trailwalker ( 648636 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:45AM (#10960694)
      For the last century, the title of "most important place in the world" has belonged to the United States, but that role seems likely to shift in this century to China

      This makes the assumption that the status quo is unchanging. China is an amalgam that has been held together by force rather than by desire. Like the former Soviet Empire, Communist Yugoslavia, British India, et. al., the Chinese "nation" will disintegrate into smaller parts once a central government becomes unable to control the provinces by brute force. I doubt if a break-up would be amiable.
      • China is an amalgam that has been held together by force rather than by desire

        Every government is held together by force, because force is the fundamental tool and first prerequisite of government. If government were voluntary, it wouldn't be government at all -- it would be free enterprise, and it wouldn't posess the right to initiate force. Don't be fooled into thinking that the voting process removes the element of force from government.

        The difference between force and voluntary association is the di

  • Dear Citizens of China, Since your communist government is blocking access to Google, and assuming that you can read Slashdot, here are a few web pages that your government would probably prefer you not read:

    Freedom starts with you.

  • Propaganda in China (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know people who are both perfectly reasonable and intelligent, but having grown up in China, know nothing about Tiamanmen. They also claim that Tibet was never invaded; it had always been a part of China. Some are even willing to confess that they formerly hated anything Japanese (including people) due to the nature of the propaganda in its schools. Of course, I'm not saying that everyone who comes out of China's education system is like this, but surely an environment which fosters these views is is bad

    • Re:Propaganda in China (Score:2, Informative)

      by jtsoong ( 307257 )
      Reason why they hate the Japanese? Rape of Nanking.

      You say that China's education is crap, let me ask you:
      1. Have you seen the Japanese schools' version of the Rape of Nanking????
      2. Have you read what actually happened????

      I suggest you google it before you make such statements.

      As a hint to how the Japanese view this chapter of their history:
      "The Nanjing Massacre is a lie made up by the Chinese." - Ishihara Shintaro, former Japanese Cabinet Minister, interviewed October 1990.

      -- what about the USA's view
  • Evil isn't just a philosophical construct, nor is it a metaphor, it exists.

    There is very little that we can do about this other than refuse to do business with Chinese companies, which is nearly impossible unless you want to go live in a mud hut someplace.

    When someone lies, they're wrong, and obscuring information is just another form of lying.

    Hopefully one day freedom will come to China, but not today.

    Actually it is North Korea that the world needs to focus its attention on. The sooner Kim Jong il is
    • Man, you used up a perfectly good Korea reference without sayiing, "In Korea, only the elderly want access to blocked google news stories", man, posters these days with their, "oh look at me, I'm making a poignant argument instead of passing off an already over-used joke"....shame
      (Relax, it's a joke)
    • Evil isn't just a philosophical construct, nor is it a metaphor, it exists.

      There is very little that we can do about this other than refuse to do business with American companies, which is nearly impossible unless you want to go live in a mud hut someplace.

      When someone lies, they're wrong, and obscuring information is just another form of lying.

      Hopefully one day freedom will come to America, but not today.

      Actually it is North Korea that the world needs to focus its attention on. The sooner Kim Jong il

    • Re:Evil isn't just a metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)

      by buss_error ( 142273 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @01:18AM (#10960849) Homepage Journal
      Evil isn't just a philosophical construct, nor is it a metaphor, it exists.

      Evil is a value judgement. People make value judgements. Therefore Evil IS a philosophical construct.

      Bush said "I looked into his [Putin's] Soul and found it good." Quite aside from the metaphysical bullshite, I didn't sign over my moral judgement to a politician. "Put not your trust in Kings" is more than just a catchy phrase. It's good advice.

    • Hope you're not American..

      "Lying is evil.." ???

      How about your own government. They LIED about WMD they went to WAR with another country based on these lies.

      In both cases a government is lying:
      1. In China its about the atrocities it has commited against its own people
      2. In the USA its so they can invade another country

  • Am in China - Google News is working (Score:5, Informative)

    by augnober ( 836111 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @12:41AM (#10960670)
    I'm in China. Google News is working fine at the moment. I had never tried it from here before, so I can't verify whether or not it was ever blocked. BBC NEWS is, as always, blocked. BBC World News however, does work.
    • BBC NEWS is, as always, blocked.

      What about Google cache? If BBC News is blocked, I can always check the Google cache of BBC News.

      Also, a lot of the news sites get information from other news sources such as AP or Reuters - I'm sure that one can find alternate sources of news from sites other than those that have been blocked.

      No?

  • ...as expressed by its founders, is "Don't be evil." I would sure like to hear them explain how this fits in with that, if it is indeed true.

  • > A net police force monitors websites and e-mails, and controls on gateways connecting the country to the global internet....

    How about a police force to monitor SPAM exiting the country?

  • I'm in China (Score:2, Informative)

    by dwater ( 72834 )
    It was blocked for a week or so, but is fine now...

    Par for the course. They blocked /. for a few months about this time last year.

    No big deal, if you ask me. Just annoying.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) *
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Stupid Americans... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:26AM (#10961096) Journal
      I'm currently posting this on a brief vacation to Baku, Azerbaijan. Do you know where that is (without looking at a map)?

