Obama Talks Internet Freedom, China Censors 312
eldavojohn writes "In a town-hall-style Q&A with (hand-picked) Chinese students in Shanghai, President Obama made several statements knocking China's firewall and censorship. Quoting: 'I am a big believer in technology and I'm a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity. And so I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship. This is part of the tradition of the United States that I discussed before, and I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet — or unrestricted Internet access — is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.' The Washington Post notes that the event was broadcast only on the local level, and in fact Chinese authorities removed from view what little coverage it had gotten, after about an hour. But at least American news media are gobbling it up."
Re:Whitehouse.gov (Score:5, Interesting)
The non-rhetorical answer:
10M Fluent english speakers in China [wikipedia.org] (0.77%) vs
2M Fluent chinese speakers in the US [wikipedia.org] (0.57%)
However, an additional 300M Chinese (~23%) are learning english. That is an awful lot of young impressionable students.
Re:we'll see (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll believe that when other independent sources (say, BBC) confirm Fox is being bullied.
Would you believe The Guardian [guardian.co.uk]?
How about MSNBC [freedomslighthouse.com]?
There are many more. Google is your friend.
As for the BBC, you trust a government owned and run network over free ones? Really? BBC is the NPR and PBS of Britain. Sorry, I think the "Bullshit" is coming from you.
Re:we'll see (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea, whatever happened to it.
Because Fox News isn't broadcasting anywhere anymore. It's obvious that their rights aren't protected, and they were shut down.
Wait, What???? Oh sorry, here's Fox News on my TV right here!
I guess their rights to say whatever shit they want are indeed being defended. My bad.
So, are you saying that there is nothing between complete freedom and total shutdown?
So, is it OK to invite every major news network to an event except FoxNews? Is it OK to give "scoops" to every network but FoxNews? Sure, not every network can attend, so I understand if the Shelbyville Gazette doesn't get invited, but Fox has the ratings to be considered on the short list of invitees. Even the other networks are getting uncomfortable [rcfp.org] with it:
Despite the administration’s pledge to play nice earlier this week, the White House tried to exclude Fox News – alone among the five White House "pool" networks – from interviewing executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg on Thursday.
After CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC balked at the plan Tuesday, ABC News’ Jake Tapper asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the appropriateness of the administration's saying that Fox News, which he called "one of our sister organizations," is "not a news organization."
(From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press... but what would they know, right?)
hand-picked (Score:3, Interesting)
The Chinese fully realize that probably half or more of Americans will be very upset if something were to happen to Obama, and they're treating the problem appropriately, as would any other host country.
Re:we'll see (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:A tradition of the United States (Score:1, Interesting)
I counter your Mr. H. L. Mencken's quote with Prof. Russell's "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
Read Glen Greenwald at Salon wrt Obama/Bush (Score:2, Interesting)
Glen Greenwald writes on Civil Rights, does a good job of critiquing Obama's administration, comparing it to Bush.
Obama's Holder, for example, is pushing the argument that the gov declared methods of spying secret, therefore there is no way to sue it or the telephone companies, harder than Bush's attorney general did.
Obama has NOT ended the wars, has NOT brought the troops home.
He has NOT opened up the government, increased transparency, despite the rhetoric.
Re:we'll see (Score:3, Interesting)
Fox news is destroying themselves and everyone else is laughing while they do it.
Not everyone else, a good chunk of people in the Southern States still takes the word of Fox "News" as Gospel. Well, the same people also listen to Rush Limbaugh religiously (pun intended), big supporter of Fox "News" - You can't switch radio stations in Texas any time of the day without tripping on one broadcasting Limbaugh. Enough said.
Re:we'll see (Score:1, Interesting)
> Modding someone "troll" is the equivalent of censorship, because it makes the comment invisible once the score drops below 1. The proper response is not censorship. The proper response is to click reply and say "I disagree".
I disagree. By browsing at '1' you made the choice not to read the posts that others consider (for reasons that you know you might disagree with) unworthy of your attention. By making this choice you enable the 'censorship' that you yourself complain about. But there is hope! Total freedom of censorship is but a few mouse clicks away. Reading at -1 is way more fun anyway.
Re:we'll see (Score:5, Interesting)
After the White House tried keeping got involved with Treasury's decision whether or not to allow Fox News in a round robin of interviews with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, the five networks bureau chiefs banded together until Fox was permitted in. The joint action shows one of the difficulties if the administration tries to marginalize Fox, especially when that disrupts the network pool. (Fox's own report via Johnny Dollar). UPDATE: From what I hear, the situation was more between Treasury and Fox after the networks decided to pool interviews with Feinberg that had been requested by some, but not all of the networks. The bureau chiefs agreed that all networks should be included in the pool, including Fox, which had been missing from Treasury's list of networks involved in the interviews. The White House was contacted by Treasury, but as a spokesperson points out, they did not keep Fox from interviewing Feinberg. “The fact that Major Garrett conducted an interview with Ken Feinberg at a time when all the other networks did speaks for itself," deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest told POLITICO. “This White House has demonstrated our willingness to do a round of interviews with a range of networks but not Fox," Earnest added. "Clearly, that didn’t happen yesterday.” Indeed, the White House conducted interviews recently between Obama and five Sunday show hosts without including Fox's Chris Wallace. UPDATE 2: A Treasury official tells Mediaite: "There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing."
So either Fox didn't request the interview or the Treasury didn't add it to the list and consequently they weren't in the orig pool.
Something to watch out for if it happens again, but I'm not going to attribute to malice what can easily be explained by error. However it looks like you're misrepresenting or unaware of the facts. It was the Treasury, not the WH, who didn't have Fox Entertainment News in the orig pool and the WH approved the additional interview for Fox Entertainment News.
Interesting that this story is a month old, I guess all of the other networks didn't attribute the omission to malice either.
Re:we'll see (Score:2, Interesting)
BTW:
Here's a link to MSNBC calling a *black* rifle-carrying man a "white racist". Wow. Deliberate tampering of video like that shows a clear agenda. BTW I agree with my black brother. "Stealing" is the best way to describe making your neighbors pay for YOUR desire to buy new things.
Edited http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYKQJ4-N7LI [youtube.com] (notice they cut off the guy's head so you can't see he's black)
Whole unedited video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syx26QtQIM [youtube.com]