Internet censorship plagues journalists at Olympics
With the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games a mere 10 days away, members of the media have learned that there is at least one thing they can expect not to be open: the Internet.
Despite earlier assurances that journalists would have unfettered access to the Internet at the Main Press Center and athletic venues, organizers are now backtracking, meaning that the some 5,000 reporters working in Beijing during the next several weeks won't have access to a multitude of sites such as Amnesty International or any site with Tibet in the address, according to an Associated Press report.
When Chinese officials were bidding for the right to hold the games seven years ago, they assured international organizers that there would be ''complete freedom to report.'' In April, Chinese organizers told International Olympic Committee members that Internet censorship, which is routine for China's citizens, would be lifted for journalists during the games.
However, IOC members issued a clarification Tuesday, saying that Internet freedom applied only to Web sites related to ''Olympic competitions.'' Some journalists expressed frustration at the slow download rates and even voiced suspicion that it was deliberate and intended to discourage use.
''This type of censorship would have been unthinkable in Athens, but China seems to have more formalities,'' Mihai Mironica, a journalist with ProTV in Romania, told the AP. ''If journalists cannot fully access the Internet here, it will definitely be a problem.''
This development is only the latest in a long string of headaches the media have suffered in China while preparing to cover the games.
When a senior vice president for NBC Sports, which paid about $900 million to broadcast the games, asked organizers last month to lift broadcast and interview restrictions at Tiananmen Square, the response was reportedly clear: "Don't push the issue."
Having the Chinese government telling you where you can and can't go on the Internet is not only frustrating but a bit unnerving as well. You can bet they are also watching journalists very carefully. Considering the way China dealt with YouTube during the Tibet crackdown earlier this year, what kind of "journalism freedoms" will reporters have if their stories offend Chinese officials?
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
Have someone send a critique of Tiananmen Square since the crackdown, and whether or not it has changed since 1989, regarding the Olympics guarantees the Chinese made to the IOC. Send a 256+ bit encrypted file with the full text. Then phone in with the character count of that article. Finally, follow up with an unencrypted copy of the file.
See if there are any discrepancies. :D
It was clear last summer that Beijing was not going to hold up their end of the bargain of winning the Olympics. The IOC should have pulled the games, given it to the backup site of Sydney, and said "maybe in 2016." But instead, they started to waffle and allow Beijing to reneg on all it's promises.
Human rights? Bah!
Pollution? Bah!
Freedom of speech? Bah!
Propaganda and "gravitas" for China throughout the world? At least that's still in place?
What a joke.
You have to remember that there's HUGE difference between your country, China, and your country's ruling party, the CPC. I come from Eastern Europe and the communists there would *always* equate themselves with the country as a whole so that saying something bad about them amounted to treason and hatred of the motherland...
Nobody in the UK would think that Gordon Brown is England or GW Bush is the US. Many great countries suffer from leadership that is bad or even criminal.
So don't think that people who criticize the Communist leadership are criticizing China. I've been there and of course it's a wonderful place. The leadership of it is problematic in many, many ways, including this time with the lies to the IOC.
Indeed there are so called "propagandas" (which you would call public campaigns when initiated by ur own politicians) . But why do u think that Chinese people are all brainless enough to take in everything the government tells them? Oh yah, your media told u so, and you simply take it in ..
there are censorships too, but again, China's Internet is one of the most vibrant, with world's largest user base. are they affected by this censorship, which restricts access to porns and anti-government sites? I can tell you that the vast majority would not even bother to access these. For those who do have the need, they can always find means to get around.
so what happens now is really interesting. the western political leaders and the media r keep talking about "human rights", "media censorship", "propaganda" -- even when they know that most Chinese people will just take it as a joke. After all, everyone's happy as long as the paper sells.
if you r really concerned about China, why not go there and talk to the people -- or simply talk to any Chinese in your local community. you may easily find that they have a clear realization of the many pressing problems that Chinese faces right now -- and human rights is not one of them.
I was in China 18 months ago with a corporate delegation. We had a "helper" / "supervisor" following us. We could not talk to a lowly barmaid let alone the general population. If I had tried to go somewhere unsupervised I would be kicked out or arrested as a spy.
China can have its own policies towards its people, it's just a problem when it breaks promises to outsiders.
Considering what came before Communism in China, a civil war, then a civil war, and a civil war before those two civil wars, then I think a capitalist dictatorship is an improvement, but let's not kid around pretending that it's some paradise of freedom.
http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/beijing-olympics-advice-from-ex-cnn-journalist/
>Are they affected by this censorship, which restricts access to porns and anti-government sites? I can tell you that the vast majority would not even bother to access these. For those who do have the need, they can always find means to get around.
Remember this phrase? "You can't stick out a microphone in Beijing and expect to understand the whole China" (if I could remember the exact phrase). I too should not take your words as truths when you have not done any survey at all to prove that "the vast majority of Chinese people did this and that."
And your definition of "anti-government" is very vague. How do you define which website is "anti-government" and which is not? How about a website exposing the corruption of local government officials? Is that "anti-government"? How about a website petitioning the central government to protect the rights of the patient with AIDS? Is that "anti-government"?
And you complained that the World did not want to understand China. But does China wanted to be understood at all?
Spinning the lies to make their own country seem either less evil or to put their race above others in news reports. Such as telling the names of injured Israeli troops but never telling the nwames of the palestinian children. Now that is what I call pure evil.
I have banned the Olympics in my home. Unless the games are in a free country, its NOT the Olympics. It is moronic that China gets to host the game with their human rights and environmental policies.
Yes I agree, China should get a free pass because the names ot Palestinian children are not published.
