Censorship of Chinese Social Media Is Real, Comprehensive 62
chicksdaddy writes "Threatpost has a write-up of a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University that provides the first conclusive evidence that Chinese government censorship extends to social media sites like Sina Weibo, the popular micro blogging Web site that many have likened to a Chinese Twitter. 'The study ... found that censors in China delete around 16 percent of the messages submitted to Sina Weibo ... The study, released in March, concludes that "soft censorship" in China — the removal of controversial subject matter from blogs and Web pages — is at least as popular as hard censorship, like the blocking of offensive sites. The result is suppression of news about events or individuals that are deemed threatening to the ruling Communist party.'"
Re:Who Cares, Its None of Your Business (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is any news of censorship in China a front page news story on slashdot? It's not news for nerds, and certainly not relevant to anybody not in China.
We care what happens in China because they are fellow-citizens of the world. We want them to be happy too, and have freedoms and rights like the rest of us.
This news is interesting because it's a LOT of censorship. A few years ago, I was in China, and a lot of people didn't know much about the censorship, some would even deny it existed. It's like the old saying, "you feel free until you want to do something you can't." If 16% of the posts are being deleted, that means nearly everyone is going to be having their posts deleted. That's going to be noticed.
You probably don't pay attention to China, but they are an oligarchy, with power at the top being maintained by a small group. There are more and more signs that this group is going to run into problems, and this is just one. It will be interesting (for people who like watching governments) to see if they are able to maintain power.