China Goes into Doublespeak Mode; Reuters Relays Uncritically
I’ll just pass on the first paragraph:
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese people can freely access the Internet and the government has never arrested anyone for expressing an opinion on the Web, an official state newspaper said on Wednesday. Chinese regulations were also in line with international practices and no different from rules in other countries like the United States which seek to block sites with harmful content, the China Daily said, quoting a senior Internet watchdog official.
In China there are blanketlike laws against doing anything “harmful to the state.” That’s the catch-all for everything. If that is what a person such as an e-mailing journalist is charged with (typical), then the above statement is technically true. Big, bleeping, deal.
I know that. So does Reporters Without Borders. Unless they’re in a hermetically sealed cave, so does Reuters, but they won’t tell you.
Another pitiful attempt at moral equivalence.
