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Censorship The Internet

Chinese Bloggers vs. The BBC 142

Posted by Zonk from the not-always-about-the-free-talking dept.
Sandra writes "The BBC has an article about how chinese bloggers hate BBC interviews, as from their point of view all the Beeb cares about is censorship in China." From the article: "This being the internet, the conversation also involved various members of the community accusing each other of having ulterior business interests, being "trolls", or covertly blogging on behalf of the state. But overall, it looks as though mutual trust will be regained. And as well as the specific dynamics of talking about China, there's a new phenomenon here of what happens when bloggers are quoted. "
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Chinese Bloggers vs. The BBC More

Chinese Bloggers vs. The BBC

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  • The Chinese hate the BBC interviews because, supposedly all the BBC cares about is the censorship in China. I failt to see how this is interesting - anyone would be pissed when the only thing your asked about is not at the forefront of your goals.
    • here's a funnier thing, how would the chinese bloggers know about the bbc and what their doing, i live in china, shanghai to be specific, but, bbc.co.uk is blocked or prehaps the bbc's server is down, excuse me bbc but is your one server down which you do everything from?

      that i doubt, anyway this filtering shit is really annoying, but on the otherhand all the pRon websites load faster since i dont have to fight for bandwidth with everyone reading the beebs website, oh and all those millions on computers in

  • Genuine complaners? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stunt_penguin ( 906223 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:22PM (#14108091)
    How do we know that the people who are 'speaking out against the BBC' aren't themselves being coerced into doing so in an attempt by the chinese govornment to negate the BBC's coverage of Chinese freedom of speech issues.

    Damn I'm paranoid
    • Damn I'm paranoid

      That's what they want you to think.

    • How do we know that the people who are 'speaking out against the BBC' aren't themselves being coerced into doing so in an attempt by the chinese govornment to negate the BBC's coverage of Chinese freedom of speech issues.

      Well, first off, I've talked with Wang Jian Shuo [wangjianshuo.com], and he's not that kind of guy. If he were that much of a risk-adverse, self-censoring person he wouldn't have written what he did about Microsoft back when he worked for them. Secondly, he's broken laws about with what he's written multipl

    • Re:Genuine complaners? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      as a chinese citizen living in China for 25 years and moving to western country recently, I am constantly amazed by the propoganda western media and goverment dishing out everyday. And the most pathetic thing is that people buy it. The only thing I feel bad about china is that their propoganda system is much less sophisticated than western countries but they are making progress every day and learning fast.

  • What else? (Score:5, Informative)

    by HugePedlar ( 900427 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:23PM (#14108098) Homepage
    What else are the BBC going to be interested in? What flavour rice the bloggers prefer?

    Seriously though, the BBC is a major news site. Censorship in China is a major issue. What other issue measures equal in magnitude to prompt the BBC to interview a Chinese blogger?

    • Re:What else? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Foobar of Borg ( 690622 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:37PM (#14108186)
      Seriously though, the BBC is a major news site. Censorship in China is a major issue. What other issue measures equal in magnitude to prompt the BBC to interview a Chinese blogger?

      Let's see... industrial pollution, government corruption (which Chinese can protest, BTW, just not basic goverment policy), environmental impact of rapid industrialization, Chinese historical and cultural preservation, the recent toxic slick in Harbin [yahoo.com]. But that's just off the top of my head. I think the problem is that most British journalists are about as ignorant, incompetent and sensationalistic as their American counterparts.

      • But why would they choose to interview a Chinese blogger about those issues - unless they were the specific subject of their blog?

        • Re:What else? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Foobar of Borg ( 690622 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:57PM (#14108280)
          Well, that's the point. Blogs cover many different types of subjects. But the BBC apparently prefers to ask Chinese bloggers about censorship instead of the subjects of their blogs, such as (for example) the rapid industrialization in China, which affects people's everyday lives, or about Chinese historical and cultural preservation, which is of intense interest to certain segments of the population. In other words, the BBC only seems to care about one specific political football rather than about China itself.
          • the BBC only seems to care about one specific political football rather than about China itself.

            This may be a legitimate concern of an outsider who claims to have high standards for the quality of a source. Imagine the frustration: a billion people living under some stiff rules about what can be said, and lots of imagined or real conspiracy to delude outsiders. Yet you have to bang your head against that, since your job is to report on the place.

