Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Reporters Without Borders Internet Annual Report 130

Posted by Zonk from the it-doesn't-look-good dept.
kratei writes "The BBC is running a report discussing the Reporters Without Borders internet annual report 2006. The RWB study details and decries the rising tide of net censorship and lays the blame squarely on the west as the source for the technology that allows repressive regimes to stifle freedom on the web." From the article: "China's success at censorship means it has effectively produced a "sanitised" version of the internet for its 130 million citizens that regularly go online. The wide-ranging scrutiny also means that it is the biggest jailer of so-called cyber dissidents. RSF estimates that 62 people in China have been jailed for what they said online. "
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Reporters Without Borders Internet Annual Report More

Reporters Without Borders Internet Annual Report

Comments Filter:

  • [First post withheld at government request] (Score:5, Funny)

    by mmell ( 832646 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:29PM (#15266007)
    [CENSORED]
  • ..it is just me or can't chinese dissidents use google.com instead of google.cn and get an uncensored version. Having said that i have never been to china so I wouldn;t know.. but this just highlights more than ever to get all the azeureus users off tor and get more tor servers set up to help protect these people who need the annonimity.

    • Sure. (Score:2)

      by mmell ( 832646 )
      That is, if you don't mind the Chinese government asking you why you saw fit to use google.com instead of google.cn. "Oh, and about those other sites you visited . . ."

      Of course, being behind the "Great (Fire)Wall of China", can they even get to google.com anymore?

    • ..it is just me or can't chinese dissidents use google.com instead of google.cn and get an uncensored version.

      It's just you. ;-)

      I don't know how they do it, but I guess Google either does geolocation and redirects to the appropiate version or they simple block access to google.com.
      • They use a firewall/proxy server for the Chinese ISPs to block sites.
      • Yes, and it seems vice versa it's the same. At least I did not manage to display google.cn . Or is there a trick?
        • I was able to get to Google China [google.cn] without difficulty, in Firefox. It may be that you don't have the appropriate language pack for your browser. However, AFAIK the censorship only works if Google detects that you are indeed in China, so you can't test it from outside.
      • I'm guessing that the great firewall of china includes packet rewriting so that they can send your requests to google.cn instead of google.whateverelse, by destination IP.
      • Google definitively uses geolocation. If I go to google from any computer here (Venezuela) it's automatically redirected to google.com.ve. Even if I go to the options and tell it to use the homepage in english and the like (which I usually do, mostly because , I still get the regular google website, but with a "visit google Venezuela" link in the bottom
        • I accidebtally hit submit over there, in the middle it was supposed to say "mostly because I don't get most of the google doodles and new features in the localized pages"... :)
        • That is not any "geolocation" thing but Google merely matches the language selected in your browser - you can usually change the list of preferred languages in the preferences, and I guess most browsers by default prefer pages in the same language as the localization of the browser.
          • if it was just matching languages, it would say "go to google in spanish" and not "go to google Venezuela". Also, it goes to www.google.com.ve here, and went to google.es when I visited Spain. I use the browser in english, anyway.. :)

  • Proxies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CptChipJew ( 301983 ) * <michaelmiller@gmail . c om> on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:32PM (#15266043) Journal
    The people I know in China all claim to use Japanese and Korean proxies to get access to everything. Anybody know if this is true? If so, then you can be assured that plenty of people are doing this, and largely making the PRC efforts pointless.
    • The firewall is porous. Imaginative users can find ways of searching for sensitive topics such as news about Falun Gong, a banned spiritual movement. In Google, entering the words “Falun Gong” will cause the entire results page to be blocked, but “FLG movement” will not. Many Chinese internet-users are well practised in configuring their internet browsers to route page requests through unblocked proxy servers outside China. These help bypass the firewall.

      ——
      Special Report [economist.com]
    • Of course plenty of people are doing it, but it's still a problem. I recall somebody from China (possibly on Slashdot) saying that censorship was a inconvience for them at most. However, the average person does not know how to get around censors, doesn't know that you can get around censors, and in some extreme cases, may not know that there even are censors. Of course, you can bypass the firewall, and I'm sure as soon as China finds a proxy they block in and send the police to have a nice little chat with
    • For all the filtering over there, the governmet is still rpetty unsophisticated about it.

      For example: My mom went over to China last year to teach English. She'd regularly e-mail us updates. She warned everyone to please not say anything untoward about the government, as she didn't want to get in trouble. However the e-mail she used was her US account, connected to via webmail. It was all 256-bit SSL encrypted. There was no way the Chinese government had any idea what she was sending.

