Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Chinese Gov’t Defends Censorship

According to Interfax China, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today in Beijing defended the government’s censorship activities. He quoted George Bernard Shaw (pictured above), saying “Freedom means responsibility,” and said that local internet industries should ensure that web sites contain accurate information and don’t mislead people, and not create a bad influence on society. Wen emphasized that “China attaches a great deal of importance to attracting international experience in Internet monitoring,” and, according to Forbes, that “every citizen in the country should consciously... abide by the laws in order to safeguard national social and collective interests.”

See, the Chinese Premier isn’t that bad after all. I bet just like Google, he regrets that China remains in many ways closed, and hopes that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. (I bet he didn’t like asking Google to hide this BBC profile on him from Chinese searchers, but I’m sure it contained some misleading bad influence type of stuff.) Talking about Google, take a look at what the Interfax article also says:

“While Wen was making his comments, broadcast live over the Internet and via TV, www.Google.com users in Shanghai were reporting the site was blocked.”

Well, the Chinese have Google.cn now... why would they want to go elsewhere?

Chinese Gov’t Defends Cen ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (0)

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