            Then, of course, the BBC (and democratic pro-capitalist jou

      • You would talk to bloggers about these subjects? Granted, i havent done any research into chinese bloggers, but if its anything like most blogs you wouldnt get anything more from them than you would with a quick "whats your single paragraph say on this subject?" type interview they tend to ask random people on a high street. Just like any problem, if they were interviewing people about government corruption, pollution or industrialization they would go for people in the know - university professors, heads o

      • Re:What else? (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Why on earth would they interview bloggers about that? Imagine a French news agency interviewing random American bloggers about the USA's foreign policy. You interview people that have positions relevant to your subject, not just some random loser that happens to have a website. Unless of course, websites are you subject.
    • What some of the readers failed to notice here is that this isn't a regular news story and looks to be more of a column called "WEBLOG WATCH" which is "The Magazine's review of blogs". Now considering that freedom of speech is THE issue, and not just on Slashdot, when it comes to weblogs as a whole, I would think that everyone would be jumping up and down supporting the BBC in this.

      I would think that Freedom of Speech would be vehemently supported with this mostly American crowd.

  • Please (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DDiabolical ( 902284 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:27PM (#14108130)
    "Please BBC, stop highlighting our plight for freedom on the internet."

    Hmmm I wonder who could possibly be behind this...

  • An angel, c'est moi. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kahei ( 466208 )

    I love the way the writer of the BBC article completely failed to notice that the issue was not 'whether China censors' but 'whether the BBC would shut up about censorship for five seconds please'.

    The dialectic basically seems to be:

    Some Chinese Bloggers: "Man, the BBC keeps harping on about this shit. And BBC interviewers tend to be excessively confrontational and persistent."
    BBC Journalist: "Oho! You say there is no censorship in China?? Well I guess AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL must be wrong then, eh? Eh??"
  • so now we post this link on slashdot, so that the blaming and troll-accusations may continus onward!

  • From TFA: (Score:3, Funny)

    by xtracto ( 837672 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:30PM (#14108146) Journal
    From the BBC article:
    We don't know why Chinesse have the idea we censor them, when they state that "BBC MAKES ME **C*"
    The writer continues:
    " Being **ed by BBC is no fun, it is a **ing experience. At times, ***rs can get very ***.
    Recently over a ** in the ** ****. BBC news reader Jonathan asked the Home Secretary: 'Did you threaten to **ck him (a junior minister)?',
    the home secretary replied calmly: 'I *ed him'.
    Jonathan: 'Did you *** him!'
    Secretary: 'I *ed him'
    Jonathan again Did you **** him'
    Secretary again: I *ed him
    Jonathan again: Did you **en him?' .......
    **ed 9 times, ** Jonathan *ed: 'You are a *ard, aren't you? Why can not you just admit that you *ed him!'

  • These articles are a bit like FOX running a story about the anti-FOX News camp and their books and blogs, or Anderson Cooper insisting that an "anti-gay" politician's stance unfairly impacts "us" during an interview. Always interesting, but there's simply no way to apply the objective label to this reporting.

  • Maybe a cultural thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iBod ( 534920 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:31PM (#14108155)
    I don't think Chinese people expect the sort of combative, probing, in-your-face interviewing techniques that the best of the BBC journalists employ.

    IMO, most BBC journalists really do the job - i.e. asking questions of the 'high and mighty' as well as the 'man in the street' that the viewers/listners would like to ask themselves, and not taking waffle and bullshit for an answer.

    I'd love to see the BBC's Jeremy Paxman interview George Bush, for example - nah! never going to happen.

    • I'd love to see the BBC's Jeremy Paxman interview George Bush, for example - nah! never going to happen.

      A goldfish could interview Bush better than most american journalists.
    • I'd love to see the BBC's Jeremy Paxman interview George Bush, for example...

      *splork*

      I'd pay money to see that...

      "So, Mr. Bush. They say you're an idiot. Are you?"

      • The interview in full... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Paxo: So, Mr. Bush. They say you're an idiot. Are you?

        Bush: The accusationality of idiocity is only a tool of the widespread international evillism that is todays terrorism. We must spread liberty-ism(tm) throughout the planetiod and hand out billion dollar contracts to Halliburton and other Friends of Freedom(tm).

        Paxo: Mr president, thank you. Goodnight.

