This blog is often faced with the question of whether to post methods of accessing sites that are inaccessible from China because of government controls. I want to turn the question to readers, who I hope will have some opinions. Help me decide whether to reinstate a workaround for Chinese Wikipedia.
The argument for posting: I tend to believe it would be selfish to keep circumvention methods to myself when others who are less habitually engaged with technology news would also appreciate a way around the blocks. For instance, before the BBC News site was unblocked, I posted information on a URL that would let users through because of a quirk in the addressing on the BBC site--namely, the newsvote.bbc.co.uk mirror of news.bbc.co.uk was not blocked. I believed readers of Sinobyte would like to be able to use BBC News, and I got positive feedback in private.
The argument against posting: People who argue against posting workarounds hold that publicizing circumvention increases the likelihood of detection, and following that, more thorough blocks. It's a simple and persuasive point. If the authorities responsible for implementing blocks want something inaccessible, they might keep track of how people are beating their blocks and try to fight back.
Dealing with disagreements: Back when I posted the BBC URL, someone dashed off a comment criticizing my journalistic responsibility. I disagreed on that point and responded as follows: "I appreciate your concern, but in my experience merely posting something like this doesn't get a block in place. Moreover, on the journalistic responsibility point, this post doesn't put anyone in jeopardy, and most Internet users around here know how to get to what they need anyway. Guides on higher-profile sites than mine telling users how to access censored sites haven't led to simple blocks of several proxies. I think this URL an easy and valuable thing for some readers, and I know I'd appreciate seeing it in my RSS."
Indeed, especially on the journalistic ethics argument, I feel a particularly strong inclination to post the information. I was educated (or was it indoctrinated?) in a particular U.S. sense of proper press behavior. The main document of journalistic ethics in the United States is the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics. It's a long list of "don'ts" phrased as "dos." In my reading, the code gives arguments both for and against posting.
- For: under the heading "Seek Truth and Report it," the code asks us to:
-- Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
--Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid. - Against: meanwhile, under "Minimize Harm," we see:
--Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
--Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
SPJ's code is by no means my personal code, but it is a useful starting point from a perspective of professionalism. In essence, this 20th century formulation of journalistic ethics asks us to weigh the value of free information with any harm that information may have.
My argument for posting: As I've mentioned above, I tend to lean toward publishing workarounds. It's not only because I tend to believe making this information more widespread is good for free information; it's because I see the potential harm as minimal. In the BBC example, far from causing an overall block, having the workaround posted happened to precede the full unblocking of BBC News' English site (and in one city, the Chinese version). Likewise, with the recent question of whether to keep the Wikipedia workaround online, this comes at a time when the English version is already available and the Chinese one still subject to a block. Celebrate as I may that I can read two major sites without a proxy, the censorship (the "harm," if you like) is still in place for Chinese users unable to read English well.
The Internet blocking regime in China, in my experience, is full of holes. It's popular to speculate that authorities know they cannot affect a total block but are working instead to deter users not committed to accessing restricted information and perhaps to encourage self-censorship. Especially in English, vocal critics of internet censorship remain unblocked. Rebecca MacKinnon, a former reporter who teaches at Hong Kong University, blogs vocally about freedom issues. Ted Chien, who asked me to take down the URL, a decision I'm taking under consideration now, blogs about some of the same issues in English and Chinese on Blogspot, which is now unblocked.
Even before a recent opening that may be connected to the Olympics in August, government blocks were far from complete. Determined individuals can get through the blocks, and the government does little to eliminate proxies, even as it blocks a large amount of information through site-wide blocks or keyword filtering. And when one workaround fails, another inevitably arises. Though I haven't actually had any of my several free proxies blocked while working from Beijing over the last nine months or so, friends who have seen theirs go have simply switched. My ultimate question, then, is what's the value of a workaround if we don't tell people about it?
I'd love to hear from others on this issue. Please comment here or e-mail me directly at sinobyte /[at]/ gwbstr.com.
I just got done mentioning how hard it is for me to fully participate in Wikipedia from China. But English-language Wikipedia is suddenly accessible tonight from Beijing.
Obviously, Chinese officials read this blog and care very much about my opinions. (Blogspot's available too, but I didn' t ask for that. So whatever.)
I can't say I discovered this on my own. Danwei's "Net Nanny" post tipped me off.
I can confirm that both Wikipedia and Blogspot work from my connection and that this will make my life easier.