      Since their ban is reac

    • Getting around censors (Re:Proxies) (Score:4, Informative)

      by jsm ( 5728 ) <james@jmarshall.com> on Thursday May 04, 2006 @06:39PM (#15266590) Homepage

      Here's a tool [jmarshall.com] to get around Web censorship. It's the censorhip-circumventing software itself, not just a site that runs it; anyone can downlad and install it on a Web server for their own use. It's been around since 1996, first developed when Singapore and China first announced they would try to censor the Web. I think this approach is more effective than the various sites running public proxies, because those can be blocked by censors much more easily than when everyone has their own private proxy.

      If you try CGIProxy and find any shortcomings, please let me know so I can fix them. To my knowledge, it's the only such software out there that solves certain kinds of problems, such as proxifying JavaScript (in beta, but almost there); for example, this means that most Web-based email and other complex sites can work through it.

      Note that out of the box, the CGIProxy isn't optimally configured for privacy, but there are config options to change that. The code is heavily commented, with the intention that users can customize it in several ways to make it unrecognizable to censors.

      Have fun! Let me know if you have any questions.

    • It is true. But nobody bothers, because, you see, China has succeeded in making an Internet that doesn't suck. Why would you want to go twenty miles down the road for Internet+Suck when there's a better one right on your plate?

      Okay, major exception: When someone gets a wild hare up their donkey and opts to block sf.net or something stupid like that. Then you'll see a big spike in the proxy traffic.

    • Re:Proxies (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AtomicBomb ( 173897 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @10:46PM (#15267888) Homepage
      I think I know a bit about this subject because I often browse a news forum which is in the blacklist by Chinese government. The site is not about politics or religion. Many over there are oversea Chinese geeks in sci and tech. It was blocked ever since someone spam the forum with something the government does not like. While I am based overseas, many guys are from mainland China. They manage to get pass the ban through a number of tricks. For example, there are search programs that keep track on oversea proxy servers which are not blocked at this moment. Some more resourceful guys managed to use SSH tunneling type of technique to connect.

      Many in the news forum often think the government ban is kind of a token effort. If they were really serious, they could have banned the encryption software usage and firewall all the non-web traffic ports for residential/net cafe users altogether (by letting the business run as usual, the disruption to economy should be minimal). The main intention is however preventing the crowd from accessing the information easily (eg no daily browsing of BBC) and makes unwanted news "unconfirmed".

      I can observe some interesting patterns emerged from the forum during a couple of major events. 1) SARS 2) a large scale food poisoning event in one of the forum goer's univeristy. The info we got from the forum was first hand (at least half day faster than any mainland/overseas media). The first hand fact/rumour are then spread to friends and relatives over there by word-of-mouth/ SMS .
    • There are Chinese proxies for the same purpose, and they are more reliable than foreign proxies. Some Chinese proxies are actually police proxies, though. Might as well just install Privoxy.

      That said, you rarely need a proxy in China. It might come as a shock to most people here, but the Chinese in general do not look for information on Falun Gong or the Tian'anmen incident. If they did, they would easily find what they are looking for using baidu.com, or P2P (which is completely unblocked) solutions. And e

  • 62 out of 130 million jailed? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by foundme ( 897346 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:33PM (#15266054) Homepage
    RSF estimates that 62 people in China have been jailed for what they said online.

    If this estimation is accurate, I would say it's pretty relaxing to surf and talk about things online in China.

    Is the author implying that citizens in other countries will be left to talk about their countries freely with no serious consequences? These citizens might not be jailed as per Chinese standard, but to assume that they will not suffer in other ways from what they said is just as extreme.
    • yes its important to keep things in perspective- many many many many more people are jailed every year in china for "dissenting" not on the net
    • I agree. I was always under the impression it was far more likely than that that men in black would show up at my door saying "You sure post funny things on Slashdot, son. We want to take a ride with you." Maybe because of various people crying wolf about the feds, it seems like a bigger deal than it is? Or maybe that's what [i]they[/i] want you to think...
    • Yes, math is difficult. China has a population of 1.3 billion people.

      Nevertheless, the total number of incarcerated people in the US ("the land of the free") is still higher, in absolute terms, than in China. That is also a measure of freedom.
      • In the United States, the land of the free, we have a population of roughly 280 million people. Roughly 2 million of them are in prison at the moment. That's roughly 0.7% of the United States population in prison. AFAIK, that's the largest prison population, by any measure, not just percentage of population, in the entire world.