        Paxo: And now a brief look at tomorrow mornings papers...
      • "So, Mr. Bush. They say you're an idiot. Are you?"

        Is it just me, or is that a question a 5-year-old would ask?

        Quality political discourse, indeed.
        • Is it just me, or is that a question a 5-year-old would ask?

          The OP's point was not that he asks funny questions, it was that Paxman has a reputation as a very hard interviewer who does not let political guests off lightly when they are squirming. From Wiki:

          One of Paxman's most famous Newsnight interviews took place on 13 May 1997, with Michael Howard, who had until 13 days earlier been Home Secretary. Howard was questioned regarding a meeting he had convened with the head of the Prison Service, regard

          • Hey, a response. I think I'm a little late in noticing it.

            "Did you threaten to overrule him?" is a pointed and biting question. "Are you dumb?" is a bit silly, and not the kind of question anyone would bother dodging. Most normal people would answer "No." and be done with it.
    • I must admit I am surprised Jeremy Paxman is still working for them, or that anybody agrees to be interviewed by him.
      Even when he is interviewing people you dislike, you cant help feeling sorry for them.
      He is an obnoxious c*nt of the first order.
      • I must admit I am surprised Jeremy Paxman is still working for them, or that anybody agrees to be interviewed by him. Even when he is interviewing people you dislike, you cant help feeling sorry for them.

        Newsnight is a pretty important show, watched by a lot of major players and opinion-formers. If there's been talk that day of a scandal within the government and nobody involved turns up to the interview... well, the Opposition will certainly have the relevant shadow minister there, and if Paxo turns to c

    • I'd love to see the BBC's Jeremy Paxman interview George Bush, for example - nah! never going to happen.

      If I dont recall wrong Henry Kissinger once walked out on him and Kissinger has pretty damn thick skin compared to the neoconvict gang in charge at the moment.

  • Aggressive interviewing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:32PM (#14108156)

    From one of the bloggers complaining about the BBC's aggressive interviewing:

    Their belief is that the interviewee is unwilling to tell the truth, therefore they must design their questions in a way that they can squeeze out the truth.

    This is particularly true when they interview politicians.

    No shit. Did you ever think that it's because, particularly in the case of politicians, they are unwilling to tell the truth, or at least give a straight answer?

    The example given is a politician dodging the question of whether he threatened somebody or not. The (repeatedly asked) question was "Did you threaten him?" and the (repeated) answer was "I warned him.", without any clarification of the distinction being drawn. Why couldn't the politician say "No, it wasn't a threat, because..."?

    This is very reminiscent of Paxo's [wikipedia.org] famous BBC interview, in which he repeated the same question twelve times when the politician dodged the question. I think it's a good thing to do. If you defer to the interviewee and don't call them on it when they dodge the questions, you are, in essence, just giving them a mouthpiece to offer their unchallenged claims. That's not an interview, that's an advert. They might as well do away with the interviewer altogether if they can't get answers to their questions.

    • Re:Aggressive interviewing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:49PM (#14108247) Homepage Journal
      This is very reminiscent of Paxo's [wikipedia.org] famous BBC interview, in which he repeated the same question twelve times when the politician dodged the question. I think it's a good thing to do.
      Which was between Michael Howard (then Home Secretary) and Jeremy Paxman. It ran like this :

