The Trouble with China
As an increasing amount of information is created and shared globally, it boggles my mind when I hear about big-time censorship in major-league countries. In case it escaped your notice (as it did mine), last week:
"China tightened its grip on the media … and banned all reports distributed within the country by foreign agencies, until they had been cleared by the State."
As the inimitable Sam Whitmore of MediaSurvey puts it:
"[...] newswires such as Reuters, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, (etc.) no longer can sell news or photos directly to Chinese media, banks or other subscribers. Instead, they must filter it through Xinhua, China’s official news agency. Xinhua will decide whether China’s ‘national security, reputation and interests’ are at risk. If Xinhua approves, the news can be disseminated — once the foreign newswire pays Xinhua a fee, which the newswires must negotiate individually… Imagine if American newspapers paid the U.S. government to censor their articles, while the government competes with these same newspapers in the marketplace. That’s basically what’s unfolding in China."
Behavior like this — in combination with institutional corruption; a lack of respect for global commercial rules; and a lack of transparency — leads me to think that China’s bullet-train trajectory will ultimately be derailed. Its cluelessness about the Internet compounds matters. I am sure that much of the Chinese population bends to the State’s rules of information engagement (and indeed, many Chinese citizens are complicit), but I also have a hunch that thousands-upon-thousands have found ways to skirt those rules. Just as the invention of the printing press granted unheralded access to information to the masses back in Gutenberg’s day, we are now at the very beginning of the process by which the Internet revolutionizes societies everywhere.
(I have plenty of angst about our current State of the Union, but, really, God Bless America.)
Unrelated p.s. – Happy Birthday to Mike Driehorst! A day late but he’s such a good guy, I know I’ll be forgiven.
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no thank you for your opinion – about the quickness of my reply – isn’t that what the fun thing is about what we do here?
all the best
American news agencies are by far the most biased in the world. Obviously you’re too clueless to even figure that out because your world only revolves around this country. Of course it’s easy to pin point other countries. But remember, YOU are PAYING/SUCKING UP to journalists to write you stories as well.