41% Of Websites In China Disappeared Over The Last Year
from the interesting-timing dept
Just as we hear the Chinese government claim credit for cracking down on infringement online, comes the news that there are 41% fewer websites in China than a year earlier. It's not difficult to suspect censorship going on here, but, of course, the Chinese government says it's got nothing to do with it, claiming that China has a "high level of freedom of online speech." We're guessing the statement wasn't meant as a joke, even if it is one in real life. But China can defend these actions by pointing to efforts in Western nations, such as the US, to put in place laws that will allow the US to censor websites as well.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.
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Filed Under: censorship, china
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Polls
Do organizations ever do polls on whether people actually believe shit like this? Sure, it's blatantly obvious to even the casual (outside) observer that China is full of shit, but it'd be interesting to see actual numbers. Western media is so caught up in the impractical ideal of objectivity, that they never actually call anyone out on these outrageous claims. Fine then. Do some polls to get confirmation of what people think. Hell, we have polls on completely stupid stuff like whether Casey Anthony is really guilty and...uh, presidential elections. Why not something important like giving the media permission to tell us the truth?
Bah! This makes me mad. I'm going back to the Slater/Monkey thread to lighten my mood.
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Given the fact that the number of websites tends to grow exponentially, that's not so surprising. But you still have the problem of deciding exactly what a "website" is. Is your social network profile page a website, for example?
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Re:
Extra credit:
To which logical fallacy does this statement belong?
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