Google and Chinese Net Censorship Update
No Luv 4 Google Post-Mortem
An impressive array of protests was held, and there seemed to be no shortage of press coverage — I especially like what they did with the company name, and hope it catches on):
Activists have no love for ‘Goolag’ regime
February 15, 2006 5:07 PM PSTThe outcry over Google’s recent censored foray into the Chinese search world hasn’t stopped at home.
On Valentine’s Day, scores of Tibetans and young activists from Students for a Free Tibet staged protests against the search giant at Google offices around the globe.
Their mantra for the day’s events, appropriately enough, was “No Luv 4 Google.”
From Bangalore to Copenhagen, Milan to Sydney, and London to Dharamsala, India–home to his holiness, the Dalai Lama–the protesters waved Tibetan flags and hoisted signs that chastised the company for cooperating with the Chinese government in its launch of Google.cn.
The activist contingent is clearly banking on others to pick up its lead. A new online store sells protest gear, with proceeds going to Human Rights in China, a non-profit activist group.
The word “Goolag” is emblazoned on the array of shirts, stickers, mugs, magnets, and messenger bags in the company’s signature primary-colored letters–a thinly veiled reference, no doubt, to the infamous network of Chinese prison camps.
Having exchanged e-mails with one of the main organizers during the past 10 days, I can tell you there is no shortage of passion for the cause of Chinese freedom, or anger at Google for its decision to assist the Chinese police state.
Is Google traffic peaking?
That’s a tough call, but the last couple of weeks at Alexa indicate that a peak may indeed be occurring (screen shot taken at 8 PM on February 16 representing traffic through February 15):
A company with a lofty stock valuation like Google’s that depends so heavily on expectations of future growth cannot afford to stay flat in the traffic deparment for too long. This bears watching.
Other developments
No one can ever prove linkage in situations like these, but it hard not to be encouraged by this story, and difficult to believe that the outcry over Google did not supply the signers of the letter involved with at least a small dose of courage:
Chinese Scholars, Ex-Officials Slam Censorship in Letter
Former Aide to Mao Zedong Among the Signers
By Chris Buckley, ReutersBEIJING (Feb. 14) - A former secretary to Chairman Mao Zedong and a dozen other senior Chinese scholars and ex-officials have denounced the shutdown of an investigative weekly in a spreading battle over censorship.
They said the closing of the Freezing Point section of the China Youth Daily was an “historic incident” in a struggle between Communist Party controls and calls for media freedom.
“History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance,” they said in a public letter signed February 2 but issued on Tuesday.
Many of the signatories were officials under Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang, the relatively liberal party chiefs ousted in the 1980s, and they reflected growing discontent about censorship even among party veterans, Li Datong, the editor of Freezing Point, told Reuters.
The signatories include Mao’s secretary and biographer, Li Rui; an ex-editor-in-chief of the Communist Party’s own mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, Hu Jiwei; and a former propaganda boss, Zhu Houze.
They said China’s elaborate restrictions on information could have dire consequences for China’s political evolution.
“Depriving the public of freedom of expression so nobody dares speak out will sow the seeds of disaster for political and transition.” (sic somewhere–Ed.)
The Communist Party Propaganda Department ordered the indefinite suspension of Freezing Point on January 24, after it published an essay by a Chinese historian, Yuan Weishi, criticizing what he said were long-standing nationalist distortions in Chinese history textbooks.
The weekly section of the China Youth Daily sometimes published investigative reports on corruption and abuses of official power, and commentaries critical of official thinking.
Since late last year, Chinese censors have dismissed editors of three sometimes adventurous newspapers, the Beijing News, Southern Metropolitan Daily and the Public Welfare Times. They have also increased surveillance and control of the Internet.
But Li said the crackdown on the China Youth Daily — the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party’s youth wing — hit a raw nerve even among people inured to censorship.
Other developments
There’s way too much to keep up with and document on a daily basis, and no one can touch the bangup job Rebecca MacKinnon at RConversation is doing. Go there, and keep scrolling.
I’ll be monitoring the need to add, change or delete Internet Wall of Shame members, and add my take to really major developments when they occur. Otherwise, I’m perfectly content to let someone like Rebecca who knows more, can do more, and is better at it, take it on. You go, girl.
I’m hoping to see more signs that both sides of the ideological divide in the United States understand the this issue transcends partisanship. That’s why it’s good to see Democrat Congressman Tom Lantos, who has been on this issue for years, diving in during the current hearings. More, please.
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UPDATE, Feb. 17: Interesting news — Liberties Group Calls for I-Biz Conduct Code: “Something like the EFF’s proposed code of conduct is needed, according to Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. “These companies are hungering for something, because [if they act alone], they know an opportunity declined is one someone else will take,” he told the E-Commerce Times.”
