News of Google’s threat blocked by China’s censors
By New York Times | January 14, 2010
BEIJING - Google’s declaration that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country ricocheted around the world yesterday. But in China itself, the news was heavily censored.
Some big Chinese news portals initially carried a short dispatch on Google’s announcement, but that account soon tumbled from the headlines, and later reports omitted Google’s references to “free speech’’ and “surveillance.’’
The only government response came later in the day from Xinhua, the official news agency, which ran a brief item quoting an anonymous official who was “seeking more information on Google’s statement that it could quit China.’’
Google linked its decision to sophisticated cyber attacks on its computer systems that it suspected originated in China and that were aimed, at least in part, at the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed “serious concerns’’ about the infiltration of Google. “We look to the Chinese government for an explanation,’’ Clinton said.
Outside the company’s gleaming offices in Beijing, a trickle of young people laid floral bouquets and notes at the multicolored sign bearing the Google logo.
No comments:
Post a Comment