
China bans Youtube - vaksel
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSTRE52N1VN20090324?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews&rpc=22&sp=true
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bk
This is hardly big news. Sites rotate in and out of being blocked all the
time. wikipedia, wordpress.com, news.bbc.co.uk, etc. have all been blocked at
one point or another.

The only mainstream site that's been consistently blocked is bbc news.
Interestingly, no US news outlets are blocked. It always makes me wonder why.

Also, the major cities tend to have more liberal access policies than more
remote areas.

~~~
chiffonade
> It always makes me wonder why.

This doesn't make me wonder at all.

The US and China were the two biggest allies in World War 2, became
economically unified during the cold war to defeat the Soviet Union (remember
the Soviet Union?), and now are the two biggest economic powers in the world.
Don't look at official GDP figures, they're meaningless. Look at influence,
manufacturing/logistical and financial power centers, and purchasing power
parity.

After all, what is China but a United Provinces of Asia? You think 1.3B people
are _naturally_ part of the same country/culture/creed/flag? No fucking way,
to think otherwise is racist ignorance.

Japan is quickly being usurped by Korea as well. Once the re-unification of
Korea happens and there is a large source of inexpensive labor from the North
for the developed economy in the South to employ, Japan will start its
relative decline. They've already started to use Chinese manufacturing to
remain competitive and leverage what's left of their engineering/design head-
start given to them by the Marshall plan and previous Imperialist mindset.

The big picture, folks. It's always worth looking at.

~~~
Caligula
I have to disagree with some of what you said.

It was the USSR and the US who were the biggest allies in WW2. China was a non
factor. And after WW2, the US opposed Mao by supporting the losing side. The
USSR supported Mao's revolution. Trade began between China and the US in the
70's but it was not part of a plan to defeat the soviet union. It only really
picked up at the end of the cold war.

I don't think Japan is being usurped. If and when the re-unification happens,
it will be chaos. South Korea just hopes it does not bankrupt them. Having a
new source of inexpensive labor will not help Korea surpass Japan. China is
close by and there is still plenty of inexpensive labor to be had there.

Also, its not like just Japan uses Chinese manufacturing. The whole world does
including the US. Japans engineering head-start was not given to them by the
Marshall plan(which was mostly directed at europe). They earned it starting in
the 50's.

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chiffonade
Were there American airbases in Russia, or China?

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philwelch
There were American bombs being dropped on Germany, but that doesn't mean we
have an animosity against Germany today. We were allied with the nationalist
Chinese—the ones that lost the civil war and ended up ruling Taiwan.

And at any rate, America's most major, most trusted ally in WWII and since has
been Great Britain.

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phugoid
The hard thing to bend my mind around is the fact that many people in China
are in favour of Internet censorship. I have witnessed the same thing here in
the UAE - even from young Western-educated locals.

I suppose that if you grow up in a society where heavy-handed censorship is
widespread in all media and even conversation, you'd accept it as normal and
perhaps necessary. Self-censorship is even more effective and omni-present.

Note: I'm not claiming that censorship is absent in the West, but you'd be
silly not to acknowledge that there's less of it.

One local told me that he wouldn't dream of giving an unfiltered Internet
connection to many of his countrymen, as nothing in their culture has prepared
them to deal with what they'd run into. Of course, he himself uses a VPN to
dial out.

~~~
est
> The hard thing to bend my mind around is the fact that many people in China
> are in favour of Internet censorship.

Wait, where did you get that?

~~~
phugoid
A number of articles I've read, but sorry I haven't recorded any specific
links.

I've also read about some very patriotic Chinese surfers that go around
flaming anything that doesn't conform to the Party line. Same happens here in
UAE.

From several indicators like this, I have assumed there's quite a bit of
similarity between the two situations. The two national cultures are very
different, but they both actively punish those who publicly differs from
central authority, they both try to censor all media.

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jballanc
This article is inaccurate. It makes it seem as if YouTube is no longer
blocked in Turkey when, last I checked, it still is...

~~~
Retric
Actuality, they don't say it works in Turkey only that: _YouTube, which has
country-specific sites in 23 countries, has in the past been blocked in
certain countries, including Turkey_ which might suggest it currently works
but does not say so.

Anyway, while I don't think it's an issue with Turkey I expect China blocking
YouTube might become a free trade issue.

~~~
utku_karatas
You're right about Turkey, it's no free trade issue here.

The bans are about our archaic laws allowing anyone to claim any site for
being a threat to our national unity. And these lawsuits usually end up with
banning the whole thing. At some point even Blogger.com was gone (probably
because some smart-ass didn't like one post and issued a suit).

And as for the inaccuracy of the write up, Youtube's status is quite flaky
because of all the lawsuits against it - one after another. Even we lost the
track of what's going on there - let alone the poor guy :)

~~~
eru
> You're right about Turkey, it's no free trade issue here.

Yes. The last time I noticed, it was about the sexual orientation of the
republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Attatürk. Is that still current?

~~~
utku_karatas
AFAICR, yes, that was the first tide of the neverending banning wave - an
insulting song about Ataturk whose legacy is protected strictly by the current
law. I've no clue what the latest reason is though.

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petercooper
Don't be too quick to blame this on political fear - China probably just wants
to increase productivity in the workplace. Next on the chopping block..
Facebook, Digg, and Reddit.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
You've got to be kidding. Stifling another outlet for free speech is just to
get a few more widgets produced per day right? Of course it has nothing to do
with political fear, even though every other instance of such an action did.
Right, you can't be serious.

~~~
marksutherland
It can't be both? The percieved benefits of protectionism, combined with the
squelching of unsavoury opinions and other content must be very appealing.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
I'm not sure that applies here. Protectionism is not about keeping people from
goofing off at work.

~~~
marksutherland
doh, I missed the root comment (threading isn't very obvious in links).

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garply
Does anyone know if the ban is nation-wide? I was under the impression that
bans are often province-specific.

~~~
josefresco
They also tend to flicker on and off, I'm reserving judgment on this until
some time passes.

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steamboiler
I wonder if this has any connection to the huge popularity of the "grass-mud
horse" online, particularly on youtube?

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast.html?em>

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tlrobinson
The most surprising thing about this is that it wasn't _already_ banned.

