links for 2006-02-24

• [Press Release] OhmyNews and Softbank Join Hands - OhmyNews International
  "OhmyNews and Softbank signed a comprehensive investment contract valued at US$11million on February 22 after both parties agreed to form a strategic partnership in spreading citizen participatory journalism on the global stage."
  (tags: citizenmedia CitizenJournalism news journalism korea media)
• Light Blue Touchpaper » Chinese website registration
  "Perhaps stolen phones will be used in China to produce fraudulent website registrations for people who would like to keep their anonymity?"
  (tags: china chineseinternetresearch blogs censorship surveillance)
• Yahoo!Mail bans Allah and Dirty Harry handles [printer-friendly] | The Register
  "Yahoo! is banning the use of allah in email names - even if the letters are included within another name."
  (tags: yahoo! censorship)
• Kallahar's Place: Is Yahoo Banning Allah?
  "Update Feb 2006 (8 months after this was written): Someone by the name of Callahan also complained, which made the papers, which got enough exposure to embarass yahoo, so allah has now been removed from the block list."
  (tags: yahoo! censorship)
• Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Virtual Jihad -- The Internet as the ideal terrorism recruiting tool
  "The war in Iraq provides plenty of motivation for radicals, and the Internet appears to be facilitating them, even if legitimate governments shun them."
  (tags: internet terrorism)
• Bills would boost unlicensed Wi-Fi | CNET News.com
  "Wireless Internet service providers would be allowed to operate freely on new chunks of unused TV spectrum, according to two new bills in the U.S. Senate."
  (tags: wireless wifi FON)
• BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China's censored media answers back
  "A media clampdown - the latest of many over the years - has seen a string of journalists disciplined, dismissed or even jailed for violating official guidelines."
  (tags: china media censorship)
• FOCUS - Google license issue seized by China to make political statement - Forbes.com
  "China's scrutiny of Google for operating under a partner's Internet Content Provider (ICP) license here suggests policymakers are making a political statement, rather than punishing a company that has truly crossed the line, analysts said. "
  (tags: china google chineseinternetresearch censorship freespeech internet)
• MediaCitizen: Is Network Neutrality DOA?
  "Sources inside the House of Representatives just revealed their intention to strike network neutrality from the latest draft of the Telecom Act."
  (tags: netneutraliy netaccess F2C freespeech)
• China's media censorship rattling world image | csmonitor.com
  "The deposing of an editor is part of a two-year campaign to control public debate."
  (tags: china media censorship freespeech journalism)
• Journalism 2.1? A new site tweaks the grassroots formula
  "Commentary: A preview of Newsvine, which seeks to combine global news with the best ideas of citizen j-sites."
  (tags: journalism media citizenmedia CitizenJournalism webcred)

Comments

[mahathir_fan]

The Western media still practices self censorship. I followed Li Ao's trip to Mainland China last year very closely where he visited 3 universities.

At Beijing University, Li Ao openly criticized the Communist Party. The criticism received very good coverage by the Western media but was black outed by China's state owned media.

At Qing Hua, Li Ao openly thanked the Communist Party for making China strong. This received ZERO coverage in the Western media but received good coverage by China's state owned media.

There is certainly a strong element of self censorship in the Western media. It could not be more blatant. When a pro-democracy activist criticizes the Communist Party, then it becomes news; but when he gives credit to the Communist Party it is not news worthy? I think it should be the other way round. The Western media didn't report of his congratulatory note to the Communist party because he would set a bad example and precedence.

Let's see what we got here. Freezing point is owned by the Communist Party. A reporter who works at Freezing point publishes a story that the Communist Party does not like. The Communist party fires this reporter who is their employee.

I absolutely do not see anything wrong with this picture. The reporter has not been jailed, has not been label a criminal by the court. He simply got fired from his job because his bosses didn't like him. Things like that happens everywhere else in the rest of the world.

This is a far cry from the actions that Malaysia under our great leader, Dr. Mahathir did in the 80s. During the 80s, the Great leader Dr. mahathir closed down newspapers which were privately owned, jailed political opponents without trails etc. etc. It was called Operation Lalang. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Lalang

However, in the late 90s, the great Dr. Mahathir passed a law where his government promises to not censor the internet!

Did Dr. Mahathir's government collapse? No. In fact, he became more popular. Whenever Malaysians read of attacks on Dr. Mahathir in the foreign press, we became more sympathetic to him. In fact, during his last elections, it was those of us who have access to the internet that voted for him. Those who lived in villages without electricity voted for his opponents.

Today, Dr. Mahathir's hand picked successor is one of Malaysia's most popular prime minister having won one of the largest landslide victory in ages.

Like I had said before, nothing that the people can do, that will make news reporting fair and unmanipulated. The Western news media is a fine example of how it still remains biased and manipulated despite having "free" rules.

What does help is a diversity of media ownership. The Communist Party has in the past let open the lid a little bit, like testing the waters. They have also abide by the law. There are no reporters that are being jailed, of if they were jailed for leaking state secrets then they are tried in court first and received a trial. They have not shut down presses that they do not own. They have not censored the internet as the Western press would have us believe. They have not pass laws that would make it a crime to access certain webpages. What they did was to censor webpages that passes through servers which they own. The internet is still technically free and uncensored in China if you own your own server/gateway (which nobody does), you can still access it unrestricted. So, they have played by the rules. Contrast this with dr. Mahathir.

If the great leader, Dr. Mahathir can changed from being one who shuts down newspaper that he doesn't own into an internet icon that passes law to never censor the internet within a span of 15 years, and turn freedom of information to his advantage; the Communist party can surely beat that.

Mahathir is a fine example of how a person often labeled as a "dictator" in the West, can use the internet to make himself more popular with the masses.

As for him, Mahathir is still by and large dislike by foreign groups such as Human Rights, and the foreign media. The same thing will happen with China. Even if China lets loose, China will still be blacklisted by many of such foreign media. They will find other reasons to attack China when this issue goes away. Just ask Dr. Mahathir about it.