Great Firewall of China crumbling from within
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From these students I learned that censorship is not only easy to subvert, but sometimes it subverts itself. Each week, for example, Beijing's propaganda department updates a list of banned stories. Available to senior journalists at government-controlled news outlets, the list includes scandals, protests, and sackings across the country. Newspapers are not allowed to report on them, but some journalists post the lists online, telling you all you need to know.The system is self-defeating in other ways as well: Twelve national government bodies share responsibility for the Internet, and all of them have separate political and commercial interests. In some cases, departmental budgets are financed through revenue from online businesses, so it's often in their interests to loosen restrictions. Furthermore, the Great Firewall is besieged by bureaucratic infighting and incompetence that results in exceptions and loopholes.
One day, I received an official summons from the Public Security Bureau, asking me to present myself at the national headquarters. When I turned up, I saw hundreds of bikes covered in dust, as if their riders had gone into the building and never come out.
I was met by two uniformed officers who led me to a windowless room. They came straight to the point: Had I been in touch with Wang Dan, an exiled dissident living in Boston? Yes, I said. I had exchanged emails with him — but had not yet published a story (so how did they know?). Was I aware, they continued, of the rule requiring foreign journalists to ask for official permission to interview Chinese citizens? "Yes," I said. Then the conversation took an unexpected turn. "There is a problem," I told the officers. "Wang Dan has become an American citizen." The officers were silent. "In the future," I said, "which government department should I ask for permission to email and interview him?" Confused and sheepish, they let me leave, and I found myself back by the dusty bikes. So these were the bureaucrats guarding the mighty Great Firewall? Even police departments working in the same building were not talking to each other. Otherwise they would have known that Wang Dan was in fact still carrying a Chinese passport, as I later found out.
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Very interesting post Cory.
Are you serious to suggest hundresds of bike users never came back of that building? Thank god you were able to.
-app2usadvisor
www.app2us.com/blog/
That's a quote from the the article (that's why it's got a giant quote-mark next to it).
I'd like to take this amusing opportunity to request, Cory, that you add a second giant quote-mark to the end of the quotes!
That has bugged me for a while now...
I don't think he can, Sensual Otter. That's "just" a blockquote, and so you only get one CSS background-image. To add another, you'd need to wrap the blockquote in a non-semantic tag (yuck) or use javascript (bleugh).
The ways of getting around the firewall have always existed, and could be found by those who were determined to.
And although it might become easier to do so, the key remains: this is only for those who actively try to break Chinese law.
I've lived for two years at a Chinese university and haven't met any student who wanted to or had need to do so.
It always baffled me living in China, that I could access the NYT, CNN, Reuters, IHT, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, AP, and while Wikipedia was touch and go, it was always the hardest to try to get the BBC unless on a double proxy (but yet BBC World and NHT were playing on satellite TV at the restaurant across the street from my apartment), nor could I access my photo stream on Zooomr without some wrangling.
The whole system really is a joke and no one takes it seriously.
The bureacratic competencies that you describe are on par with what you might get in Malaysia. There is not yet a great firewall of Malaysia... though Malaysia is small enough that dissidents get rounded up in person :) I wonder how and when the situation will mature.
I agree with the second block quote thing. Can get confusing. This is the internet... THERE'S ALWAYS A WAY!
Great visual with the article btw.
Good article, great illustrative image.
As for the blockquote, how about modifying the existing CSS and changing it to use the :before and :after psuedo-elements? They are already in the code, just not doing much. Maybe change the "quotes:" element instead?
Example, instead of using the background property:
blockquote:after {
content: url(http://www.boingboing.net/mtimages/blockquote.gif)
}
Great article, gives one hope. Like the meme from Jurassic Park about trying to control/predict a complex system. But then I realize that eventually the bureaucrats figure out how they are f%%&ing up and correct themselves, especially when you have a very powerful central government that will just say "stop this-- do this instead" and you cannot argue otherwise, no matter which other government department you are in.
BTW--
I think I have heard of this "Wang Dan" from Boston-- didn't Ted Nugent write a song about him, and something "sweet" that he had?
Aaaaaah !! Now I won't be able to sleep at night because someone pointed out that there's no second Huge Quote mark. SYNTAX ERROR !!!