Censorship

Recently, the army of censors and propaganda officials of the Chinese government have been extra busy. Normal nuisances were blocked websites (like blogspot and wikipedia) and extremely slow connections (<5 kB/s)to foreign websites. Typically also is the news on TV in which critical reports about the developments in Chinese society are generally lacking. But since the start of the riots in Tibet, the censor and propaganda have become extra explicit and disturbing.

CCTV was very quick in reporting from Tibet about the riots. But soon after the riots started, it was announced that life went back to normal again. Normal Tibetans who were interviewed on the street, all confirmed to be happy that everything was fine again, together with some bad words about the protesters.

During an item about Tibet on CNN, the TV image was suddenly gone; right at the moment the Dalai Lama appeared. A minute or so later, the image was back again with a speech of prime minister Wen Jiabao. Less than 2 minutes later, the image disappeared again when it was reported that some European countries are studying the possibilities for boycotting the Olympics.

Today, it seems that all foreign reporters were sent out of Tibet. The only news that comes out of the region, comes from official, government controlled channels. It is clear that the Chinese government is very concerned about the stability of the nation, especially so shortly before the start of the Olympics, a milestone in the road to a modern China. And it seems to believe that strict information control is an essential ingredient of their recipe to maintain stability.

Usually, there are ways around the censor; the routes to information on the net are plenty. But for sure it's getting harder. And sadly, I don't have the time to look for new and creative ways. So, I guess like many others, I digest, what's provided to me by easy-to-access media and these are controlled by the state for sure. It seems to me that the many hours of overtime of the army of censors has not been without result. Alas!