But as Danwei, the Chinese media and culture site, reports, Wikipedia's Chinese-language site is still blocked. Thus unfortunately, the argument that I made previously--that Wikipedia still lacks very important participation from this part of the world--will continue to stand.
The iconic Olympic sites in Beijing
(Credit: Graham Webster)An Associated Press article coinciding with the change notes that Olympic officials are grappling with how to keep up appearances with foreigners as they arrive in Beijing. The usual estimate is that 500,000 people will come for the games. In the article, an official was quoted as saying he hoped the Internet would be open for media during the games:
Kevan Gosper, vice chairman of the IOC coordinating commission, said blocking the Internet during the games "would reflect very poorly" on the host nation.
"Even this morning we discussed and insisted again," Gosper said. "Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous games--at games time."
Gosper said the Chinese had an obligation under the so-called "host city agreement" to open Internet access to 30,000 accredited and non-accredited journalists expected to attend.
"There was some criticism that the Internet closed down during events relating to Tibet in previous weeks, but this is not games time," Gosper said.
Danwei calls this an "explanation," but I think it's more ambiguous. This change is similar to the unblocking of the English BBC News site in recent days: the Chinese counterpart is still blocked. The strategy of allowing open access in English and other non-Chinese languages while restricting Chinese-language sites feels like a P.R. move. Journalists from other countries will stop complaining so much about not being able to screw around online and comment on their friends' blogs, and the Chinese authorities still get to control content for the majority of Chinese Net users.
The two changes may also reflect a technical similarity, and possibly new infrastructure. The Chinese and English Wikipedia sites are differentiated using subdomains: cn.wikipedia.org vs. en.wikipedia.org. Similarly, the URLs for English and Chinese news on BBC are easily differentiable. This may mean a shift from IP filtering to URL filtering. Either way, offending requests still appear to be met with "connection resets."
I mentioned this in my last post, but it deserves its own: there's an extraordinarily easy way to read BBC News from within China. All you need to do is use this URL: newsvote.bbc.co.uk.
As far as I can tell, this is the same site as news.bbc.co.uk, which is blocked in the mainland.
I don't know how long this has been around, but I caught it in the comments on The Peking Duck. Thanks, Liuzhou Laowai! Enjoy your pithy BBC write-ups, everyone!
Reviews of BBC's iPlayer program have been mixed. The service offers U.K. residents access to television programming through a downloadable player that can queue up shows, and grab entire seasons at a time. Most of the criticism has been toward its staunch DRM and lack of Mac and Linux compatibility, which will be changing shortly. Yesterday, the BBC announced it's chosen to move to Adobe's Flash platform to deliver its video content on the iPlayer, taking the service from Windows-only to a Web-based platform.
Windows XP users will still be able to use the iPlayer software to download the shows ahead of time, but my guess is that those wanting one less thing to clutter up their desktops will make the move to a browser bookmark instead.
The news comes in tandem with another partnership announced yesterday with broadband service The Cloud, which operates 7,500 Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.K. The company will be giving users of BBC's various Web services free Wi-Fi at all their locations. Users won't be able to surf any old site for free without signing up for the company's pay-as-you go and unlimited plans, but they'll be able to watch iPlayer programming and peruse BBC.co.uk freely.
This is a wise move on the part of the BBC. The iPlayer project was originally created as a response to piracy of video content. However, the closed and limited system hindered some users from getting their hands on content easily, which is one of the many reasons people choose to pirate content in the first place. Similar efforts by content providers in the United States have proven successful, although piracy remains rampant. Initiatives like YouTube's antipiracy protection program (announced yesterday) are trying to keep that content off the Web, but technologies like Bittorrent and other P2P platforms continue to improve speed and safety for users who want to swap files with one another.
BBC will launch the new and improved iPlayer service "by the end of the year." It will remain limited to U.K. residents, even in its online form.
The BBC's recently launched iPlayer, which allows eligible U.K. residents to download episodes of shows they missed on the telly, seems to be a magnet for complaints lately.
The BBC launched its iPlayer service in beta mode last month.
(Credit: BBC)The Windows-XP only online service has already peeved Mac, Linux and Windows Vista users who can't, at least for the moment, get direct access (BBC has promised an upgrade this fall) and drawn protests over its use of Microsoft-produced digital-rights management technology.
The latest brouhaha is reminiscent of the Net neutrality debate that has raged here in the States. That controversy surrounds whether broadband operators ought to be able to charge content and application makers extra fees to deliver their content, particularly when it has the potential to consume loads of bandwidth.