Nazi Germany by far is much worse than China. Hitler?s policies killed Jews and at least 10 million total in his camps plus unleashed war that caused among other things, the deaths of 20 million Soviet citizens.
China is by far a kinder, gentler nation. Once Mao?s hold on China was solidified, China righteously liberated Tibet in the 1950?s. Since that time, China eradicated 1.2 million miscreant iniquitous Tibetans, laid waste to their wretched hives of villainous ancient monasteries, destroyed vile artifacts of their sordid past and aided mass migrations of Han Chinese to Tibet in order to culturally motivate the recalcitrant Tibetans to higher levels of human achievement.
Add to that the Chinese Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution which exterminated 20-43 million lowbrows, malcontents and other enemies of the people across the whole of China. Later China?s most righteous act of currency management allowed billions of dollars to be transferred from greedy Western imperialistic nations to assist the Chinese people to develop economically and take their proud place as a serious world power. Industrial liberation of relevant capitalist technology continues and only reasonable and non-intrusive efforts are being made to remove any lies and misinformation that could be sent out by Chinese criminals and foreign reporters.
I hope Rio gets the Olympics after London. Give the Olympics to a developing country that's at least *trying* democracy. Sure Brazil is not perfect but its crime problems look minor compared to Chinese human rights abuses happening today (not to mention in the past).
I just hope that there's no attack during the Olympics. The reds would use it as an excuse to eradicate the Tibetans.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Jaques Rogge / the IOC have already said that the IOC is, "a sporting, not a political association." Yet that is a statement of cowardice and a cognitive dissonance from the univeralities of basic human rights that were codified in 1948. Rogge and the IOC are using the same sort of lie that Albert Speer's defenders used, and the media should recognize the IOC's failures.
- by lilypad1999 August 2, 2008 4:43 PM PDT
- Beijing Reporters, Tear Down This Firewall (and How To)
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(22 Comments)The Falun Dafa Information Center Offers Tools for Breaking through the
CCP's Internet Filters and Securing your Data while Covering the Beijing
Olympics
02 Aug 2008
NEW YORK -- With the International Olympic Committee having admitted prior
consent to the Chinese authorities to block access for foreign reporters
to certain websites (article), the Falun Dafa Information Center, in
cooperation with Internet freedom activists, hereby offers journalists in
Beijing a resource to gain free access to information during their stay in
China.
The tools are available on the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC)
website
www.internetfreedom.org
The tools available on the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC)
websitewww.internetfreedom.org allow anonymous, secure access to public
websites normally accessible outside of the CCP's filters.
The Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) is an organization founded
by Falun Gong practitioners. The GIFC's secure gateway services handle
over 90 percent of the anti-censorship internet traffic from China and
Iran, amounting to more than 400 million hits per day.
The tools available on the GIFC's http://internetfreedom.org website are
the very same tools that millions of Chinese citizens employ to access
information blocked by the CCP. They operate by scattering web requests
across a dynamic network of servers outside China, then re-assembling the
encrypted data into a normal web page on the user's computer.
In addition to allowing access to otherwise filtered sites, these tools
also assist users inside China in keeping the details of their Internet
usage, including passwords, safe from Beijing's army of internet monitors.
GIFC researchers and recent information released by Senator Brownback
indicate that such surveillance is especially active in the run-up to and
during the Olympics, as the authorities attempt to secure information from
the computers of visiting journalists, diplomats and foreign travelers.
It is recommended that these tools be downloaded and installed before
arriving in Beijing, if possible, to ensure unrestricted access to the
real internetfreedom.org website. Chinese security agents are known to
have created fake versions of the site that do not provide these tools and
may even install viruses or monitoring software on a user's computer.
However, those already in Beijing could also visit this website from their
bureau headquarters, which normally has unrestricted access to the
Internet. Another alternative is to obtain the tools from a colleague in
the reporter's home office outside China via a virtual private network
(VPN) connection.
Falun Gong Sites Remain Blocked Even as Restrictions on Other Sites Loosen
After the initial outcry from reporters in Beijing over Internet
restrictions, GIFC researchers and media reports indicate that the CCP has
begun to allow reporters to have access to some previously-blocked sites,
such as Amnesty International's or the BBC in Chinese, but Falun
Gong-related websites remain blocked.
"Based on our experience, the overwhelming reason for the CCP to block a
website is not because it may have harmful content, such as pornography or
excessive violence," says GIFC's chief technologist, Mr. Bill Xia. "The
main reason they block a website is because they are trying to cover up
human rights abuses and other crimes carried out by the state. So, the
real question here, I think, is why are they so afraid of journalists
having free access to information about Falun Gong?"
One possible reason is that in preparing to host the Olympics, there has
been a sharp increase in arrests and brutality against Falun Gong
practitioners. In a July report, the Center detailed a campaign of
door-to-door arrests in which thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have
been detained, with many subsequently sentenced without trial to forced
labor camps for two to three years (news).
Indeed, since their inception, much of the CCP's Internet monitoring
efforts have positioned information about Falun Gong as a key target.
"Falun Gong" and related terms (about) have been on the short list of
blocked keywords, often in the top position, ever since the persecution of
Falun Gong began in 1999 (see Harvard University's Open Net Initiative
Report on Internet filtering).
More recently, according to a May 20, 2008 Washington Post report,
California-based Cisco Systems prepared an internal document indicating
that one of the main objectives of China's "Golden Shield Project" -- a
multi-billion dollar initiative to restrict and monitor Internet usage
inside China -- was to "combat the Falun Gong." (news) Cisco Systems is
reportedly one of the largest suppliers of technology to the Golden Shield
Project.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER
Email: contact@faluninfo.net, Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/