Chinese censorship - watching the Olympics will be completely pointless

[PhenoMenal]

China has renegged on its obligations to supply censorship-free Internet hosting to the world media, preventing legitimate journalists from reporting freely and accurately.

There will of course be journalists who go out of their way to get their story across, despite the risk of being persecuted by Chinese law, but it will always be hard for us - the regular spectators - to determine if what we're seeing is the real deal or just a watered down censored version.

Welcome to communist China.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24105361-2,00.html

ps. I was searching a couple days ago for Beijing webcams, and in half an hour I could hardly find a single one. Can't help but wonder if China has intentionally taken webcams offline due to the pollution that still plagues Beijing just one week out from the opening ceremony...

 

[Guest]

The actual sporting events won't be censored. The sports are what the Olympics are about anyway. Everything else is a sideshow. You don't think the "free-world" media filter their info to reflect their agenda?

 

[luciano28]

All I know is the Olympics start 8/8 and the Pittsburgh Steelers play their first meaningless preseason game on the same day. I'll be watching the Steelers.

I think I like the Winter Olympics better anyway. I like figure skating, there I said it, no homo.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, football trumps everything.

 

[o.gkushowns]

Completely pointless? Theyre not gonna censor out the games are they? The olympics are about sports not politics and the opinions of the media.
peace

All I know is the Olympics start 8/8 and the Pittsburgh Steelers play their first meaningless preseason game on the same day. I'll be watching the Steelers.

I think I like the Winter Olympics better anyway. I like figure skating, there I said it, no homo

Steelers are gonna have trouble this year now that we stole Alan Faneca from you. Big bens gonna be runnin for his life this year-

 

[luciano28]

Well Faneca is a tough loss but the Steelers schedule is more what Im worried about this year, we got to play the AFC South(Indy, Tennesee, Houston, and Jacksonville) and the NFC East(Philly, Dallas, NY Giants, Skins). Plus New England and San Diego I think.

We are probably gonna move Wille Colon into play guard or maybe Chukky Okobi(highest paid backup center in the NFL, lol). We'll be alright, the Steelers are great at scouting and drafting so I think Faneca will be replaced, probably not by a Pro Bowler but they'll get it done. Faneca is getting up there in years anyway, you guys still got Kimo von Olhoeffen? haha

Sorry for the hijack PhenoMenal, I agree with Even Steven the sporting events wont be censored.

 

[JustinCase]

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[HCSmyth]

^Funny...

It is a real slippery slope if people all around the world just start turning a cheek to the way china blatantly controls information. Western media outlets are NOT censored like Chinese media outlets are. Sure, in the western world you have competing interest groups that try to spin things their way. But, you do not have one totalitarian group censoring everything and everyone. See the difference?

 

[hunt4genetics]

I predict during the olympics, the chinese will fill about 6

747's per day filled with deportees.


just a prediction

 

[PhenoMenal]

^Funny...

It is a real slippery slope if people all around the world just start turning a cheek to the way china blatantly controls information. Western media outlets are NOT censored like Chinese media outlets are. Sure, in the western world you have competing interest groups that try to spin things their way. But, you do not have one totalitarian group censoring everything and everyone. See the difference?

Yeah I see the difference -- if I'm in the western world I can access Amnesty International's website. if I'm in the Beijing Olympic Village I can't. Pity you can't see the difference. (Or are you one of those pro-censorship ppl...)

From that article - "THE International Olympic Committee has admitted it knew China never planned to lift internet restrictions for journalists covering the Beijing Games, despite promises to the contrary."

"Reporters working in the main Olympic press centre were unable to access several sites, including those of the Tibet government-in-exile, dissident groups, Amnesty International, and others giving information about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in which the Chinese military crushed democracy protests."

It'll be hard for them to censor anything unfavorable to do with Chinese athletes though.

 

[Saibai]

Heh, try watching the olympics in Japan...they omit pretty much everything except for the events with Japanese athletes...half the time they don't even show footage of the gold medal winners for the events.

"Well, Minoru Takahashi had a great run in the Mens marathon, finishing 23422nd, heres 2 hours of him running that our cameraman took today"

*cut to 2 hours of Japanese runner plodding along*

"Wasn't that great? Go Japan! Oh, by the way, here are the medal results for the same event..."