      HOWARD. Mr Marriot was not suspended. I was entitled to express my views, I was entitled to be consulted . .
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. I . . I . . was not entitled to instruct Derek Lewis, and I did not instruct him.
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. The truth of the matter is that Mr Marriot was not suspended. I . .
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. . . . did not . .overrule Derek Lewis.
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. I took advice on what I could or could not do . .
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him Mr Howard ?
      HOWARD. . . and I acted scrupulously in accordance with that advice, I did NOT overrule Derek Lewis . .
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. . . Mr Marriot was not suspended.
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. (pauses). I have accounted for my decision to dismiss Derek Lewis . .
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. . . in great detail, before the House of Commons . .
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) I note that you're not answering the question of whether you threatened to overrule him.
      HOWARD. Well, the important aspect of this which is very clear to bear in mind . .
      PAXMAN. (Interrupting) I'm sorry, I'm going to be frightfully rude, I'm sorry, but it's a straight yes or no question which requires a straight yes or no answer. Did you threaten to overrule him ?
      HOWARD. I discussed this matter with Derek Lewis. I gave him the benefit of my opinion. I gave him the benefit of my opinion in strong language. But I did not instruct him because I was not ENTITLED to instruct him, I was entitled to express my opinion, and that is what I did.
      PAXMAN. With respect, that is not answering the question of whether you threatened to overrule him.
      HOWARD. It's dealing with the relevant point, which is what I was entitled to do and what I was not entitled to do, and I have dealt in detail with this before the House of Commons and before the Select Committee.
      PAXMAN. With respect, you haven't answered the question of whether you threatened to overrule him.
      HOWARD. Well you see . . the question is what was I entitled to do and what was I not entitled to do. I was not entitled to instruct him, and I did not do that.
      PAXMAN. Uh . . we'll leave that aspect there.
    • If you base your whole interview on the fact that the interviewee is unwilling to tell the "truth", then what happens if they are telling the truth, but it is just not what you think it was? Answer - you keep probing. Basically, your whole agenda is to try to slant the interview toward your bias you had going into the thing.

      This is not good reporting. Good reporting, by definition should be reporting the facts, which in this case, are the interviewees responses. If they are not responding the way you would

      • There's a huge difference between bullying and demanding a straight answer.

        In the famous paxman interview, the politician *repeatedly* refuest to give a straight answer to a simple question. He was lying, and it was becoming more apparent as the questioning went on that (a) he wasn't going to admit publicly what he had done, and (b) it was painfully obvious that he had done it.

        A good interviewer will try any means possible to get a straight answer out of the interviewee. Someone who is fudging will have a

        • Not the same at all (Score:3, Interesting)

          by brunes69 ( 86786 )

          If I write a blog about Chinese pop stars, and someone from the BBC contacts me about an interview, I naturally assume they want to talk about a) the blog, and/or b) Chinese pop stars. I do *not* assume they are going to start probing me about how the government censors my blog, which they may or may not do. So, if they ask me these kinds of questions, is it unheard of that I would want to redirect the interview to the original purpose ?

          The whole reason these people even give these interviews is to promot

        • One thing about the Paxman/Howard exchange that wasn't revealed until much later by Paxman was that the reason he kept asking the same question was because the Director had just told him via his earpiece that the VT for the next item wasn't ready yet, so he (Paxman) should try to string out the item with Howard a bit longer while they sort it out.

          Of course, that doesn't change the fact that there was nothing wrong with Paxman asking the question until he got a straight answer, and that Howard gave a class

    • Don't you think it's interesting that this guy and those who moderated him interesting all think western government is corrupt?

      It is and so is the chinese government, we'll see who falls first I suppose.

      Governments don't have to be corrupt, it's very 1984 that both the Chinese and the west think the other's government is corrupt and evil.
      • Well, it seems to me that China's government is in fact corrupt and evil. But I never saw anything about this "west" country. Probably its governemnt is also corrupt and evil, I never listened about one that wasn't, but now I am very curious about this country, where is it?
    • The example given is a politician dodging the question of whether he threatened somebody or not. The (repeatedly asked) question was "Did you threaten him?" and the (repeated) answer was "I warned him.", without any clarification of the distinction being drawn. Why couldn't the politician say "No, it wasn't a threat, because..."?

      I think we've seen quite a rise in aggressive interviewing of late. Often they are asking unanswerable questions, questions intended to trap the interviewee. The interviewee is we

      • The interviewee is well aware that it is a trap and responds with a fudge.

        Oh yes, I've seen some bad questions of the "when did you stop beating your wife?" form that can't be directly answered without accepting an incorrect premise. But these types of questions can be stopped by challenging their assumptions. That's not dodging the question, and I agree that those types of questions are inappropriate.

        Recent BBC coverage of the last election certainly suffered through this type of questioning, w

        • In fairness to Paxman, the question was raised because a (black) member of panel raised the issue that Galloway had chosen to attach Labour, via standing against one of their MP's ( in this case Oona King IIRC) and that his attack on the Labour party had the effect of removing one of the few black female MP's in Parliament.

          Paxman was just putting the point to Galloway to answer himself.

