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Large numbers of internet users in China have used elaborate methods to get round the censors to express their grief over the death from liver cancer of the political activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

References to Lius name were blocked on Weibo, Chinas version of Twitter, as well as other phrases linked to the rights activist such as I have no enemy a line from his final statement to court during his trial on subversion charges in 2009.

Liu was sentenced to 11 years in jail, but was released on medical parole and treated in hospital after his cancer was diagnosed in May. He died on Thursday.

Other references to Liu blocked online on the mainland included RIP and Emojis of candles, a common method used by internet users to express mourning, such as after natural disasters or serious accidents.

Liu Xiaobo the quiet, determined teller of Chinas inconvenient truths

Blocked searches on Weibo led to a message appearing saying the result cannot be displayed according to relevant laws, regulations and policies.

Similar censorship was in place on WeChat, Chinas hugely popular instant messaging app.

Internet users managed to express their sadness for Lius death by using indirect references to the political activist or through pictures and screenshots.

Many posts referring to Liu, however, were still blocked.

Abnormal weather appeared in many places around the nation and heavy rain poured down, one person wrote on Weibo, Maybe the gods were sad about someones death.

Many articles and poems written by Liu or his wife, plus the cover of Lius doctoral thesis, were widely circulated on WeChat.

Rest in peace, Dr Liu of Beijing Normal University, one of the posts said.

Internet users also posted screenshots of reports and obituaries released by overseas media about Lius death.

State-run media have largely remained silent about the Nobel Peace Prize winners passing.

However, the Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the Communist Party mouthpiece the Peoples Daily, said mourners were putting on a grand show of sorrow. The post was later removed online.

In another article, the newspaper said that Liu was a victim led astray by the West".

Liu lived in an era when China witnessed the most rapid growth in recent history, but he attempted to confront Chinese mainstream society under Western support, it said.

This determined his tragic life. Even if he could have lived longer, he would never have achieved his political goals that are in opposition to the path of history, it added.

Censors appear to have stepped up their surveillance and cast a wider net to catch posts with indirect references Liu as news of his death spread.

The most recent 200 Weibo posts deleted on Weibo were all related to Lius death on Friday morning, according to Weiboscope, a University of Hong Kong project that tracks censorship on the social media platform.

Live on well: fury, farewells and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobos last words to his wife

None of the deleted tweets contained Lius name, with many referring to the activist simply as him.

Nearly a 10th of the censored posts after the announcement of Lius death on Thursday night contained the Chinese words for rain and storm.

Some of the messages trying to circumvent censorship by adding text inside pictures were also blocked.

Liu, 61, died of multiple organ failure on Thursday, according to statement released by the hospital treating him in Shenyang in Liaoning province.

Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. He was represented at the ceremony by an empty chair.

Additional reporting by Kinling Lo

Link:
How Chinese internet users got round censors to mourn Liu Xiaobo - South China Morning Post

Health + Tech /13 Jul 2017

Organized protests are taking place against the Trump administrations goal of dismantling net neutrality, which will enable the powerful plutocrats who rule the United States to severely limit the ability of Americans to share anti-establishment ideas and information online. The United States of America is not a democracy, nor a democratic republic, nor a representative democracy, nor a constitutional republic, nor any combination of the above. America is effectively a corporatist oligarchy, according to a Cambridge University-published study conducted by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin.

Since the Supreme Court has slowly made it legal for the billionaire class to fully control the US government by legalizing corporate lobbying and campaign funding in a way that undeniably amounts to legalized bribery (see 1976s Buckley v. Valeo, 1978s First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, and 2010s Citizens United v. FEC), America is now ruled by the wealthy and the people who serve them as surely as a monarchy is ruled by a king or queen.

Ending net neutrality in the name of letting the Magical Free Market Economics Fairy sort things out in an unregulated system, as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been advocating, only makes sense if you live in a fictional America that isnt ruled by a small group of plutocrats. Since no American lives in a country wherein ordinary citizens can influence their government in any meaningful way, this cannot possibly be the case.

The US is a nation whose entire government is ultimately answerable only to the owners of enormous multinational corporations and banks, which means that deregulating the ability of those plutocrats to control internet communications is the exact same thing as allowing state censorship. Its easy to get lost in the smaller battles and partisan politics, but when you zoom out and look at the big picture US politics can accurately be described as the slow, suffocating process of robbing the American people of power and giving it to the plutocrats while preserving the illusion of democracy. This new bid to dismantle net neutrality is just one more of the many, many steps that have been taken over many generations to allow this to happen.

