Prediction: GFW to Take Olympic Gold in Media Coverage

Posted on July 30, 2008
Filed Under Apparatchiks, Beijing Olympics, China Internet, GFW |

AFP, via Yahoo News reports:

China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games.

“During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters,” said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee.

He confirmed, however, that journalists would not be able to access information or websites connected to the self-censored for Olympic spirit spiritual movement which is banned in China.

Other sites were also unavailable to journalists, he said, without specifying which ones.

Journalists working at the main press centre for the Olympics also complained that they were unable to access Internet sites belonging to rights group Amnesty International, the BBC, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, and Taiwan newspaper Liberty Times.

“Our promise was that journalists would be able to use the Internet for their work during the Olympic Games,” said Sun.

“So we have given them sufficient access to do that.”

However, in the runup to the Games the Beijing Olympic organising committee, under pressure from the International Olympic Committee, has promised full access to the Internet for thousands of reporters expected here to cover the August 8-24 Game

I can’t believe anyone is having a Gomer Pyle “surprise, surprise, surprise” moment over this. The only thing that I find surprising is that BOCOG (the organizing committee for the games) would bother to parse its words.

BOCOG has kindly provided every journalist their opening anecdote for censorship stories. How’s that for taking care of the press?

In related news, there are now reports (from noted China-basher Sam Brownback) that hotels are required to track guests’ internet usage. AP, via Yahoo News:

Foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of “severe retaliation” if they refuse to install government software that can spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic games, a U.S. lawmaker said Tuesday.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., produced a translated version of a document from China’s Public Security Bureau that requires hotels to use the monitoring equipment.

“These hotels are justifiably outraged by this order, which puts them in the awkward position of having to craft pop-up messages explaining to their customers that their Web history, communications, searches and key strokes are being spied on by the Chinese government,” Brownback said at a news conference.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brownback said several international hotel chains confirmed receiving the order from China’s Public Security Bureau. The hotels are in a bind, he said, because they don’t want to comply with the order, but also don’t want to jeopardize their investment of millions of dollars to expand their businesses in China. The hotel chains that forwarded the order to Brownback are declining to reveal their identities for fear of reprisal.

Just a quick point: spying on key strokes requires a key-stroke logger to be installed on the computer. That’s a different kettle of fish than monitoring traffic.

Over at Wired they helpfully point out that Brownback can’t seem to summon the same level of outrage when the US government spies on its citizens.

And a last point: while this kind of monitoring may send chills down people’s spine in conjunction with their favorite political bugbears, there’s a more insidious, and far more widespread, example: using similar tools for advertising. Wired has a good rundown of what happened in Brownback’s home state of Kansas.

No word if the Senator had any letters to wave over that.