  • Well, it's certainly justified (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jacoplane ( 78110 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:33PM (#14108160) Homepage Journal
    If I were a reporter interviewing chinese bloggers, censorship [wikipedia.org] would be high on my list. Some of these bloggers maintain there's not much censorship going on. Have they forgotten the whole MSN Spaces [boingboing.net] fiasco? In my book, government censorship is never acceptable, and we should never stop criticising it. That includes journalists being annoying and asking tough questions.

    • Re:Well, it's certainly justified (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      jeremy paxman once said that that the one question he always keep in the back of his mind while interviewing is:

      "why is this lying bastard lying to me"

    • bbc vs chinese blogger == /.er vs the joe-sixpack (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AtomicBomb ( 173897 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @03:46PM (#14109100) Homepage
      In slashdot, we talk about stuff that matters, like whether this electric toilet seat can run Linux, is the recent act of MS/SCO/Sony/RIAA/Google.... violates the privacy of the user... It is fine to about that here. I understand what you mean, concern and worries... But, if one day slashdot becomes so powerful that it runs a cable tech news network and start interviewing some random guy in the local mall about the same issue, you can expect they will answer huh!?! It does not really mean privacy, online security etc are unimportant. It just means a large segment of the society has no interest in this in their daily life.

      The Chinese bloggers being interviewed by BBC must be feeling the same as the joe sixpack in the local mall being interviewed by CowboyNeal. First, if that guy is a political activist, he or she probably won't have time hang around blogging for unrelated stuff. The other bloggers probably has an interest of travel, career, music, movie and porn. Asking them topics about politics is kind of out of context.

      Second, sometimes, the journalists tend to ask questions which has an information content of close to zero. For example, ask if you can freely express about your opinion freely about some banned groups. Okay there are three scenarios. 1) that person answers along the line of "I don't want to talk about this/ I have no interest about this". The reporter reads that the blogger cannot express his opinion freely. 2) that person says no. The reporter reads that the blogger is controlled by the state. 3) that person says yes. The reporter says "yeah. I know the censorship is everywhere"...

      While we all know censorship still prevalent in China, conducting such kind of interview is kind of meaningless. Many western reporters tend to have a mindset that there are only two groups of people in China: democratic activists and evil communists... The fact is the China has changed a lot. Most people just don't care about anything, or have an opinion quite different from the stereotype, just like anywhere in the world.

  • If what they're saying is true, it's kind of an interesting problem. On the one hand, interviewers should stay on the topic at hand. No use asking about the Great Firewall when the topic at hand is the toxic water flowing through Harbin right now, ya know?

    But at the same time, from a socialogical perspective, the Firewall is fascinating. How selective can you make such a firewall, and in what ways are the people still happy knowing that they are being sheltered from things. Is this brainwashing (as i
    • But at the same time, from a socialogical perspective, the Firewall is fascinating. How selective can you make such a firewall, and in what ways are the people still happy knowing that they are being sheltered from things. Is this brainwashing (as it must certainly appear to a Western perspective) or is this simply a different view on the world that the West cannot wrap their heads around.

      Well, the west hardly sems immune. Almost everyone thought that there were WMDs in Iraq for instance.
      • Of course. But for most everybody, it's much easier to point out the flaws in others than it is to identify the flaws in oneself. So, while similar things happen in the west, we'll gladly point out if it happens in China.

  • Doesn't ring true (Score:5, Informative)

    by sane? ( 179855 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:41PM (#14108209)
    A quick look at the Asia-Pacific BBC page [bbc.co.uk] has the following stories on China:
    • Toxic leak in river
    • Bird Flu Death
    • A WTO conference
    • Torture
    • Art on show in London
    So maybe not overflowing with positive stories, but this IS typical news coverage. You have to wonder if these Chinese Bloggers are paid/told to put forward that censorship is somehow a non issue.

    • Re:Doesn't ring true (Score:2, Interesting)

      by minus_273 ( 174041 )
      actually just wait a few minutes and there will be a ton of posts on this thread praising china. there is literally an army of chinese communist astroturfers out there and i think they are employed by the state. They tend to crawl out any time Taiwan, china or Tibet is mentioned.
    • Uh...I hate to say "you f---ing idiot", but news.bbc.co.uk is blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Duh.
    • The point is not that BBC is or is not covering such events, the bloggers themselves wanted to be asked about this, not only about censorship. There is a reason why they are bloggers, they have strong opinions on various matters, and most likely they see an interview with the BBC as a great chance to voice their opinion. The reporter is only interested in censorship when talking to them, which is natural. They get pissed off and later bash the BBC.

