BEIJING: China launched a new campaign to clean up its internet, state media said, amid a fresh wave of apparent censorship by Beijing blocking more foreign media websites and shutting down domestic accounts on social media.The joint effort was launched in May by the cyberspace administration, the information technology ministry, the public security bureau and the markets regulator and will run until the end of the year, the official Xinhua news agency.The "rectification" campaign will punish and expose websites for "illegal and criminal actions," failing to "fulfill their obligation" to take safety measures or for the theft of personal information, it added.The campaign follows a recent series of shutdowns and blockages of certain websites and social media accounts.Several foreign media beyond Beijing's control, such as the Washington Post and The Guardian, have not been accessible online since last weekend, adding to a list of blocked sites that includes Reuters.Online Chinese … [Read more...] about China blocks websites, internet accounts in new cleanup campaign
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Silence, suppression in China on 30th Tiananmen anniversary
BEIJING: China is set to mark 30 years since the deadly Tiananmen crackdown with a wall of silence on Tuesday (Jun 4) after arresting activists and tightening internet censorship ahead of the politically sensitive anniversary.It has become a grim, annual tradition for authorities to round up activists ahead of the June 4 anniversary as they seek to suppress reminders of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations - a strictly taboo topic.A number of activists have been detained or "disappeared" again this year, and many popular livestreaming services are scheduled to be down around the anniversary for "technical" reasons.China's ruling Communist Party has suppressed any discussion of the Tiananmen crackdown over the years. Its "Great Firewall of China" army of online censors regularly erases any articles, memes, hashtags or photos alluding to the protest.But there have been two, rare public acknowledgements in the lead-up to Jun 4 this year.First, China's defence … [Read more...] about Silence, suppression in China on 30th Tiananmen anniversary
China’s robot censors crank up as Tiananmen anniversary nears
BEIJING: It's the most sensitive day of the year for China's internet, the anniversary of the bloody June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square, and with under two weeks to go, China's robot censors are working overtime.Censors at Chinese internet companies say tools to detect and block content related to the 1989 crackdown have reached unprecedented levels of accuracy, aided by machine learning and voice and image recognition."We sometimes say that the artificial intelligence is a scalpel, and a human is a machete," said one content screening employee at Beijing Bytedance Co Ltd, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorised to speak to media.Two employees at the firm said censorship of the Tiananmen crackdown, along with other highly sensitive issues including Taiwan and Tibet, is now largely automated.Posts that allude to dates, images and names associated with the protests are automatically rejected."When I first began this kind of work four … [Read more...] about China’s robot censors crank up as Tiananmen anniversary nears
China blocks all language editions of Wikipedia
Beijing - According to a report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), China started blocking all language editions of Wikipedia last month. Previously, most editions of Wikipedia -- besides the Chinese language version, which was reportedly blocked in 2015 -- were available, OONI said in their report. AFP could not open any of Wikipedia's versions in China on Wednesday. "At the end of the day, the content that really matters is Chinese-language content," said Charlie Smith, the pseudonym of one of the co-founders of Greatfire.org, which tracks online censorship in China. "Blocking access to all language versions of Wikipedia for internet users in China is just symbolic," he told AFP. "It symbolises the fear that the Chinese authorities have of the truth." Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that hosts Wikipedia, did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment. China's … [Read more...] about China blocks all language editions of Wikipedia
CBS censors The Good Fight cartoon about Chinese censorship
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By Star wire services Thu., May 9, 2019 Canadian animator Steve Angel recognizes the irony that his cartoon about censorship was, itself, censored. The co-owner of Toronto-based studio Head Gear Animation produces interstitial musical shorts for The Good Fight, a ripped-from-the-headlines legal drama on the U.S. streaming service CBS All Access. Angel says he and Jonathan Coulton, an American who writes and performs the songs on which the cartoons are based, are typically given free rein to caricature the news of the day. But on a recent episode of the show, a segment that referenced censorship in China was replaced with an eight-second placard reading, “CBS has censored this content.” In a statement, CBS All Access said: “We had concerns with some subject matter in the episode’s animated short. This is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers.” A spokeswoman declined to comment further. Article Continued Below Angel … [Read more...] about CBS censors The Good Fight cartoon about Chinese censorship