China pulls plug on YouTube after Tibet riots

chris

ACCORDING TO AP, China blocked YouTube today, after videos were posted showing the protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on Friday, against the ongoing Chinese occupation. China’s state controlled media had not reported the violent riots in Tibet, but the government was obviously not quick enough to muzzle YouTube before Chinese surfers got wind of what was going on.

On Saturday, the first images appeared online, along with video streamed foreign news reports, photos, and commentary. But today, any of China’s 210 million Internet users who try to access the popular U.S based video site will only get a blank screen.

Censorship is frequent in China, with the government regularly blocking content considered either politically subversive or pornographic. These include human rights web sites and foreign media. There is also no anonymity for Internet café users, who are also forced to present their identification before they are allowed to log on to the Net.

Reuters also reports that bloggers have been particularly vocal about Friday’s events, making good use of China’s thriving online chatrooms, bulletin boards and Web logs. Chinese and Tibetan nationalists have spent most of the weekend attacking one another in Cyber space as well as on Lhasa’s streets. Chinese censors have been busy rushing around trying to remove the politically motivated comments wherever they are found.

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