  • From the article: "Edwyn Chan's Weblog is among the milder critics, describing the BBC as "annoying" for always asking about freedom of speech when interviewing Chinese citizens."

    It sounds like the bloggers are irritated at the BBC for getting stuck on a single issue, Chinese censorship. From their point of view, the BBC is spinning everything the bloggers put out as a symbol of China's repressive government and therefore, in the eyes of the Western world who equate freedom with progress of any kind, a sy

  • Freedom of Association anyone? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chaffar ( 670874 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @12:42PM (#14108215)
    From the blog mentioned in the article http://www.chinatopblog.com/?p=6 [chinatopblog.com]:

    The first sentence was misleading and wrong. BBC said something like this- More than 300 bloggers attended the conference.

    Yining corrected the BBC woman."No. you are wrong, the meeting participants are less than 200."

    According Chinese law, any assembles by more than 200 people should be approved officially.If not, it's illegal.

    Clever clever boy Yining... he caught the BBC in a lie. However, the Chinese "Law" he mentioned, interestingly, says waves more than anything he could've said in any interview. I don't know if he did it on purpose, but that by itself should give the BBC enough to write about. Right of association anyone?http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/constitution/ amendment01/12.html [findlaw.com]

    The beauty of Yining's comment is that he takes such laws as accepted truths, and uses it to disprove the BBC's claim the same way a physicist would disprove a certain claim using Newton's or Einstein's theories.

    • Not to contradict your take, but if I'd been put on record as having participated in an illegal assembly I'd swear blind that it was perfectly legal one too.
    • The beauty of Yining's comment is that he takes such laws as accepted truths, and uses it to disprove the BBC's claim the same way a physicist would disprove a certain claim using Newton's or Einstein's theories.

      Yes, there could not be more than 300 bloggers there. That would be illegal.

      Stormtrooper: There are more than 300 of you here.
      Rebel: There are less than 200 here. Any more would be illegal.
      Stormtrooper: There are less than 200 here.
      Rebel: You don't need to see our papers.
      Stormtrooper: Wee
    • Why quote the US constitution? The US is just one country out of 190, and its constitutional strictures don't inform us about universal human rights, only what rights are guaranteed by law in the US. If you want to talk about rights that have been agreed upon internationally, cite the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Or if you want to argue that people have some kind of 'innate' right to freedom of association, then cite or argue philosophy. But a legal document pertaining to one pa
      • Well to make things clear, I'm French, but I quoted the U.S Constitution because it's the first example I came accross on the Internet, not because I believe it's better/more accurate/the ultimate truth. So yes your comment is valid and I apologize for being a lazy bum :P
  • Clearly, the BBC has tons of stories from China that aren't about censorship. For example, this story [bbc.co.uk] is not about Chinese censorship, it's about Microsoft's censorship, coincidentally in China. This story [bbc.co.uk] about political coersion doesn't even mention censorship. Frankly, with this range of topics, I don't see why these poor people, who are typically subject to such intolerable censorship, have anything to complain about.
  • there is one thing I would like to say about this isn't necessarily important in the larger context of this story but is very true, and that is that - not just BBC but UK journalists (which in essence what the inteviewers are) - are very, very tough cookies. My friend who is American came over to the UK 5 years ago and was shocked to see the way that people who were interviewed were treated, and it's true, our journalists are exceptionally harsh, taxing and dogmatic. Here is an example that shows the essenc
    • Dogmatic would be if the reporters adopted a bias toward one side of the story and stuck to it no matter who they interviewed. What British reporters--especially BBC reporters--do is treat everyone harshly. They try to put the interviewee under pressure in order to try to get them to defend their point of view. They play devil's advocate. In short, they do exactly what they ought to be doing: getting to the heart of the matter rather than simply let someone get away with saying things that others would

  • Isn't it funny how all the western countries look down their noses at China and it's state control of information.

    And here we all are using various open source software applications...

    (I'm not going to join the dots here between communist ideologies and open source, but it does amuse me how jingoistic and easily manipulated western audiences seem to be these days).