        How's that for "Land of the Free?"

        One in 12 American men will spend time in jail.

        Cheers.

  • Western Technology (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Western tech may help to censor internet jounalism in some countries, but didn't western tech allow for that medium in the first place? I would hope that they would qualify their blame of western countries with a thank-you to the technology that allows millions/billions of people in repressive regimes to at least access some information, certainly more than they had before hand. thats not to say that the west should strive to censor other coutnries, but it shouldn't be forgotten that far more censorship w
    • That's like having a kid and then arguing that it's okay for you to kill your own kid. Just because you created the technology that allows the medium to exist does not mean it is okay for you to start censoring the resulting medium.

  • 62 arrests? (Score:3, Informative)

    by StrongAxe ( 713301 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:34PM (#15266061)
    Wow! This means you have a 1 in 2 million chance of being arrested for dissidence in China. You have better odds winning the lottery or being struck by lightning.
    • That's a gross misapplication of statistics. Being arrested isn't a random event. You'd have to compare the number of arrests to the number of online dissidents, not to the entire population. Even then, there are myriad other factors to take into consideration.

      62 arrests may not be a huge number, but it's about 62 too many.

  • Big deal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yog ( 19073 ) * on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:34PM (#15266062) Homepage Journal
    China doesn't need the West's help to censor their internet; they build most of the world's computer equipment, they've shipped a person into orbit, and they have nuclear power. They're a big science and technology power and have been for some years. To say that Cisco or Yahoo are helping China to keep tabs on dissidents is true in the narrow sense but in reality the Chinese government is perfectly capable of doing it all themselves.

    That said, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to know that American companies are complicit in locking down the Chinese network, but of course we in the U.S. long since traded any moral high ground for profit, when it comes to China; there's just too much money to be made from outsourcing there. Maybe when India gets its manufacturing act together, we can go back to being moralistic about China's repression of dissidents.

    What's probably more important than moralizing is to allow more of their students into our universities so that they can experience a more unfettered system. Not that the U.S. is perfect but it is way more open than China's system and the educated elite need to appreciate the value of openness.

    • Re:Big deal (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      China doesn't need the West's help to censor their internet; they build most of the world's computer equipment, they've shipped a person into orbit, and they have nuclear power. They're a big science and technology power and have been for some years.

      I think you're conflating the PRC and Taiwan. You probably don't own a single piece of PRC-developed technology.

      • A common mistake when people see China on products they think PRC not Taiwan.
        • Well, if it says "Made in China", it's from the PRC, not Taiwan. But even if your motherboard was made in China, it was almost certainly designed in Taiwan.
    • Nice how they listed the offenders, then placed the blame on... American companies and the U.S. Government. And this is even more of a stretch than the usual reflexive anti-Americanism, as the products and technologies are not necessarily made with the primary purpose of censoring.

      The Chinese put their imprisoned dissidents to work. I don't have any problem with workers in foreign factories getting low wages, as long as the wages compare well to where they live. I do have a problem with political prisoner

    • More importantly, the technology of information exchange is developed in the western world. They're saying that the technology of oppression is developed here, and sure that's true enough, but then what they're trying to suppress wouldn't even be out there if not for the communications technology that we developed.

      I think the net delta in unfettered exchange of information is positive.

      • More importantly, the technology of information exchange is developed in the western world. They're saying that the technology of oppression is developed here, and sure that's true enough, but then what they're trying to suppress wouldn't even be out there if not for the communications technology that we developed.
        I think the net delta in unfettered exchange of information is positive.

        The image that first sprang to mind was that of the "fax networks" many of them used to use, and probably still do. Rather

  • Can China really shock us anymore? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ZSpade ( 812879 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:36PM (#15266081) Homepage
    I don't think so. This is the same thing that China has been doing for ages, only now electronically instead of on paper. Information (and it's free release) have not changed at all in China, only the means by which it is censored.

    For anyone who has read 1984 though, it makes sense. The only way to control a mass ammount of people, the only way to subdue them and hold at bay their very rights to speech, it to keep them ignorant. If you can keep a people ignorant, they won't know any better and they certainly will not rise up against you. Like I said though, this isn't news. Because you can't spell NEWs without NEW.
    • this isn't news. Because you can't spell NEWs without NEW.

      Oh yes I can. "Gnyoos", or "nju:z", or even "i*_r[" (try it on a Japanese keyboard).