Net neutrality is an obstacle for US oligarchs in that it hamstrings their ability to manipulate web traffic away from information which challenges their rule. By dismantling an independent internet, the ever-growing media conglomerates who provide internet services will be able to choke off smaller independent sites by slowing them down with an unaffordable fee for faster service, which will put fewer eyes on dissenting online media. That may be all they need to do to strangle the media revolution, which for the first time in history caused Americas unelected power establishment to completely lose control of the narrative on both ends of the political spectrum in 2016.

The internet has been causing many problems for the ruling class, who up until very recently were able to use the consolidated legacy media they own to manipulate and control the way Americans think and vote. Last year, saw a populist candidate named Bernie Sanders nearly secure the Democratic party nomination while openly using the word oligarchy on national television and speaking out against the billionaire class. Then the official preferred candidate failed to win the general election. This all happened because the American people were able to use the alternative media, social media and WikiLeaks to form their own narratives about what was happening in their country.

Now, the oligarchs were never afraid of either Sanders nor Trump; subsequent events have shown that the US power establishment has been able to push those two individuals around pretty effectively. What they feared, and continue to fear, is the way the people broke out of their corporate media brain boxes and started fighting to take power away from the oligarchs and give it back to themselves. If they lose the ability to manufacture the consent of the governed using their media propaganda machine, they will be unable to govern, and people will use their insurmountable numbers to overthrow them by whatever means.

I feel very confident telling all of my readers that no matter where you are on the political spectrum, the dismantling of net neutrality is bad for you. Go to YouTube and watch some video footage of Ajit Pai right now. Ignore his words and just watch his face, listen to his tone of voice. That is not a sincere person. You can feel it in your guts. Trust that feeling. This former Verizon lawyer isnt trying to dismantle net neutrality because he wants to help you; this former Verizon lawyer is trying to dismantle net neutrality because he wants to hurt you. He wants to take away your power and give it to the ruling class he serves.

Net neutrality was one of the very few victories the American people were able to secure for themselves prior to last year, and they need to fight for it. It will be a challenge, because the ruling elites want the internet as loyal to pro-establishment narratives as they can possibly make it, but its worth fighting for. Dont let these creeps take this away from you.

Read the rest here:
Net Neutrality: Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship - International Policy Digest (press release) (blog)

Hong Kong citizens mouth the death of Liu Xiaobo outside the Liaison Office Of The Central People's Government In The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on Thursday. (New York Times photo)

BEIJING - There was media silence Thursday in China after the death of Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo was confirmed to the rest of the world.

Censors scrubbed social media and blocked internet searches for his name.

Liu was China's most influential dissident and his death has made headlines around the world.

The BBC reported that Xu Xin - a user with 31 million followers - posted a few candle emojis, which have been removed.

People often use candle emojis on Weibo to commemorate someone who has died.

A search on the popular Sina Weibo microblog brings up a message saying "according to relevant laws and policies, results for 'Liu Xiaobo' cannot be displayed".

Official Xinhua "news" agency, the country's state-controlled outlet, reported in English the death of dissident Liu, marking the first time Xinhua hac mentioned him since his hospitalisation.

But the news of the 61-year-old democracy activist's death from liver cancer while in custody remained absent from Xinhua's main Chinese service more than an hour after it was published on the English-language wire.

The urgent single-paragraph English report recalled that Liu was "convicted of subversion of state power" in 2009 but it made no mention of his Nobel prize.

Chinese authorities tightly controlled information about Liu's condition after disclosing last month that he was released on medical parole following a diagnosis of late-stage liver cancer.

The hospital where he received treatment, the First Hospital of China Medical University in the northeastern city of Shenyang, was heavily guarded and his family members had barely any contact with the outside world

Before Liu's death, fought for information control, the Associated Press reported.

From coordinated leaks of hospital surveillance video to a near-total news blackout for Chinese-language media and social media, the Chinese government's sprawling propaganda apparatus revved up efforts to contain the controversy surrounding its most prominent political dissident.

The Apple Daily's front-page photo showed Hong Kong defiance of Chinese censorship.

In an update Tuesday afternoon, the hospital treating Liu said he remains in critical condition and is now on dialysis and organ support.

Liu was convicted in 2009 of inciting subversion for his role in the "Charter 08" movement calling for political reform. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later while in prison.

Chinese media have hardly mentioned repeated calls by the US, the European Union and others for Beijing to let Liu leave on humanitarian grounds. On Tuesday, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert again urged China to parole Liu so he can receive medical care at a location of his choosing.

Chinese state media have provided extensive coverage this past week of President Xi Jinping's recent achievements, especially his travels to Russia and Germany, which they portrayed as a massive public relations triumph for China.