    (this is the point where I jump off the fence and start running - pulling splinters out as I do so)

    • I forgot how the gov't forces us to use open source applications. And shuts down the press when they talk about commercial software. China has almost nothing to do with communism anymore, and a whole lot more to do with fascism.
    • It may be possible to draw parallels between communist ideologies and open source anything, but does censorship coincide with the idealistic form of communism that you are speaking of?

      I'm sure a political scientist could do a better job of categorizing the authoritarian state that China exists in, but the word "communist" seems insufficient and probably inappropriate. If anything, the Chinese government uses the word "communism" to propagandize the necessity of their oppressive tactics (i.e., it's not so ba

    • i think you may be confusing communist ideologies with specific forms of communist implementations.

  • I have to admit, I do find some of the interviewers at the BBC a bit too pushy for my taste. But they're just trying to get to the trust beyond the euphenism, beyond the denotations and I can appreciate that. If those bloggers can "really" post what they want. Have them post an entry on 1 of three things. 1) arguing for liberty and personal freedoms for citizens. 2) arguing for Taiwan independence. 3) arguing for uncensored internet in China. Then we'll really see how "free" he is to say whatever he wants..

    • Re:BBC reports Censorship like we report weather (Score:5, Interesting)

      by liangzai ( 837960 ) on Thursday November 24, 2005 @02:29PM (#14108702) Homepage
      OK. I take the bait.

      Slashdot is a blog. It is on the Internet. I am posting this from China.

      Here is my blog entry:

      1. Chinese people ought to have the same or more freedom as people in the West.

      2. Taiwan IS an independent state, which all Chinese already know.

      3. China should abolish the fanghuo changcheng (GFW) immediately, and let people use the Internet as freely as in the West (and it can be discussed how freely it can really be used in the West). I don't how many times I have argued this on Chinese state-owned BBS:s.

      4. Mao Zedong was an asshole, a pervert and a mass murderer. He was renowned for his serious cases of VD after trying out guniangs in the villages on every one of hid goddamn trip. I have said this too on state-owned BBS:s.

      I am now waiting for the gong'an to storm my apartment, transport me to a football field and give me the neck shot in front of a cheering audience...

      Oh, before I die, let me just add that I, too, am fed up with the BBC, because they DON'T report the social and cultural context to the filtering in China, but see it all from a modern Western perspective (just back fifty years, and it would be different); they DON'T realize there is a process, and they CAN'T see that much has already gone in the right direction. Freedom IS gradually increasing in China, but you should NEVER expect China to be EXACTLY like the West.

      OK, off to the football field...
      • You brought up a good point. Are all these blogs blogs that the chinese government moniter? Because I doubt a lot of those chinese offical will have a vast aptitude in english, nor will they *forum* tread (and this is a forum, not a blog) a techie news site that's beyond their control and most common people don't know about.

        On the subject western perspective of Chinese freedoms.
        The chairman of Apex Digital arrested in China [afterdawn.com]
        I assume from your aptitude of the language, that you know something about th
        • Well, fuck, I actually do know something about Western culture, since I am a Westerner. And as a such, I can tell you that in most Western countries, you are only allowed freedom because the ruling party is *letting* you. I don't have the freedom to drive on the freeway in 190 mph, because the ruling party forbids it. In my native home country, I am not allowed to do nuclear research, because the ruling party forbids it. In neighboring Germany, I cannot express Nazi views, because the ruling party forbids i
  • Every Chinese guy hates the BBC. But I think I know the real reason why. It's because of history. Britain is the only country in the world that succesfully conquered China. The Chinese have always felt humiliated by the British. The Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion [wikipedia.org] , still raise deep emotions among people of Chinese origin. It's the same reason why the Chinese hate the Japanese for the Rape of Nanjing. It's all about the loss of face.

    • Re:Why the Chinese hate the BBC (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Wow you are one idiotic troll. Who modded you interesting.

      Disclaimer- I am Chinese.

      What the fuck does those events has to do with the current situation. The difference is huge. Namely, the Chinese are complaining that everytime BBC interviews Chinese citizen, they try to force the interviewee to say "chinese censorship is bad."