*Medal winners list flashes up for about 2 seconds*

"Alrighty, now we'll be replaying the womens ping pong where Naoko Fujiyama just missed out on qualifying for the preliminary rounds yesterday. Enjoy the uninterrupted replay, all 40mins of it. The Mens 100m sprint finals are on, but theres no Japanese in that event, so we wouldn't want to bore our viewers..."

 

[tuco]

Do you think we can convince them to censor Bruce McAvaney? Just joking...love Bruce, who doesn't love Bruce. I'm sure he has been training just as hard as the athletes for the last 4 years.

Sorry, I digressed again. I predict that trying to eat their cake with chopsticks would be a nightmare. It will just crumble everywhere and make a mess for them.

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

Welcome to communist China.

First of all, I want you to know I applaud and support you on this one.

The only thing is, China isn't communist anymore (if it ever were). It has transformed itself from a communist dictatorship into a capitalist dictatorship, with the highest economical growth as primary ideology.

In fact, you could say that China has beaten the capitalist world in its own game, because while most rich, industrialized countries have developed democratical methods and a social structure that takes care of its citizens, in terms of health care, social justice, etc, China manifests a terrifying indifference to its own people, their health, well-being and individual rights. Only their productivity seem to count.

It's exactly the type of primitive market economy that Communism once attacked and wanted to destroy.

 

[greenhead]

Not only do they censor the internet, but they will also bug hotel rooms of visitors and hack into computers/wireless signals, landline signals etc.

 

[JustinCase]

It's easy to outdo every country in whatever government and economic growth when they outnumber every country like 8 to 1.

 

[Saibai]

First of all, I want you to know I applaud and support you on this one.

The only thing is, China isn't communist anymore (if it ever were). It has transformed itself from a communist dictatorship into a capitalist dictatorship, with the highest economical growth (together with India) in the whole industrial world.
In fact, you could say that China has beaten the capitalist world in its own game, because while most rich, industrialized countries has developed a social structure that takes care of its citizens, in terms of health care, social justice, etc, China manifests a terrifying indifference to its own people, their health, well-being and individual rights. Only their productivity counts.

For a communist country, the distribution of the wealth is pretty uneven...and the means of production etc aren't owned by everyone...and last time I checked its not classless...etc
:jawdrop: m

 

[greenhead]

It's easy to outdo every country in whatever government and economic growth when they outnumber every country like 8 to 1.

They outdo everybody else in pollution also. 16 of 20 of the world's most polluted cities are in China, lol. Some of the athletes, like those with asthma, are saying that they will have trouble competing.

 

[TNTBudSticker]

Olympics ???

I thought it was "Go Smog Go !!!!"

 

[bowlgrinder]

wait i dont get this how can you CENSOR the Olympics (are they doing it in teh nude again?)

or are they censoring the internet as in shielding the chinease from knowing there is an internet?
the chinease dont know what internet is?

someone fill me in

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

It's not the Olympic games themselves that will be censored, it is the press and media that will be censored.
When China got the Olympic games, the International Olympic Committee posed certain conditions that they wanted China to respect.

One was that China wouldn't mix politics and sport, in effect use the game as political propaganda tool to promote its regime - in the same sense that the Nazi regime used the game to promote Nazism during the games in Berlin in 1936.

Another was that China was to give the foreign press the right to report anything that happened in and around the Olympic games without restraint and censorship.

China accepted these terms, and has since disrespected both. First, when the riots erupted in Tibet - an autonomous country invaded and occupied by China since 1950 - China put the lid on and kicked all press out of Tibet. So when the Olympic torch passed through Lhasa (the torch was NOT supposed to pass through Tibet since Tibet is not a part of China, just militarily occupied by it), there was no foreign press there, only the head asshole of the Chinese regime in Tibet saying that "Tibet's sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it"
This was a political statement saying that China would occupy Tibet forever.

Then came the recent decision to censor the internet, which is the tool #1 for the press and media to find information - and deliver it.

So China agreed to all of the conditions posed by the IOC, without the slightest intention of respecting them. They don't have to. What's the IOC going to do? Stop the games, one week before the opening?