In this case, major Internet service providers like Tiscali UK and Carphone Warehouse are reportedly threatening to restrict their users' downloading practices unless BBC foots part of the bill for shuttling the large files, the Financial Times reports.
A Tiscali representative told the newspaper that the new BBC service will undoubtedly clog its networks because it operates on a peer-to-peer network. Unless the ISP and BBC can come up with a "cost-sharing" arrangement, Tiscali will be forced to manage its networks by degrading the service of users who attempt to download large files at peak hours, FT reported. Tiscali is also reportedly considering creating a "two-tiered" system in which it would charge more to customers with higher-bandwidth appetites.
BT, another leading provider has been named in the reports as a "concerned" ISP, too. But a spokesman later denied being part of the extra-fee-seeking gang. In an interview with The Register that ran Monday afternoon, the company's chief press officer was quoted as saying, "We're not up in arms about iPlayer, we're not complaining to the BBC or discussing it with them."
A BBC spokesperson quoted in the service's own story was mum about the conflict, except to say, "We are in regular discussions with the ISP's and together are monitoring the costs associated with video on-demand."
But if the other concerned ISPs get their way, one has to wonder if the BBC's U.K. viewers will see a rise in the price of the license they already must pay to access the network on their traditional TV sets.
The British not only have superior television (in general) but now they can watch it online too.
The BBC launched a new on-demand service called iPlayer on Friday that lets people download from the Internet shows like "EastEnders" and "Planet Earth" that they may have missed on the telly that week. The shows represent as much as 70 percent of the BBC programming, about 400 hours of programs, according to Reuters.
Unfortunately, the free service is only available to people in Britain and on computers running Microsoft XP.
You would think that with a name like "iPlayer" the service would work with Apple products! Apparently, the "I" stands for "interactive," The Wall Street Journal discovered.
Mac and Linux users are already protesting. More than 10,000 people have signed a petition urging the BBC to allow non-Windows machines to use the service.
Once viewed, the downloaded shows are automatically deleted after 30 days and technology prevents people from making copies of them.
Ever wonder what the English cathedral on the Isle of Ely looks like but don't have time for a trip to East Anglia? The British Broadcasting Corp. and Microsoft are trying to take you there virtually in a more vivid way than just a bunch of snapshots on a Web site.
The BBC is using Microsoft's Photosynth software to provide 3D tours of famous buildings.
(Credit: Microsoft)The BBC is using Microsoft's Photosynth 3D imaging software to provide views of prominent British buildings in conjunction with a new TV show, How We Built Britain.
Photosynth constructs three-dimensional structures by stitching together multiple two-dimensional images, and users can fly around a virtual world and examine details. The BBC Photosynth incarnation works over the Web as an ActiveX control, but it requires high-powered graphics hardware. (I couldn't immediately get it to work with either Internet Explorer 6.0 or Firefox 2.0, though both are allegedly supported--maybe I'll try the manual installation.)
"By clicking and dragging their mouse, visitors to the site can explore each building, zooming in to see the smallest decorative detail, or zooming out and panning 360 degrees to place the building in a wider context," Microsoft said of the technology.
The Photosynth images will be updated with new photos submitted by the public, Microsoft said. The BBC is using photo-sharing site Flickr for image uploads.
Sites that can be viewed are Ely Cathedral, Burghley House, the Royal Crescent, Bath, the Scottish Parliament buildings and the Blackpool Tower Ballroom.
Microsoft Live Labs architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrated Photosynth on video at the TED conference in March.
This announcement slipped through the cracks yesterday but is one of the more interesting partner dealings with YouTube we've seen in a while (besides that AppleTV bit last week). YouTube is now hosting several channels for Hearst-Argyle, a television company that owns 26 local TV stations in the United States. YouTube will be sharing revenues with Heart-Argyle based on viewership, similar to what's been done with some of the other partnered content providers like the BBC and several sports leagues.
There are already five dedicated YouTube channels that now host a variety of content, ranging from local news to human-interest pieces. While many popular news clips can be found available online, they're often uploaded by users who have done a digital transfer or ripped a stream from the station's Web site. This new deal is a sign of things to come as new media comes to terms with an audience that likes to gets its news on demand.
The five new channels are from all over the country:
WCVB 5 - Boston
WMUR 9 - Manchester
KCRA 3 - Sacramento
WTAE 4 - Pittsburgh
WBAL 11 - Baltimore
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