YouTube ban only erodes China's image

Found on CNet News on Sunday, 16 March 2008
Browse Politics

Protests break out in some nation around the globe and one of the first things a media-shy government does - just after sending in riot police - is pull the plug on YouTube.

Scores of other media outlets have been blocked or partially blacked out in China, including broadcasts of CNN, the BBC World, and Google News.

The country's authorities routinely block sites such as Wikipedia, the BBC, and even live TV transmissions to hinder publication of stories on the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong, or even stories critical of leaders or governments that China is trying to build better relationships with.

On an Internet connection from a room in a Western-owned hotel, censorship is fairly light. Hundreds of images of the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989 pop up on Google Images, particularly images of "Tank Man." News stories, or at least headlines, on controversial subjects come up as well.

Searching for Tiananmen Square on Google's Chinese Image site with Chinese characters reveals no pictures of the riots in 14 pages of images.

Everbody agrees that Tibet should be free. However, at the same time, people still buy products made in China because they are cheap and wait for the olympic games to start. Of course China will continue playing deaf, because it knows that it is all just talk; the people won't change and the companies want to do business, effectively supporting oppression and exploitation. But it's for the money, to save a few cents, so everything is ok, right? No. It's about time other nations make China realize that it cannot play the bloody dictator. It's not the time for political small-talk. Add some extra levies on chinese products and cancel the olympic games; that helps more than thousands of demonstrators in the streets.