      But even ignoring such literalist nitpicking, your argument is fallacious because you're arguing from etymology. "News" today means noteworthy current events: novelty is not required. If a million people die in an earthquake, then that's nothing new - it's happened plenty of times before. But it's certainly news.
      • I was just driving home the point that nothing has changed with China, despite the information age.

        Also, name one instance where 1 million people died in an earthquake. It holds no importance, I understand your point, but it was a rather silly example.
    • You may not be aware of this, but outside the USA, the USA shocks people more and more frequently than does China.

  • Hypocracy. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) *
    Isn't a restriction on censorship sofware, censorship in itself?
  • Oh sure, you can access all the pages you want. But ... wait a minute, why're you looking at that page that deals with bomb building? And you there, what are you doing on a page that talks about the creation of LSD? You're running torrent all day, very interesting. And streaming video, but the site you're at is neither Fox nor another official broadcaster, what're you streaming there?

    What? Impossible? Look up some recent laws, it's not like anything you do on the net is your business only.

    The difference bet

  • Restricting the sale of equipment (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ma11achy ( 150206 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:47PM (#15266186)

    So this equipment is helping the cause of repressive regimes.

    How difficult would it be to restrict the sale of this equipment, just like certain defense equipment?
    • I lived in South Africa when nobody was openly selling anything military etc to them. This did not stop the flow of equipment, it just came via alternate routes and fed a bunch of middlemen. The military etc could easily get stuff illegally, but genuine commercial folk could not. If you went through the sales records of various test gear manufactueres etc, you'd find some very wierd countries (eg. Swaziland) buying large quantities of equipment.
    • How difficult would it be to restrict the sale of this equipment, just like certain defense equipment?

      Won't happen.

      The reason it won't happen is that the U.S. government almost certainly wants the same technology for the same reasons as the PRC (to monitor and quash dissenting views). But it's better to have the R&D happen on someone else's nickel.

      At least, that's the way I see things going, given the trends.

  • I wonder (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Can you access the YRO section of /. in China?

  • Only 62? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Null Nihils ( 965047 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @05:47PM (#15266194) Journal
    I'm not sure if 62 is anywhere near correct when it comes to China jailing internet dissent. Who's to know? China is very secretive and evasive when it comes to releasing numbers, even numbers that most governments take pretty seriously [smh.com.au].

    And who cares about whether the "jailable offense" is on the internet, or in a newspaper, or in a diary? If the Chinese government thinks a citizen has the word "democracy" (for example) in their head, there is a good chance they can just lock them up, throw away the key, and nobody will ever know.

    Or not. It's impossible for anyone outside of the "Inner Party" to know what's really going on. And even Western governments have a tendency to say things that are a little... off... of the real truth...
    • If the Chinese government thinks a citizen has the word "democracy" (for example) in their head, there is a good chance they can just lock them up, throw away the key, and nobody will ever know.

      If the American government thinks a citizen has the word "jihad" (for example) in their head, there is a good chance they can just lock them up, throw away the key, and nobody will ever know.
  • I find it dismaying that on one hand, they claim that freedom is their motivator, and on the other hand, they implicity suggest that software developers should be restrained from writing software that could be used to censor the net. They are able to write and sell this software because the governments are corrupt, not the other way around.

    • Well, in a free society, "freedom" does not include the right to restrict others' freedom, eh?

      • Well, in a free society, "freedom" does not include the right to restrict others' freedom

        Are you sure? I own private property, which by necessity allows me to restrict the freedom of others to use it. Are you saying that in a free society, "freedom" does not include private property?

      • How does writing software restrict someone's freedoms? It takes a government to implement that software, right? They're the ones choosing how it is used, and thus restricting freedoms.

  • RSF isn't always right (Score:4, Informative)

    by hp26 ( 972894 ) on Thursday May 04, 2006 @06:07PM (#15266325)

    Coming from China and pursuing graduate studies in Europe, I find that some of these organisations persist in criticizing the "Chinese way". Armchair philosophers pointing at our human rights record and our "one party state" as they like to call it as a "concern" (to put it very euphemistically).

    I'd like to say that you may not completely understand the Chinese context. Not all of us have the same concept of "personal freedoms" that you do. We understand that we must sacrifice some of our personal freedoms for the greater good of the society as a whole. I can only speak for my friends, family and myself, but we give these freedoms happily and in the knowledge that we know that the government that we elected works for the benefit of all in China. Not all of us agree, we all know there are plenty of dissidents who openly voice their opinions, but you must recognise that these can be dangerous people.

