Comments on: IOC Exec Warns China Against Internet Censorship During Olympics – washingtonpost.com

By: David Churbuck

David Churbuck — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:59:39 +0000

Everyone should read the Fallows piece linked in the post It still holds valid I think.

By: Brianne

Brianne — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:45:47 +0000

Hey David, This just read this in Sports Business Daily: IOC assuring media that there will not be a delay or censored access to Internet. A censorship issue would be disasterous. I hope the believers in freedom of press are ready to make a big stink if Olympics fall victim to China’s censorship policies.

IOC SAYS CHINA WILL NOT DELAY TV OR LIMIT MEDIA INTERNET ACCESS AT OLYMPICS

The IOC said today that media members at the Beijing Olympics will have “access to uncensored Internet and there will be no delay of the television signal.” China “routinely censors the Internet and delays or censors” TV signals, but IOC Chief Inspector Hein Verbruggen “assured his team” that media covering the games “would not be effected” (REUTERS, 4/3).

By: Alan Buxton

Alan Buxton — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:26:04 +0000

October last year I was in Shanghai and was surprised by the number of blocked blogs – wordpress.com as a whole was blocked (given that I host my blog on wordpress.com I’m obviously biased). But more than that – I checked 6 procurement industry blogs and 3 were blocked. See here: http://alanbuxton.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/the-great-firewall-of-china-and-procurement-blogs/

So I wouldn’t be surprised to find a lot of exasperated bloggers arriving in Beijing and surprised that they simply can’t get to their favourite sites. (Unless they are lucky enough to have a connection that, e.g. goes via Hong Kong thereby bypassing China’s golden shield).

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:32:33 +0000

Will likely be OK in “International” & Olympics complexes, areas, etc… but, for the average Chinese, they will still be blocked. China does distinguish residences by “Int’l” and can control TV & network access as such