Videos Of Tibetan Protest Get YouTube Banned In China

from the onto-the-list-it-goes dept

We can now add China to the axis of NoTube as it has blocked all of YouTube after videos from news reports concerning the protests in Tibet began to show up on the video hosting site. What's interesting is that this comes just a few months after new rules went into place in China, demanding that all video hosting sites be approved by the government (and also be state-owned or controlled). However, given the uproar from a number of local video hosting sites, the government decided to ignore its own rules for the time being. However, given the itchy trigger finger on taking down any site or content that the government deems questionable, it's no surprise that this has happened again.
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: ban, censorship, china, protests, tibet, youtube
Companies: google, youtube


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    dorpus, 17 Mar 2008 @ 3:39am

    Censorship protects the dalai lama

    The truth is that the dalai lama's calls for nonviolence are being ignored by Tibetans. Rioters have turned into inhuman beasts who target any non-Tibetans, hack them to death, burn them alive, and in one case tore flesh from a policeman's carcass. Tibetans are attacking Japanese, Koreans, and anyone else who looks Chinese. Chinese pedestrians get rocks thrown at them, after which mobs descend upon them to turn them into pieces of meat. Chinese bloggers are eager to show the Tibetans' true colors, but this will destroy the dalai lama's credibility and lead to massive instability that neither side wants. White liberals in Europe calling for "world peace" are throwing rocks at Chinese embassies.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    MadJo (profile), 17 Mar 2008 @ 4:45am

    Re: Censorship protects the dalai lama

    are you sure that's the truth, and not propaganda?

    If the videos would be that damning for the Tibetan people, don't you think the Chinese Government would try to leverage that, to increase anger against Tibet, and try to gain more control over it?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2008 @ 4:48am

    Re: Censorship protects the dalai lama

    This sounds like an interesting change from what we normally hear. Unfortunately, it's Dorpuss that is posting it, so I suppose a bit of caution is involved in accepting it as fact?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    It Wasnt me, 17 Mar 2008 @ 4:57am

    i have to agree with MadJo, if what dorpus is saying was true the Chinese would take advantage of it to further there cause

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Palmyra, 17 Mar 2008 @ 5:36am

    Dorpus - Nice try

    but come on now, how stupid do you take us for. Should I dare say once a ChiCom always a ChiCom.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Known Coward, 17 Mar 2008 @ 5:42am

    Atrocities

    Yes, we must accept the Chinese Xinhua and mainstream reporting as gospel without examining China's long history of abuse in Tibet. Appeal to authority. China has made no mistakes and committed no atrocities. Next I'll be hearing the moon is made of green cheese again.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    dorpus, 17 Mar 2008 @ 5:54am

    Re: Re: Censorship protects the dalai lama

    It's the Japanese media reporting it, so I'm thinking it's not propaganda. If there was anti-Chinese news to report, they'd say so.

    http://www.afpbb.com/article/war-unrest/2366027/2748240

    http://sankei.jp.msn.com/world/chi na/080317/chn0803171238012-n1.htm

    http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/world/news/20080316-OYT1T00576.htm

    English news accounts of Tibet tend to be very one-sided, in my experience.

    The Economist does implicitly acknowledge that Tibetans attacked Hui Muslims.

    http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10871821&top_story=1

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    dorpus, 17 Mar 2008 @ 5:58am

    Re:

    i have to agree with MadJo, if what dorpus is saying was true the Chinese would take advantage of it to further there cause

    Would they? Or will Western media black out footage it doesn't like, or only show segments when police officers fight back?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2008 @ 7:47am

    Blocked?

    PSIPHON IT !! :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Lori, 17 Mar 2008 @ 8:00am

    Oh The Economist!? Well, there's the truth if I ever heard it!

    If Chinese bloggers were so eager, why were they speaking of the Chinese police force being so brutal? If the Tibetan's were attacking random Chinese (who came to THEIR land and took over...) wouldn't the bloggers be reporting that?

    It's all a conspiracy against China, right? You know China would NEVER commit such awful acts. NEVER!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Jake, 17 Mar 2008 @ 9:20am

    Just goes to show there's always two sides to every story, doesn't it? Personally, I have a certain amount of sympathy with the Tibetans -non-violent protest barely works in some democracies, let alone somewhere like China- and in any case I don't know how far I trust any of the media reports coming out of Tibet the way news reporting seems to be going these days.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Stephen, 17 Mar 2008 @ 10:17am

    Re: Censorship protects the dalai lama

    This is an interesting take on the problem. I wonder how much truth there is to it. I am quite sure that the Chinese government has oppressed the Tibetans for many years and if the Tibetans are acting in this manner it is a separate question of fact, it seems to me, which does not excuse or in any way lessen the seriousness of that oppression.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Mar 2008 @ 10:41am

    I can understand China's reaction entirely, they are scared their own people might try to overthrow communism in a similar way to the Tibetans and so they try to hide all evidence that anyone's trying.

    I'm just glad the media is finally reporting on China's atrocities, when they first invaded Tibet there was next to no attention from the media until it was all over.

