- Saturday, 28 November 2009
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One civilized reader is worth a thousand boneheads - Smart Set magazine, 1914
China to censor journalists' Net access during Olympics
CHINA'S IRON GRIP on the Internet won't be relaxed for journalists covering the Summer Olympics, as it has reneged on its earlier promises to the International Olympics Committee (IOC).
Sun Weide, spokestyrant for the Beijing Olympics organising committee, has announced that reporters will not have unrestricted Internet access during the Games, since many web sites regarded as "sensitive" by China's ruling hierarchy will remain censored even to the press.
He said: "During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters." However, what China's government regards as " sufficient" doesn't match the total forebearance of web censorship that China had promised the IOC in making its bid.
Sun specifically mentioned that web sites related to the banned Chinese Christian spiritual movement Falungong would be off-limits to journalists.
But foreign reporters wibbling at the main Olympics press centre have also discovered that a broad swathe of other web sites are also blocked, including those belonging to the Tibetan government in exile, ex-patriot political dissidents, Amnesty International, and any showing content about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of young people who were protesting China's government corruption and lack of democracy.
If China can censor what information reaches journalists covering the Olympics, it will also be capable of restricting press reporting transmitted out into the world during the Games.
The IOC has long maintained that journalists' Internet access would not be censored during the Olympics, but now it appears that IOC officials are going to have to either confront the Chinese government to make it keep its promises or kowtow to the 2008 Summer Olympics host country's authoritarian ways that have apparently led it to a treacherous fait accompli. ยต
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Seriously, who is surprised by this? Saying one thing and doing completely another is a common modus operandi of totalitarian regimes. Time and again we've seen it. Now the IOC has egg on its face (that's a 'time and time again" situation as well) , and will no doubt just shrug and say "oh well" while the Chinese government cackles with glee as it starts piling on more and more restrictions on the journalists covering the Olympics.

Sadly, the one group who would have benefited most from this relaxing of restrictions, the Chinese people, are going to be the ones to lose the most.
Well of course they're going to have a stranglehold over all journalism and communication during such an event. The world is going to be watching China non-stop, and even a dictator with millions of armed troops at their disposal can't expect to be able to keep all the billions of Chinese people at bay. I'd be more surprised if they -didn't- do things like this, along with keeping the free thinking Chinese people as far away from the Olympic events as they can. 

Too bad the Olympics are more about money than anything else, otherwise China wouldn't be able to do this, or actually, they wouldn't even be hosting the games or be allowed to participate.
It's 1936 all over again with the IOC as an accomplice.
Since when was Falungong Christian?
So all the journalists would have to do is set up a VPN to their home base and browse through that.. granted the IP for the home base isn't being blocked..
but still disgusting.

I am boycotting these olympics and any sponsors of these olympics.

I expect IOC heads to roll after the olympics are done and will be happy with nothing less.
I don't get it, why would the journalist need to access Falun Gong website to report on the Olympic?
Because when the Falun Gong launch a demonstration to draw attention from all the media outlets while the cameras are rolling and theres more reporters to document what happens, the reporters who don't know what the heck Falun Gong is will surely want to look it up first before going on the air.
Mgz: It isn't a matter that a journalist would need to access a Falun Gong website, it's that the Chinese government originally promised that foreign journalists would be have full, uncensored access to the web, regardless of the content they were researching.
Part of the Olympics, as one person pointed out (all about the money), is *advertising* the host nation, and part of that is researching both the good and the bad. 
South Korea was an enigma, and not a pretty one, pre-olympics, now look where it is, both as a free society and an economic power. Why? Good advertising, because the gov't knew to keep its nose out of journalists faces for the most part, as well as relaxing old bad traditions they had for keeping its people in line; the result - journalists responded by giving the SK nation good press, and showed off Korea's unique culture and the possibilities it held for the future. I doubt there's one person from South Korea who would say things were *better* before the olympics were given to them.
Back to the point, having gone back on this promise, is there any doubt that the government of China, should any complications arise, say a protest, or something happening in The Square, that foreign journalists freedom might be curtailed even more?