China pulls plug on YouTube after Tibet riots
Crisis? What crisis?
ACCORDING TO AP, China blocked YouTube today, after videos were posted showing the protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on Friday, against the ongoing Chinese occupation. China’s state controlled media had not reported the violent riots in Tibet, but the government was obviously not quick enough to muzzle YouTube before Chinese surfers got wind of what was going on.
On Saturday, the first images appeared online, along with video streamed foreign news reports, photos, and commentary. But today, any of China’s 210 million Internet users who try to access the popular U.S based video site will only get a blank screen.
Censorship is frequent in China, with the government regularly blocking content considered either politically subversive or pornographic. These include human rights web sites and foreign media. There is also no anonymity for Internet café users, who are also forced to present their identification before they are allowed to log on to the Net.
Reuters also reports that bloggers have been particularly vocal about Friday’s events, making good use of China’s thriving online chatrooms, bulletin boards and Web logs. Chinese and Tibetan nationalists have spent most of the weekend attacking one another in Cyber space as well as on Lhasa’s streets. Chinese censors have been busy rushing around trying to remove the politically motivated comments wherever they are found.
L'Inqs
Reuters
AP
Comments
The type of things to came
Well this shows how good China is, but well all we buy is made in China and the PM even goes to china and doesnt mention the Human rights. Lets hope the Chinese ideas don't get copyed elsewhereYouTube down, MUST be interesting
Chinese colleagues now realise that every time U-tube goes down, they have something positive (?negative?) to search for (elsewhere).Oh the joys of censorship!
And america isnt boycotting chinese Olympics Because?
It's sad that china can get away with so much genocide yet have most of the media not give a rip. (Chinese prime minister laughs when reading this article and calls in the next secretary to have his way with along with the signing of a new death march order for Tibetans) If I were Russia I'd watch siberia much closer because The Dragon and Bear may not be so friendly in the future to each other.<P>
A Nations strongest defence is its will to fight - An unknown Prophet
Boycotting can be good
Enough of China's "what me?".I do not buy from them, and will not be watching Olympics from China.
I expect a large amount of competitors will find reasons not to show, even if they all use the excuse of bad air, which is a good one, the physical and political air that is.
FYI: China's current leader is the one who initially invaded Tibet, look for the old video footage, slaughtering Monks.
They do the right thing.
From Athens, Greece:PRC does what is proper and what it must be. China is not Former Yugoslavia, where the American neonazis bombed, killed and divided into pieces for ruling better. China is not Iraq where American neonazis destroyed a country and killed 500.000 innocent people. The question is simple: Why we europeans don't boycot anything American, and why we don't cooperate with Russia and China to send USA where it belongs? To hell.
Mind your own business. At last Shut Up.
For boycotting
Well, everyone who made comments here, have you been to China? Have you been to tibet? How much do you know about Chinese culture, civiliztion and history? Have you seen the efforts the Chinese central goverment did for 2008 Olympics? How do you know China, newspapers, websites or western books? I am not a nationalist, China has 56 nations, this country has been controlled by three different nations during the 2000 years history, those were Han, Meng and Man. In Chinese, tibetan is pronounced as Zang. We believe every nation is one vital part of this country, Nowdays, everyone and every nation in this country has equal rights on education, politics and any other social rights, the country is beautiful and peaceful, I dont know why someone wants to pull our people into riot and war? I dont believe any religions and politics, although I am a Marxist and communist, I have travelled many countries, what I believe is to make this country stable and try to sustain such a big population to live, to develop as a new sustainable way, to serve everyone in this country food, clean water and fresh air..
I can understand the government's desire to shield its people from what might be misleading or biased media and reports, but it just ends up looking like they're trying to blind their people. I respect and trust the Chinese government enough to live here myself, but I can't agree with their censorship.I haven't been able to access Wikipedia for about a year, information on Tibet is scarce, and any website discussing the 1989 Tiananmen incident is quickly blocked. Great Fire Wall of China -- Booo!
I don't really care about You Tube, though. It takes FOREVER to load even a 2-minute video over here in Asia.