    I'd recommend this book to anyone who thinks there is an ounce of justice in what China is doing: [Link] (Amazon.com)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Tsering Pasang, 17 Mar 2008 @ 8:37pm

    True account of recent protest in Tibet

    Recent peaceful demonstration by common Tibet people is a shear desperation of extreme policy of brutality on Tibetan by China for last more than 5 decades. Particulary China is explioting all the means to convey message to the outside through their control media after taking photograph of their armed police dressed up as monk & tibetan shotting & looting shops/ bank and doing all the unthinkable action movie.
    Unfortunately China can not fool outside world, China is not allowing any of the outside media people including those from Hongkong. This action is clear signal that China does not want anybody to witness the true happenings or events which may contradict their propaganda.
    I prayer to all the Tibetans and commom Chinese people who died in the incidence which is totally created by the China's government policy

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    steveking, 19 Mar 2008 @ 1:49am

    YouTubeRobot.com today announces YouTube Robot 2.0, a tool that enables you to download video from YouTube.com onto your PC, convert it to various formats to watch it when you are on the road on mobile devices like mobile phone, iPod, iPhone, Pocket PC, PSP, or Zune.

    YouTube Robot allows you to search for videos using keywords or browse video by category, author, channel, language, tags, etc. When you find something noteworthy, you can preview the video right in YouTube Robot and then download it onto the hard disk drive. The speed, at which you will be downloading, is very high: up to 5 times faster than other software when you download a single file and up to 4 times faster when you download multiple files at a time.

    Manual download is not the only option with YouTube Robot. You may as well schedule the download and conversion tasks to be executed automatically, even when you are not around. Downloading is followed by conversion to the format of your choice and uploading videos to a mobile device (if needed). For example, you can plug in iPod, select the video, go to bed, and when you wake up next morning, your iPod will be ready to play new YouTube videos.

    Product page: www.youtuberobot.com
    Direct download link: www.youtuberobot.com/download/utuberobot.exe
    Company web-site: www.youtuberobot.com
    E-mail: support@youtuberobot.com

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Tsering Pasang, 19 Mar 2008 @ 7:25pm

    Re: Censorship protects the dalai lama

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. identicon
    Tsering Pasang, 19 Mar 2008 @ 7:49pm

    Re: Tibet Protest

    You must be type people who get trapped with China's propaganda. I do agree that 1 or 2 incidence might have happened attacking chinese and burning shops. But if you look at the over all protest through out Tibet including those tibetan region which are now not in so called Tibet Autonomous region (25-30 different localities even in the remote village)People from all works of live has protested with Tibetan national flag not with guns or sword eventhough many own guns.The slogan raised by Tibetan are free Tibet/ Long live H.H.D.L. and not against common chinese people who suffer also under communist regime (teror rule). The communist china policy of not only denying the economic benifit to Tibetan, treated as secong class people, undermining the right to pratice religion free speech & freedom to travel. Basic human right are not provided to Tibs.
    The spontaneous protest throughout region is the result of 49 years of Communist rule with no respect to the Tibetan tadition and culture, religion which is the base of tib. life. Unimaginable synisism/ extreme negative critism of H.H.D.L is considered piecing a nife in Tibetan chest. This protest is a clear symbol that Tib. people can never be ruled by gun. May Chinese govt come out of day dreaming and learn to accept the ground reality for benifit of both China and Tibet.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    mike, 24 Mar 2008 @ 8:44pm

    re: Lori on Mar 17th, 2008 @ 8:00am

    hang on there, the random chinese that the tibetans are attacking are just normal people living in tibet (who could still have been there even if china didn't take over), not the actual people who "took over" so to speak.
    and wait a sec, wasn't tibet a part of china about a hundred or so years ago anyway? what's your point? that tibet is incapable of becoming independent despite its chance when china was in turmoil?

    why is it that i can't find any info on the atrocities that china inflicted on tibet from unbiased sites/people?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    measdfasdf, 25 Mar 2008 @ 7:33am

    Re: china becoming more and more "open-mide",our

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. identicon
    linda perez, 7 Aug 2008 @ 8:51am

    try to go thruogh the TRUTH....

    The hiden truth behind the protest is known by the non chinese paparazi ..the truth is chines govt,did't let international media to cover up the situation and what is shown are the pre planned fiction vedio released by the chinese govt..just go through the ground field reality...tibetan are protesting peace fully and will continue with it,,,

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    John, 21 Mar 2009 @ 3:38pm

    No freedom and human right in china!

    Well, forget abt cencorship in china, every body knows china is great wall of cencorship. .. More than this there is no even basic human right, Chinese ppl can stay under ccp coz of fear, or might be they don't know wat is human right. Really I salut Tibetan people, with no gun, no army, peace in heart and strength in mind they are challanging all alone aganist third largest military in the world, one giant economies, dictatorship country.. Even USA can't challange like tibetans are doing!! Tibet will be free and let's support Tibetan cause!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    Clark, 22 Mar 2009 @ 12:20am

    Asteroids

    Asteroid 2004 MN4/APOPHIS
    due on year 2029 and on 13th april 2036
    its a 1000 ft wide asteroid it will hit along a line
    from Greenland to across Europe, India,Tibet,China Siberia.
    mode Torino scales # 4,5,10 will show.
    about year 2029.Many other cosmic events will be before
    year 2036 on global regional and local.Stay tuned to NASA.

    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.