      I've lived in several countries outside of the US (including China), and I'll be the first to admit that a lot of what the US government does I disagree with. But your post reeks of bigotry--and the fact that it's bigotry within a post flaming another group of people for their own bigotry makes it smell far more awful.

      Do us all a favor and grow up. If there is to be an end to all the excriment that exists in the world that we all seem to unanimously agree upon, let us stop flinging our own, shall we?

      China's censorship and Google's response have nothing to do with Fox news or any American media outlet. Our media has many problems, which definately need to be addressed, but you're being over dramatic to say the least. I hate how this stuff gets modded up.

      I'm sure you're very bright. Why don't you use your brain to come up with ways of solving these problems? The inability to do so will leave you in the same quagmire of ignorance and "cluelessness" that the very people you're attacking are supposedly in.

      I can assert that you care nothing about fixing the problem because if you did you would have thought about how your average American would respond to your post. Clearly, the average American would just get defensive and forget about what you have to say--which is, I think, exactly what you would do if I did the same thing to you.

      Must be the education system over there.

      P.S. I'm currently suffering from heavy jet lag, so I apologize for any incoherence or if it seems to harsh. You're probably not such a bad guy. Heck, if I were in the neighborhood, I'd buy you a brew at the pub. But what makes me so mad is that I agree that Americans are being largely deceived and intentionally kept ignorant, and I find it both sad and disheartening. I want to change it. You don't seem to want to--and because you both set really high standards for other groups of people to meet, and yet feel comfortable shooting your mouth at them in a very uninformed and bigoted fashion, you seem to me (who has lived in Central America, Europe, USA, and China) to be every bit as bad as the "Americans" you're so rabidly attacking.

      I've heard enough rednecks and their "those two-bit good-for-nothing ignor'nt back-stabbing $nationality_of_choice" tripe.

    • This is as ignorant as you claim we are (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      (I emailed this comment to the author. My slashdot Login is Shaneh0, I'm posting as A.C because after writing the author I wanted to share it with you)

      I modded your comment down, "-1 Overrated."

      I did this because I think your post is every bit as ignorant as you claim we are.

      "China may not have googlenews, but how many subbed Chinese new stations do you have in America?"

      While we don't pick up any Chinese TV networks, Google News does sample Chinese news sources--which, from what I've seen, are about as

  • Works for me (Score:3, Informative)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @01:45AM (#10960934)
    I'm sitting in Southern China, about an hour north of HongKong, in Shenzhen, and I can surf Google news all I want...

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @01:48AM (#10960940)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Google is absolutely doing the right thing. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pgaffney ( 247103 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @01:55AM (#10960975)

    Speaking as someone who's been working here for a bit, I have to say two things.


    First, all this shit about the Chinese Government being the evilest thing on earth is nuts. The government here manages to keep social order such that people can get up and go to work everyday, and such that an increasing number of this generation of children have a shot at the kind of economy we like to talk about in the USA; work like a dog and get yourself a better life. Sure there's a ton of people (80% of 1.3 billion) who are farmers and will never see this. Do you think a liberal democracy based on egalitarian ideals could just be stuck onto a society like this where so many people are completely uneducated? The current government is doing the right thing; focusing on decreasing the population to a level that the economy can comfortably support (keep in mind China has very VERY little in the way of natural resources). Granted there are massive problems here, particularly institutionalized corruption of the beauracracy, but you could do a lot worse. China is a police state? The US is MUCH more heavily policed, although if you DO manage to catch the attention of the real Chinese police they WILL shoot you in the head. Nothing ever shows up in the Chinese media that's critical of the government? SO what?! Nothing ever shows up on the USA's useless fucking media that hasn't been approved by the station's marketing department. Besides, you think Chinese people here don't know what's going on? Christ, of COURSE they know they're not getting the whole story. You think these people are stupid?


    Which brings me to Google. Given that these days China is hardly Nazi Germany (or Stalinist Russia or even Maoist China), saying that making censorship concessions with the PRC government. is tantamount to an act of evil is just dumb. You have the choice of not giving the Chinese people access to an information retrieval tool that will further entrench the Internet in their lives as a useful (and possibly eventually liberating) tool OR you can just do what you can. I'll take the second one any day. Look, nothing is going to piss the Chinese off worse than a hairy fucking big nosed foreignor walking in and tellin' the way it is about free speech. That's just a dumb idea.

    • Re:Google is absolutely doing the right thing. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by internic ( 453511 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @10:07AM (#10963050)
      "The current government is doing the right thing...but you could do a lot worse. China is a police state? The US is MUCH more heavily policed, although if you DO manage to catch the attention of the real Chinese police they WILL shoot you in the head."

      The Chinese government is doing the right thing? Tell that to the families of the hundreds of people slaughered in the Tiananmen Square protests [wikipedia.org], not to mention the people dissapeared or otherwise imprisoned [amnesty.org] for doing little more that speaking their mind or speaking the truth. Look, you want to say engagement is a more productive policy than isolation, fine, that's a reasonable stance, but don't try to claim the Chinese government really isn't so bad. The Chinese government is still a brutal group of thugs that do unconscionable things to their own people regularly.