On Tuesday, heavily controlled state newspapers including the official People's Daily and the English-language China Daily trumpeted Xi's call to "unswervingly advance" China's judicial reform and improve the military.

Meanwhile, the daily barrage of questions about Liu fired off by the international press at foreign ministry news briefings were all excised from the ministry's published transcripts, as if they were never asked.

The few mentions of Liu in the state media's overseas-oriented English editions in recent weeks contained denouncements and tough language aimed at foreign audiences.

"It is probably out of politics that some people and forces are requesting Liu to be treated abroad," the nationalistic and Communist Party-controlled Global Times tabloid, published by the People's Daily, said in an editorial Tuesday headlined "Liu's cancer treatment mustn't be politicised."

"Today's China is stronger and more confident, and will not yield to Western pressure," it said, accusing unidentified overseas forces of "squeezing Liu for their political goals."

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated on Tuesday that China hopes other countries can "respect China's judicial sovereignty and not use such an individual case to interfere in China's domestic affairs."

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Read the original:
Liu's death triggers frantic Chinese censorship - Bangkok Post

NEW DELHI He may have won a Nobel Prize, but renowned Harvard economist Amartya Sen cannot say the word cow in a new documentary, Indias movie censorship board has ruled.

The documentary, called The Argumentative Indian, is named after abookof essays written by Sen thatdwells (rather ironically) on Indias long history of intellectual pluralism and public debate. The movie will not get a license for public screenings in India unless the cuts are implemented.

Censors have not said why the word cow is objectionable. The documentary at one point talks about the Hindu nationalist, self-styled cow protectors who attack people, mainly Muslims, for carrying or eating beef. Hindus consider the cow tobesacred.

The move comes against the backdrop of a rising nationalistic fervor in India after the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. The party has pushed policies in line with its conservative view of Hinduism, the predominant religion in this diverse nation.

Director Suman Ghosh told IndiasTelegraphnewspaper that the censorship underlines the relevance of the documentary in which Sen highlights the growing intolerance in India.

He added, There is no way I would agree to beep or mute or change anything that one of the greatest minds of our times has said in the documentary.

It wasnt just cows that caught the censors attention.Ghosh was also asked by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to remove words such as Gujarat, the name of an Indian state, Hindu India, and Hindutva view of India, referring to the nationalist Hindu ideologyespousedby the BJP.The filmmakers face a lengthy appeals process through which they will attempt to fight the censorship boards decision.

In India, where films draw audiences numbering in the millions, nationalist ideology has slowly seeped into the experience of going to the movies. In 2016, the Supreme Court ordered that thenational anthembe played before every screening and that audiences must stand during it.

The CBFC has increasingly comeunder firefor overzealous censorship and moral policing under the leadership of Pahlaj Nihalani, avocal supporterof the BJP, who appears to take offense at any implied criticism of India or Hinduism.

Recently, the board asked directors to remove all references to the northern state of Punjab in a crime drama called Udta Punjab, meaning Flying Punjab or High Punjab. Instead, the board demanded, the movie should be set in a fictional land. Censors made no comment at the time as to why references to Punjab were objectionable.

In the recent James Bond movie, Spectre, a kissing scene was cut short. Another controversy involves an upcoming Bollywood romantic comedy called Jab Harry Met Sejal, playing on the title of When Harry Met Sally, in which censors objected to the word intercourse.

The threat of violence from right-wing mobs also has resulted in censorship in recent months. In the Bollywood blockbuster Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, the role ofPakistani actor Fawad Khan was allegedly trimmed after a right-wing groupthreatenedto burn cinemas down.

The Argumentative Indian, which centers onSen, shows clips of his conversations with former World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu.

The word cow, which the board wants removed from the film, is heard in an answer to Basus question about the context of Sen'sbook, according to the Telegraph. As part of his answer, Sen says, There was a kind of grandness of vision there, and an integrated picture which hangs together in trying to embrace each other, not through chastising people for having mistreated a cow or some other thing, but dealing with people in terms of argument.

Speaking tothe Telegraph, Harvard historian Sugata Bose, who also features in the documentary, lambasted attempts to block the film. It is a preposterous and unacceptable assault on the freedom of expression. The film ought to be given a certificate immediately. It is an academic film primarily where every word has been carefully weighed, he said.

Continue reading here:
India's censors now won't allow the word 'cow' in a documentary about Harvard economist - Washington Post

BBC News

El Salvador media bill prompts 'censorship' claim BBC News Critics accuse the state of trying to censor the press. But the security minister has justified the bill, saying the measures would be introduced to protect the population's mental health. The media clause is part of the proposed Law on the National ... and more »

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El Salvador media bill prompts 'censorship' claim - BBC News