Yes, it’s an oft-heard refrain. But after reading this, you might wonder. And yes, I know its the voice of just one Chinese blogger. But don’t you think there are others like him? I know at least two myself, which leads me to think there are probably millions who are less than delighted with knowing their blogs can be blocked at any moment.
February 10, 2006
The Discussion: 5 Comments
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1
By Harry
Which is why some dissidents are asking overseas servers to “adopt a blog,” a campaign to keep those dissident blogs alive and accessible.
Anyway, corporate interests always precede conscience and there’s no exception to the rule.
Chances are, if I were Bill Gates or some other wizkid-turned IT tycoons, I would also toe the line of the Communist Party because I gotta be resonsible for shareholders and it would not be my mandate to change what’s unchangeable overnight.
What you gonna do?
February 10, 2006 @ 6:18 pm | Comment
2
By dishuiguanyin
When blog-city was blocked five of my Chinese friends lost access to their blogs. (As I lost access to my English-language blog.)
Of course they weren’t happy about it.
Of course they swore under their breaths and muttered things they probably shouldn’t have said about China – especially as two of them are party members.
Then they picked themselves up, dusted themselves down and relocated to other, China-based, providers.
Chinese bloggers aren’t stupid – they’re just as intelligent as bloggers in any other country – but they are, on the whole, very pragmatic about the whole internet censorship thing. The attitude tends to be, ‘It happens, I understand that the government doesn’t want us to read some things, for example information on F*l*n G*ng. I wish they hadn’t blocked my blog, especially as I never wrote anything about politics, but what can you do?’
February 10, 2006 @ 10:51 pm | Comment
3
By dishuiguanyin
Oh, and they blame the government fairly and squarely. They’d never dream of blaming sina or microsoft or blog-city or even cisco systems. It’s the Chinese government. They know that, and that’s why they’re so reluctant to comment on the matter.
This is the reality of living in a police state – as all mainland Chinese do. They’re careful. Very careful. My friends will mutter curses under their breath to me, because they trust me not to inform on them. But overall they deal with it by not paying any attention to politics.
February 10, 2006 @ 11:13 pm | Comment
4
By Raj
Of course many bloggers do care. The thing is that they can’t say they DO care to be on the safe side.
February 11, 2006 @ 7:44 am | Comment
5
By A Blog For All
The Free Speech Quandry: Chinese Crackdown Continu
Given all the recent attention on free speech rights sparked by the publication of 12 Danish cartoons in a small Danish newspaper that morphed into a huge riotfest throughout parts of the Islamic world, the continued Chinese crackdown on free speech …
February 11, 2006 @ 9:08 am | Comment