      To say that the US is no better on human rights is firstly beside the point and secondly false. That the Chinese government's actions are immoral stands independantly of how bad the record of any other government is. Clearly if a black person in South Africa during apartheid were to say that the shooting of a protester in the USSR was bad, no one would say to him, "Oh, you have no place to talk because your country treats you like shit."

      I certainly won't claim that the US has a perfect record on human rights or civil liberties. That's why I am very vocal on the subject and have been a member of the ACLU [aclu.org] here in the US. The difference, however, is that I am free to say that and free to continue that fight. I can go out and spread that message and those that are convinced can vote to change the government's policies. None of that is true in China, which is one reason why it is false to say the US is no better. Both nations have much room to improve.

      As I said, I think there is an argument to be made that engagment is more effective than isolation, but engagement does not have to mean endorsement. Engagement is only a rational method of prompting change if we use that relationship as leverage to continue to fight for those improvements.

      "Nothing ever shows up in the Chinese media that's critical of the government? SO what?! Nothing ever shows up on the USA's useless fucking media that hasn't been approved by the station's marketing department."

      First of all, we're talking about Google news here, which includes many stories from domestic and international press, some of which are very critical of government, media conglomerates, and corporations. It's true that if you look at TV news its all mostly harmless, but the whole reason this is a big deal is because the internet is a mechanism to largely circumvent those controls and get at all the information. That's precisely what makes it so vital. Secondly, there's a big difference between "Rupart Murdoc doesn't choose to spend his money to criticise X" (the case in the US) and "if I criticise X I can be thrown in prison for years" (the case in China).

  • Does Google remove pro-Arab articles for USA? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Swordfish ( 86310 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:03AM (#10961015) Homepage
    Around about 12 months ago, plus or minus several months, I noticed a very sudden reduction in the number of pro-Arab articles in the English-language Google news for USA readers. There used to be heaps of articles from English-language newspapers in the Arab world (mostly translations), expressing the Arab points of view on the various modalities of massacring Arabs in the last couple of years. Does this indicate that Google "changed their algorithm" again? That's what they say whenever the general search changes drastically. I suspect that Google got a lot of comments from the vast right-wing conspiracy about the "anti-American" views in news articles about the wars. It's a pity, because now the Google news only contains pro-USA or very mild articles. Blood-curdling reports on US and Israeli military actions don't get linked any more.

  • It's very simple (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jim_v2000 ( 818799 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:46AM (#10961143)
    When Google wants to operate in the US, it abides by US law. When Google wants to operate in China, it abides by Chinese law. And right now, Chinese law says no polical web content. Who are we to criticize how they live? I know plenty of people who have gone over there and they say that the people of China appear to be rather contect with their situation.

  • Suggestion: censored.google.com (Score:3, Interesting)

    by adriantam ( 566025 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:53AM (#10961163)
    If you produced something intented to be fake, you should tell the readers that it is fake.
    If you produced something intended to be incomplete, you should tell the readers that it is incomplete.
    So, if it is censored, you should tell the people that it is censored. Or otherwise they will reasonabily believe that it is not......
    Therefore, Google, please respect your users and tell them the truth.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @02:54AM (#10961168)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I'm in China and I can read all these (Score:4, Informative)

    by 2Bits ( 167227 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @03:44AM (#10961356)
    I'm in China, and I can read a tons of news sites (yeah, including /., if that counts as news site!). There are some famous sites not accessible (e.g. BBC, except BBCi), sure, but most are ok, including:

    - CBC
    - Globe & Mail
    - Radio Canada
    - Le Figaro
    - Le Monde
    - CNN (garbage news anyway...)
    - Liberation
    - Le Devoir
    - Washington Post
    - New York Times
    - The Economist
    - Radio France
    - Groklaw
    - ...
    - too many to list from my bookmarks

    If I can access to so many news sources, I'm sure I have access to a pretty good range of perspectives on any issues.

    I've never used google news, but if what google news is about is to index news from other sites, I don't think I would miss anything.

    So, what's the big deal about this? Oh, and I have short-wave radio too, and I can listen to a shitload of stuffs out there.

    Get your head out of that sand, and come to live in China for a while, and see if you miss anything here.

    And another thing, there are a few underground proxies that allow you to get out without any filtering, if you really want. And yes, it works. I don't use it, because I don't need to.
    • The question isn't What's wrong with it, it's What's right with it. Why is the Chinese government (allegedly) blocking a news source like Google? A) Because a freely informed Chinese citizenry is a threat to its autocratic rulers, B) Chinese citizens aren't demanding to exercise their right to free press:

      "Article 35 [of Chinese Constitution]. Freedom of speech, press, assembly

      Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and o

  • Don't Worry (Score:4, Funny)

    by Goo.cc ( 687626 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2004 @11:29AM (#10963767)
    Any day now, I'm sure that George Bush will announce our intention to invade China and liberate the people from their oppression, just like we did for Iraq. Then we will install a democratic government that...

    What? They have a well armed military?

    Nevermind.

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