    In a society as large as China, there are always pockets where the seeds of discord can grow into a tree that could serve to disrupt the harmony. Does government censorship necessarily have to be a form of repression? No. I remind you that many of us freely voted for the government that we have and while you hear of the vocal minority who protest such actions, you never hear of the silent majority who recognise the benefits.

    The Chinese government is not a "great evil" as some would have you believe. I, and others I know, feel that whatever is being done is more out of necessity and would like to at least point to things like our recent economic record and educational successes as some indication that the system works.

    • I find your post very interesting. So, in summary, if I understood correctly, you as Chinese national think that the political situation in your country is "OK", with maybe some problems, but "on the right way"?

      If this is true, we Westeners might have to accept that our lifestyle and values are not the only true and right ones. Oh wait ... what did I say? This would even mean the we (western nations and their citizens) actually should STFU about other countries' habits, and refrain from trying to influence?

      • I can't say if things are "on the right track", and I suspect neither can the government or anybody else. Time will tell, as it has the habit of doing. Nothing really is perfect and what China has seems to work for it at the moment (IMHO), so why fix it if it ain't broke?

        My personal take on this: the Chinese government shouldn't really judge your "obsession with personal freedom", as you put it. Or any of its people. I've lived around long ago to understand that the intellectual development in your part o

    • Dear Comrade,

      Your mother and brother will be released from jail as soon as the paperwork clears and the local magistrate received the three chickens.

      SINCERELY,
      CHINESE BUREUACRAT #XL7332B
    • While as a Westerner I may be rather disturbed by the "sacrifices for the greater good" tone of the parent post, I think it's good to hear the other side of the story. Mod parent up.

      While I may strongly disagree with asking people to give up freedom so that a government structure can maintain "stability", the parent also has a point that while there are large numbers of citizens living long, happy lives, the situation isn't black and white (there is no "great evil", as the parent put it. Things are more
    • Hear, hear. It is about time that the Western world drop the ignorant, self-centered egotism. It does nothing to help anyone.

      It is hypocritical to sit in the US and complain about censorship in China, when the US government controls the US media, controlling what they are allowed to print, discuss or even bring to people's attention.

      Governments abusing the rights of their people, the rights that they themselves gave them is nothing new. Look at the US. Clinton has sex in the office, the nation throw
      • Hear, hear. It is about time that the Western world drop the ignorant, self-centered egotism. It does nothing to help anyone.

        Are you saying it is impossible to hold moral opposition to Chinese practices without being an ignorant, self-centered egotist? I can't speak for everybody, but I think most Americans agree, that we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the

      • First, the history lesson:
        Clinton WAS impeached. He was impeached for lying under oath. It had nothing to with sex in the oval office. Lewinsky had nothing to do with the impeachment. As an aside, Clinton lost his law license in Arkansas for 5 years as well as a result of committing perjury.

        Ignorance of this basic fact is not a good way to start a "thoughtful" post.

        Second: The US gov't does not control the US media. I don't even know where to begin on this one.

        Three: Bush did not invade under false pretense
    • Tell that to the members of Falun Gong.

      Maybe not everyone is willing to relinquish freedom for security.

    • Then how do you explain the government of china's treatment of religions it doesn't like? How does killing/jailing those people help "the greater good"?
    • "I can only speak for my friends, family and myself, but we give these freedoms happily and in the knowledge that we know that the government that we elected works for the benefit of all in China.

      I'm curious what you mean when you say you "give these freedoms". Your phrasing seems to imply that you had some kind of choice in the matter. Forgive my ignorance, but in the Western world the impression is that the "choice" is pretty stark: give up your freedoms, or land in jail or worse. Most people I know wo

      • I'm curious what you mean when you say you "give these freedoms". Your phrasing seems to imply that you had some kind of choice in the matter. Forgive my ignorance, but in the Western world the impression is that the "choice" is pretty stark: give up your freedoms, or land in jail or worse. Most people I know would give up their freedoms happily under those circumstances. But in truth, what were the alternatives when you made your choice?

        Forgive me if I seemed a little vague. As you may know, the Chines

        • Great read. While I fundamentally disagree with you on the usefulness of the implied contract (both its theory and its practice), this has greatly helped my understanding of the chinese political system.
    • If as you say the majority of chinese citizens are as happy and as pro-communism as you, then why on earth is it necessary for the government to be censoring any information coming into the country?

      "In a society as large as China, there are always pockets where the seeds of discord can grow into a tree that could serve to disrupt the harmony."

