China Digital News linked to this Chinese journalist’s blog only a couple of days ago. I could log on it yesterday, but today I see this.  Apparently it’s only blocked in China, as MSN has promised.

Things are getting crazier by the day.

I wonder if language is my only layer of protection right now. Maybe I’ll be taken offline soon too.

This is how MSN’s new policy on censoring blogs is being practiced. The company will no longer erase a blog, as it did with Michael Anti’s site. It will only block it in the country where the government has requested a block. This is a step up, as users can still see the site through a proxy and as postings can be retrieved and placed elsewhere. AsiaPundit does hope that MSN will not be collecting the IP address and user details if the author chooses to do so.

Still, it would have been nice if Microsoft displayed the above notice in Chinese. That keeps the company still a few notches below Google, which does display its censorship notice in the local language.
(UPDATE: MSN does display a notice in Chinese.).
As AsiaPundit has mentioned earlier, the cooperation of internet companies in China’s censorship is only marginally upsetting. Users can still access the ‘real’ Google and more importantly the real simplified-Chinese Google, MSN Spaces still provides room for expression - even if the company did delete and now blocks blogs by the request of the state.

The thing that upsets AsiaPundit is that these moves are assisting in a greater evil, that which is the Chinese government’s attempt to muzzle an emerging critical press. With the shutdown of Michael Anti’s site, the block on the above site and the jailing of Shi Tao — something that is completely unforgivable — the targets were the domestic press.

The local press is where positive change will come from in China. A vibrant domestic press is more important than an unfiltered Google, or Microsoft, or Yahoo, although that would be welcome. The domestic press is what is read in China, and change will not come because of news articles by the BBC, NYT or my own agency, although these too are welcome. Change will certainly not come from US bloggers who seem more interested in picking on Google than they are in talking about the actual situation of the press in China. But AsiaPundit imagines that the CCP is less of a threat to Pajamas Media advertising revenue than AdSense is.

That internet portals are censoring themselves is bad, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. This is the true Evil!

Announcement of Beijing Municipal Administration Office of Internet Propaganda

All,

The media listed below are frequently chosen as sources for internet website, but they are currently not legally allowed to be copied. Please do not copy current news and politics from those media. Please especially keep away from copying them in the front page or headline areas.

We understand that the current limits on copying news are not easy to implement, but before we find better solutions, please cooperate with us. We will also keep guard for you, and penalize each of those sites that we find fail to follow the rules.

The Huashang Daily, The Chinese Business Morning View (Hua Shang Chen Bao), The Jiefang Daily Online–Shanghai Morning Post (Xin Wen Chen Bao), The Jin Chu Online-Chu Tian Metropolitan News (Chu Tian Du Shi Bao), The Bei Guo Online—Ban Dao Chen Bao, The Star Daily (Bei Jing Yu Le Xin Bao), The International Herald Leader (Guo Ji Xian Qu Dao Bao), The China Business News (Di Yi Cai Jing Ri Bao), The Hua Xia Jing Wei Online, The China Taiwan Online, Chongqing Morning News (Chongqing Chen Bao), The Oriental Morning Post (Dong Fang Zao Bao), Chongqing Business News (Chong Qing Shang Bao ), The First (Jing Bao), YNET.com (Bei Qing Wang), The Legal Evening News (Fa Zhi Wan Bao), The Today Morning News (Jin Ri Zao Bao), The Southern Metropolitan News (Nan Fang Du Shi Bao), Chengdu Evening News, Lanzhou Morning News, Haixia Dushi Bao.

There was indication that this was imminent in yesterday’s South China Morning Post:

Mainland internet companies are expecting new controls over their content that would prevent them from posting political and current affairs articles published by metropolitan newspapers on their websites, sources said.

But articles from magazines and party newspapers would be exempt from the soon-to-be-announced directives, the sources said, adding that metropolitan newspapers were targeted probably because they ran more negative news.

"Sohu will be the most affected because it focuses on domestic news, while Sina will be affected to a lesser extent because it carries more international news. Netease will also be affected because it needs local content to fill its news packages," one source said, referring to three of the mainland’s most popular news portals.

An outspoken journalism professor, who had been warned not to speak to foreign reporters, said he was not aware of the new policy, but described it as "beyond comprehension" and against the trend of the mainland’s economic openness.

"Portals cannot help but respect the rule, but in the longer term, such controls will not work because they go against the trend of economic opening-up," he said.

"We have to work for greater openness otherwise [the whole system] will break down."

AsiaPundit is thankful that, for the moment, the newspapers have been blocked from reproduction by the portals rather than shut. And Interfax notes an upside, both from the local press and from the internet.:

Most news published on the country’s top portals consists of republished reports from Chinese newspapers, not news written by the portals own staffers. By republishing stories on the Internet a report published in a regional newspaper can receive national attention.

The circular was originally leaked by a popular Chinese journalist blogger. Chinese journalists are increasingly turning to blogs and email to publish news that would otherwise not be published. It is likely that this new rule will only strengthen this trend, and will increase blog traffic to the detriment of China’s top portals, many of which are listed abroad.

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