Monday, December 22, 2014

Global Times Deletes Chinese (But Not English) Language Article About Great Firewall

On December 16, 2014, the state-sponsored Global Times published an English language op-ed entitled “Open Internet Not at Odds with Regulation.” Some excerpts:
Surprised to find that Google had become accessible around midday Monday, Chinese mainlanders posted the news online, which went viral on social media immediately. A jubilant group of Net users assumed that it was because of some kind of agreement between the Chinese government and Google. However, later that evening, the website was blocked again, with many people speculating that the temporary access resulted from an update to the Great Firewall.
. . . .
It might not be worth figuring out what really happened.
On the same day the Global Times published a Chinese language op-ed entitled “The ‘Temporary Lifting of the Ban’ on Google is Cause for Reflection” (谷歌“临时开禁”引发的思考) - original URL here - http://opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2014-12/5243426.html.

The following screen recording was taken on December 21, 2014, and shows that the English language version of the editorial remained available, but the Chinese language version was deleted.


Translation: Sun Daluo's Court Judgment for Sharing Books and Articles

The PRC government sentenced Sun Zhiming (孙志明, who wrote under the alias Sun Daluo (孙大骆)) to one year imprisonment for the crime of "di...