did something go wrong?

China Blocks Typepad, Prompts Weblog Blackout

What is the world coming to? .. It’s funny how world events like this (and others.. oh the others) usually don’t get too much of a response out of me, but some of the stuff that’s been happening in regards to censorship and the weird, skewed control of information just doesn’t sit right with me.

The idea of the internet where chunks of it are not allowed just seems really strange, it’s like going into a museam and all the exhibits on natural disasters and the crimes of humanity are off-bounds, they’re behind a locked door (possibly with guards armed with rifles) .. I mean, the people are obviously aware that this content *does* exist so why completely ban it? I’m not sure of the legal implications of viewing this content from china but i refuse to believe that it’s helping ANYONE .. i mean typepad .. of all the sites they banned a blog site (and i am sure there are more) .. i mean why don’t they ban the horrible sites like.. oh god.. i can’t even think of any!

Banning of information. This can’t sit well with anyone can it?

I mean, relative to my weird spot in the universe, my exposure to china (and things chinese) is the takeaway food we occasionally get and the glimpse of chinese culture that we might see on travelling shows, and from what i’ve seen (which is limited i know) the chinese culture seems to be vibrant and beautiful, so then what prompts the government to filter information out.

Do they filter phone calls as well? Every single phone-conversation leaving the country has a monitor listening to the conversation, and as soon as certain topics (such as who said what at typepad) come up the monitor bleeps over whoever is speaking?

Or personal letters? Does all mail get opened, read by the gov’t and re-sealed.. i mean i’m all for the echelon approach, whereby the gov’t simply monitors everything and can use this information in a retro-spective manner, but a pro-active filtration of information, of web-sites in particular. It just seems like something got messed up somewhere. It’s like when the internet first got discussed by the chinese government someone swapped all the documentation about it with propaganda: “you will not trust the internet, the internet is bad, the internet can and will destroy your control (repeat until fade)”

Okay, i’m going to stop showering with my 2c’s.

Posted by Christian 30 March 2004

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