« Se Stockholm med Steffanie och Francis | Startsida | Våra skuggmyndigheter »

Några sanningar om censur av Internet i Kina

I en rapport hos WorldChanging från SXSW-festivalen och en debatt om Internet-censur i Kina och Iran, finner man ett antal välbehövliga nyanseringar av "sanningar" om läget i Kina, som ofta rapporteras i vanlig media (t.ex. i New York Times, om censur av bloggar):

Misconception 1: We in the west assume that millions of Chinese are searching for information to aid their revolutionary struggles.
Truth: Most Internet users in China are looking for the same thing most Western users are looking for. Porn.

Misconception 5: Censorship is all happening at the government level.
Truth: Censorship is more prevalent at the personal level, with bloggers omitting or removing references to certain ideas or issues in order to avoid trouble with the authorities.


Det är intressant att läsa hur bloggar används för att testa systemets öppenhet och hur t.ex. innehåll från bloggar konkurrerar med material från staten i Google Chinas träfflistor. Vardagsaspekten på bloggandet är minst lika viktig som den som handlar om öppen politisk debatt:

These folks are often simply discussing their own lives, or what they see around them, with greater or lesser degrees of skill and acuity, just like many other bloggers in other, 'freer' countries [...] In these societies, which have a lot of internal barriers to communication, this is significant. Derakhshan mentioned that for male Iranians, reading a blog by an Iranian woman is a bridge into a view of their own culture that they've probably never had before.