      Again if everyone is so happy then how could these "seeds of discord" persuade anyone to join their "tree of disharmony".
      And Harmony!? Really?
    • While I am hesitant to support any censorship, I think you are right. We in the west consider our rights as individuals holy and our governments morally superior because they do not infringe (too much) on those rights.

      What we are conveniently forgetting is that those rights have cost others dearly. The cultural difference is all about change. Not even during the Roman empire was Europe as centralized and hierarchically organized as China has been. Individual achievement has been a central method for a perso
    • That was a very eloquent defence of evil.

      You say several times that you voted for the government you have. That is a lie. China is not a democracy, it is a one party state. And with that, the rest is just the same arguments dictators throughout the times have used.

      The Chinese government is not a "great evil" as some would have you believe. I, and others I know, feel that whatever is being done is more out of necessity and would like to at least point to things like our recent economic record and educational

      • You say several times that you voted for the government you have. That is a lie. China is not a democracy, it is a one party state. And with that, the rest is just the same arguments dictators throughout the times have used.

        Funny, Singapore is pretty much a one party state as well - the People's Action Party has been in power throughout the establishment of the Singaporean state. Yet I hardly hear the words "Singaporean government" and "dictators" mentioned in the same breath.

        Is a multi-party democracy

    • Your post is filled with lies (you say you voted in a country where you cannot vote) and propaganda (must sacrifice freedoms; opposition to the state = dangerous person)... I just have one question:

      Do you enjoy your job with the PRC?

      Thanks

      • Lies? Perhaps it is a matter of perspective, my friend. We don't vote for the ruling party with paper ballots but our hearts. In a sense, it's not too different from the days of imperial China - the leader has the Mandate of Heaven. There is a complex relationship between the leader and the people, and it does not mean that the leader has free reign to be autocratic and despotic. Do you think that the Chinese people do not have it in them to throw off the shackles of unjust rule? History has shown that empe

    • Not all of us have the same concept of "personal freedoms" that you do. We understand that we must sacrifice some of our personal freedoms for the greater good of the society as a whole. I can only speak for my friends, family and myself, but we give these freedoms happily and in the knowledge that we know that the government that we elected works for the benefit of all in China. Not all of us agree, we all know there are plenty of dissidents who openly voice their opinions, but you must recognise that thes

  • RSF estimates that 62 people in China have been jailed for what they said online.

    How do we know how many people are in jail for the same thing right here? Only here we call it "copyright infringement" or "incitement" to do something illegal (some DCMA or patriot act provisions could apply here). We have reporters in jail for failure to release their sources. Not as many as China perhaps, but the numbers don't mean much to me. My problem is the fact that anybody can do this. We won't have a robust internet t

  • Who is to blame (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Arandir ( 19206 )
    China censors its internet, and Bush gets the blame. Who wrote this report? Oh yeah, Reporters without Borders, I should have guessed...

  • China (Score:2)

    by mkiwi ( 585287 )
    I support the Chinese people, however the government is absolutely terrible on human rights and free speech. China wants to become modern and more capitalistic, rising their way to being a first-world nation. However, as long as China continues to treat its citizens like third-world citizens, China will remain third-world.
  • The fascist capitalist regimes run by middle-age white heterosexual males have created insidious software tools that have corrupted the poor impressionable leaders of the proletariat.
  • Is there any mention of the shutting down of web sites in US for "supporting terrorism", or the impossibility from coutries like France (though the country of RSF) to access websites with revisionist content, due to court rulings forcing ISPs to ban these websites from their customers reach?

    RSF seems very eager to point at censorship in "dictatorships" (though RSF's own list of such countries is in itself subject to dispute) but at the same time seems to forget about that very same kind of censorship is occ
    • *Sigh*

      If you had read the article (at least the RWB report - it is only one page), you would have seen that there is strong criticism of the west. The BBC summary of the article is biased, only tossing in an offhand comment about western problems at the very end. BUT, the RWB Internet report places a good bit of the blame on the West (Governments and Corporations.).

  • Not that anyone cares (Score:2, Informative)

    by kratei ( 924454 )
    As the loser who submitted this story, I'm a bit disappointed, cause a bunch of comments show that people didn't look at the RWB article (It is short, thoughtful and, to my small mind, worth a glance. I only included the BBC report because that is where I heard about the RWB report). Also:

    1) When I submitted the story I didn't include that bit about China in my version of the summary. I think that quote wasn't a good one to include. It TOTALLY misses the point RWB was making in the article. A better quot

Slashdot Top Deals

Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall

Close