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State Media Blames Foreign Forces over Southern Weekly Censorship Row
After Southern Weekly exposed the meddling of Guangdong #39;s propaganda chief in their newspaper, Chinese citizens began to protest. In a rare display of tolerance, the Chinese regime let the protests happen. Now however, it appears they are starting to clamp down. According to China Digital Times, a website operated by students at the University of California, China #39;s Central Propaganda Department issued this notice to media outlets around the country on Monday. After asserting that the Communist Party must control the media, the directive blames, quote, "external hostile forces", for the escalating situation. The directive then orders media outlets to repost this editorial by state-run Global Times. opinion.huanqiu.com The article claims free media cannot exist under China #39;s current political climate. And again points to overseas forces for fanning the protest. The piece has been derided online. Some news portals did repost it mdash;but with a clear disclaimer that the views are not their own. news.qq.com Outside the headquarters of the Southern Media Group on Tuesday, supporters have continued to gather for a second day. This man in a wheelchair holds a sign that reads: "Support Southern Weekly. No More news censorship. Give me back my freedom of speech." A minor scuffle broke out between these demonstrators, and this smaller group. They #39;re here to support the Communist Party and quote "the crackdown of traitor media." Officially, Chinese leaders have not responded to the ...

By: NTDonChina

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State Media Blames Foreign Forces over Southern Weekly Censorship Row - Video

LessOfSarah - Censorship in the WLS Community
A follow-up video to last week #39;s response to MzFreeSpiRited, re: Fat shaming in the WLS Community. --- Videos referenced: MzFreeSpiRited - youtu.be LessOfSarah - youtu.be PynkEyeShadow - youtu.be MzSashaLaRue - youtu.be

By: LessofSarah

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LessOfSarah - Censorship in the WLS Community - Video

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Crowds gathered at the headquarters of a Chinese newspaper on Monday, in support of a rare protest by journalists against alleged government censorship.

The journalists at the Southern Weekly paper, based in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, claim that an editorial calling for political reform was censored by and re-written as a tribute to Communist Party rule.

Photos published by the South China Morning Post and circulated on China's most popular microblogging site Sina Weibo showed dozens of people gathering outside the paper's headquarters, some holding posters calling for press freedom.

One journalist from Southern Media Group, which owns Southern Weekly, told CNN that colleagues joined the protest to express their outrage.

"We stand up now because we were pushed to the limit," the journalist, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

Some journalists have threatened to strike. If it goes ahead, it would be the first time an editorial staff of a major Chinese newspaper has openly staged a strike in more than two decades, the South China Morning Post reported.

The controversy emerged last week when a group of former Southern Weekly journalists said, in an open letter, that a local propaganda chief had dramatically altered the paper's traditional New Year message, according to a translation published by the China Media Project at Hong Kong University.

While newspapers in China are often subject to censorship, the journalists wrote in the letter that the changes were excessive, and took place after editors had signed off on the final proofs.

The letter also said that the official had introduced factual errors.

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Chinese journalists protest censorship

Amid government censorship and controls, are Internet service providers in China actually resisting the propaganda authorities?

China is famous not only for its cultural heritage and newfound economic power. While the country boasts of the biggest number of Internet and mobile users to date, the so-called Great Firewall of China is also enforced to filter and control the flow of information both within the countrys borders and across a practice that authorities say is meant to prevent illegal activities and to enforce its jurisdiction within geographic borders.

For instance, in recent news, we have learned that China is now enforcing a real-name requirement for any person accessing the Internet. Propaganda authorities are also quick to order the deletion of any Internet posting, censoring of keywords or banning of entire accounts altogether when the information is deemed sensitive or illegal. Both users and service providers usually have no recourse but to comply. Some enterprising individuals would usually resort to workarounds, which can include the use of VPNs, code-words, encryption, and the like.

Is Sina deliberately delaying its censorship?

But whats quite surprising at this point is that some service providers seem to be employing some delaying tactics in filtering or censoring content, giving time for the message to spread out before being removed from the source.

Global Voices Online has shared a translation of a purported leak from a Sina Weibo employee , which tries to explain the rationale behind the companys deletion of posts and accounts. According to the poster, this practice stems from the need to find a balance between providing a medium for users to voice out, while also complying with state regulations for content filtering.

We need [Sina] Weibo to deliver voices. But a hand is manipulating us. Someone is doomed to be sacrifice[d] in this game. We live in a country full of special and sensitive barriers and we have to operate within a set of rules.

Interestingly enough, the supposed employee suggests that Sina may be intentionally letting erring content slip out into a wider readership before it eventually pulls the plug.

You guys keep posting messages like machines You can see the messages before they are deleted, right? You still have your accountfunctioning, right? You are all experienced netizens, you know that the technology allows us to delete messages in a second. Please think carefully on this.

There is no confirmation at this point, as how genuine_Yu_Yang is actually connected with Sina. But whats clear at this point is that, indeed, information does get out to some extent, before being extinguished at the source. By then, the supposed damage would have been done. Content would have been re-tweeted or shared with tens of thousands of other users.

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Are Chinese internet service providers quietly resisting propaganda and censorship?

Beijing, Jan. 7 (AP): A dispute over censorship at a Chinese newspaper known for edgy reporting evolved today into a political challenge for China's new leadership as prominent scholars demanded a censor's dismissal and hundreds of protesters called for democratic reforms.

The scholars and protesters were acting in support of the Southern Weekly in its confrontation with a top censor after the publication was forced to change a New Year's editorial calling for political reform into a tribute praising the ruling Communist Party.

Rumours circulated that at least one of the newspaper's news departments was going on strike, but they could not be immediately confirmed.

Protesters, including middle school students and white-collar workers, gathered outside the offices of the newspaper in the southern city of Guangzhou to lay flowers at the gate, hold signs and shout slogans calling for freedom of speech, political reform, constitutional governance and democracy.

"I feel that the ordinary people must awaken," said one of the protesters, Yuan Fengchu, who was reached by phone. "The people are starting to realise that their rights have been taken away by the Communist Party and they are feeling that they are being constantly oppressed."

Political expression in the public sphere is often viewed as risky in China, where the authoritarian government frequently harasses and even jails dissidents for pro-democracy calls.

Another protester, Guangzhou writer and activist Wu Wei, who goes by the pen name Ye Du, said the protest marked a rare instance in which people were making overt calls for political freedom since large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed in a military crackdown in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

"In other cities, we've seen people march, but most of the time they are protesting environmental pollution or people's livelihood issues," Wu said. "Here they are asking for political rights, the right to protest. The Southern Weekly incident has provided an opportunity for citizens to voice their desires."

The protest came as 18 Chinese academics signed an open letter calling for the dismissal of Tuo Zhen, a provincial propaganda minister blamed for the censorship. The scholars included legal professors, liberal economists, historians and writers.

Peking University law professor He Weifang, who was among the signers, said the newspaper's good work needed to be defended from censorship.

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Censorship backlash poses a challenge to China's leaders