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China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#23

Post by tellme »

secalex wrote: post #13
jcromartie wrote: post #7

It happens in pockets of the US, too: Jerry Falwell's conservative Liberty University did a very similar thing. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/fal... EDIT: mircocosm was a poor word choice

Liberty University is in no way a "microcosm of the US". If anything, it is a Christian version of the Islamic Republic, hidden in Virginia.

if my opinion of the states was formed by the loudest voices in this year's elections, I'd think the US was a Christian version of the Islamic Republic.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#24

Post by busyant »

Shenglong wrote: post #19
untog wrote: post #2

Well, at least we know the article is telling the truth now.

That's a completely illogical conclusion to make. Whether it is true or not, blocking a page does not imply admission of guilt. If the article was complete bullshit, they still would have blocked it. B (Admission of guilt) -> A (Truth) is not the same as A -> B.

It's not iron-clad proof that the contents of the article are truthful.

However, if the contents were not truthful, I think you would also expect the Chinese government to forcefully deny them. There is no mention of a denial in the referenced Times article...at least as of yet.

Therefore, I think the blocking of the Times can be taken as a reasonable indicator that the Chinese government wants to hide embarrassing information.

Is that really such a stretch?

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#25

Post by 46Bit »

matthewrudy wrote: post #14
erynvorn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it is not blocked in Hong Kong! Still one country, two rules...

Many people here in Hong Kong don't regard themselves to be part of China. We have our own legal, visa, financial, and political system. Although Beijing occasionally steers the political system, censorship of any kind usually ends up in protest. I can't imagine what would happen if they tried to do censor the internet here.

For that reason it's the one sort-of-part of China I'd actually like to visit one day soon - me and a lot of others I think.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#27

Post by jcromartie »

danielweber wrote: post #15
jcromartie wrote: post #7

It happens in pockets of the US, too: Jerry Falwell's conservative Liberty University did a very similar thing. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/campus-overload/post/fal... EDIT: mircocosm was a poor word choice

Liberty is a private university, and its students choose to attend knowing full-well its policies. (And it blocks a lot more than WaPo.) FIRE and the Virginia ACLU both agree with Liberty's right to do so: http://thefire.org/article/10717.html You are, of course, free to criticize LU for its policies.

The point is that they used their control over the information available to their "population" to retaliate against and block journalism that revealed information unfavorable to their internal narrative.

I'd say that's the exact same tactic.

Re: China Blocks Web Access to The New York Times After Article

#30

Post by w1ntermute »

Claudus wrote: post #3

So, combining these two statements, it seems that they blocked both sites 30 minutes before the article was posted in Chinese? If that's true, it's disappointing the Times didn't do a simultaneous release in anticipation of the block. " HONG KONG — The Chinese government swiftly blocked access Friday morning to the English-language and Chinese-language Web sites of The New York Times " " By 7 a.m. Friday in China, ac…

> So, combining these two statements, it seems that they blocked both sites 30 minutes before the article was posted in Chinese?

Their censors probably read the English version and preemptively blocked the Chinese site as well, (correctly) assuming a translation would be posted.

> If that's true, it's disappointing the Times didn't do a simultaneous release in anticipation of the block.

I'm not sure how helpful that would've been. It would've still given them only a few hours in the early morning before the site was blocked. And posting the Chinese version at the same time probably would've resulted in the block coming faster too.

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