      Furthermore, you say that because of these events, every Chinese hates Brits. Compare to WWII, those incidents are nothing. How many Chinese people died in the hands of Japane
    • a tiny bit of yes but a resouding NO! Opium war the 1st of many humiliations done to China by imperial western powers, but that was 1840, over 160 years ago. Save a few hardcore nationalists, majority chinese just don't hold it against the current british people or government. You are wrong to claim Britain successfuly conquered China. That's just not true. Britain certain had tried, but China was just too big and the chinese civilization just too resilient to be conquered by the Brits alone. What happene
  • I don't see any articals on censorship with a quick search on china. http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results .pl?scope=newsifs&tab=news&q=china&go.x=0&go.y=0&g o=go [bbc.co.uk]
  • they want us to concentrate on what they can do (and are doing) instead of what they can't? I would be upset if the BBC wanted to interview me about my blog and all they could talk about was my country's politics, especially if my blog was about something completely unrelated.
  • Any NPR (American "public" radio) listeners here listen to the BBC news programs we get over here? Those interviewers really are kind of pushy. I wouldn't call them "probing", I'd call them biased and rude. The NPR folk tend to ask questions that highlight the flaws in somebody's position, but at least they're polite about it and less antagonistic.

    I feel like the BBC is overdoing what I perceive to be an attempt to be "less British": they seem to use people's first names a lot and are a little too jocul
    • Any NPR (American "public" radio) listeners here listen to the BBC news programs we get over here? Those interviewers really are kind of pushy. I wouldn't call them "probing", I'd call them biased and rude.

      Biased? Yes, but not in the sense that the /. mob will understand it. BBC interviewers are very strongly biased towards the assumption that the politician they are interviewing is hiding something. Now, maybe that's wrong, maybe you should be nice and assume that you're dealing with a politician who is

      • Eh...

        It's possible to ask probing questions and expose weaknesses in an interviewee's position without constantly interrupting the interviewee, deliberately misinterpreting his/her statements, repeating the same question over and over, and putting words in the interviewee's mouth ("isn't it true that...?").

        Polite != sycophantic.

        True, I had sort of forgotten the whole culture of the British news media. There's a fundamental difference in libel law between Britain and America, isn't there? In Britain, the a

        • It's possible to ask probing questions and expose weaknesses in an interviewee's position without constantly interrupting the interviewe

          Well, if the interviewer asks a simple yes/no question, and the person being interviewed gives a lenghty "answer" that doesn't answer the question at all, what can you expect? the Howard/Paxman-interview is a good example of this. Yes, Paxman interrupted Howard onnumerous occasions. But which is worse: Interrupting a politician spouting BS, or knowingly spouting pure BS to

        • IANAL but I believe that in British libel law the defendant must prove that the derogatory information was likely true, whereas in America the plaintiff must prove that the information was definitely not true and was made with reckless or knowing disregard for the facts. The British reporters just have way more balls than the Americans.
  • I'm a university student in England living with two Chinese housemates who came here to study. Neither of them have any kind of political views as far as I can tell, nor have they heard of Amnesty International. It's interesting how this kind of apolitical lifestyle manifests itself; satirical political shows, for example, are to them a genre that isn't even conceivable. So, it seems to me that if my housemates are at all representative of Chinese people in general: however much the BBC writes about censor

  • censorship in china (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well, I am an Chinese. Few things to say here:
    1) The censorship really exits in China.
    2) The censorship is not techinically hard to be breakthrough.
    3) The censorship is not efficiently enough to censor all things that suppose to be censored.
    4) The censorship is loosening but will still be there in the near future.
    5) The censorship is just a small piece compared with the control of media and lots of other things on the dark side of china.

    So what should I do as an Chinese?
    I will try to tell the truth to my co
    • Well, that's not the way the GFW works, since it 1) doesn't censor calls from the OUTSIDE world, and 2) doesn't censor WITHIN the Chinese network. The GFW only censors calls from China to the outer world. That is the reason Google breaks so easily, while Baidu always works for the same topics. Now, all this makes sense, since the only reason for the GFW to exist is to make an information speed bump for the large majority of users; tech savvy people don't even notice it when set up properly.

      The process, the
  • The BBC has an article about how chinese bloggers hate BBC interviews, as from their point of view all the Beeb cares about is censorship in China.

    Well, why else would the BBC care about a Chinese blog? Few blogs (Chinese or those based in the UK or USA) are big enough, widely read enough, or interesting enough to be worthy of major media attention. Look at all the people who post on Slashdot and I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned in the media. The Brits do care about people being punished by commun

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