Chinese Gov't Not A Big Fan Of User-Generated Video; Expands Great Firewall To License All Video Sites

from the bureaucracy-and-user-generated-content-don't-mix dept

It's well known that China goes to tremendous lengths to censor and block certain types of content online through a combination of tens of thousands of "internet police" combined with vague rules that are left up to various ISPs to enforce or face sanctions (meaning they tend to be even more quick to block than they may need to be). It appears that even that wasn't enough to deal with the rise of user-generated video sites in the country. The Chinese government has a new policy demanding that all video upload sites must get a license from the government, must be state-owned or state-controlled and (of course) must not allow any video that "involves national secrets, hurts the reputation of China, disrupts social stability or promotes pornography." As the article notes, this likely effects most Chinese YouTube clones (who are mostly private, rather than state-owned), though it's unclear how it will impact foreign sites, such as YouTube itself. The most likely outcome is that ISPs will soon start banning those sites completely in favor of the limited state-owned sites. Such is life on the internet behind the Great Firewall.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: china, great firewall, video


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    friday, 3 Jan 2008 @ 6:22pm

    thats why i use a proxy server... but it is still very annoying

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Rob, 3 Jan 2008 @ 7:00pm

    haha the great firewall

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    boris, 3 Jan 2008 @ 7:11pm

    FIRST POST! YES

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    first, 3 Jan 2008 @ 8:21pm

    Fourth!!!!
    nice one boris!!!!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Killer_Tofu (profile), 4 Jan 2008 @ 5:06am

    Heh

    "... or promotes pornography."
    Those poor bastards.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous of Course, 4 Jan 2008 @ 7:14am

    "involves national secrets, hurts the reputation of China, disrupts social stability..."

    Where anything can be declared a national secret.
    From how many mirv's they've built using the technology
    Loral Corp transferred to China, to the latest product
    adulteration scandal.

    Nothing hurts the reputation of China more than the
    behavior of its government.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    MIchael, 4 Jan 2008 @ 8:11am

    youtube still working

    I live in Shanghai, and Youtube and all the other video sites are still working fine.

    I suspect this law is not as big a deal as you might think it is. China, at least in Shanghai, is on a fast track to modernization and improving its image around the world.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.