Censorship Hoax

iaofeng and the “milk pigs” by media reporter Yuan Lei, famous amongst Chinese bloggers — suddenly became blank pages with only one line shown, “Due to irresistible reason known to all, this blog site is temporarily closed.”

What is referred to as “reason known to all” is in fact “International Women’s Day on March 8th”; the two male bloggers wanted to use this special means of closing down their blog sites to “celebrate” this special occasion.

What a surprise when a Reuters reporter “tightly” linked up this rather humorous incident and the “Two Conferences” being held in earnest currently in China. After learning of the blog incident, this reporter announced to the whole world the following: Two of China’s most daring bloggers’ websites, “massaged breasts” and “milk pigs”, have been shut down on government orders. This represents one of a series of actions in China to tightly control and censor the internet, especially during the period of the two key conferences.

Thereafter, various major Western media, such as BBC and Voice of America, all followed up with similar reporting like a hive of bees.

Not long after, these two media persons’ blog sites returned to normalcy and both apologized online to netizens and explained that they, not the Chinese government, closed down their own blog sites.

Verifying news, sometimes from multiple sources, is the necessary means of making sure what is reported is factual and true and is the basic code of conduct for any media worker. But in this matter, certain Western media, due to their “pride and prejudice” towards China, jumped to conclusions based on personal projections and skipped the fact checking part.

It was a joke! Boy, did they make Western journalists look stupid! As though censorship was any kind of a problem in China….

(Via EastSouthWestNorth, who point out that Yuan Lei is in fact a woman.)

See also this report in the WSJ:

Some well-known bloggers in China used an unlikely tool last week to make a point that Western news media and politicians misunderstand Chinese censorship. They shut themselves down.

Notices posted on the Chinese-language blogs Massage Milk and Milk Pig announced that “Due to unavoidable reasons with which everyone is familiar, this blog is temporarily closed.”

Within hours, English-language bloggers and Western news media spread the word that the Chinese government had closed the sites. The BBC news service reported that Massage Milk was “closed down by the authorities,” adding that the act had coincided with the annual session of the Chinese legislature. Picking up on that report and others from news services, French free-press group Reporters Without Borders issued a statement condemning the closure of the blogs.

China has recently stepped up its censorship of dissent and monitoring of the Internet, late last year asking Microsoft Corp. to take down the blog of journalist Michael Anti, among other acts. After the topic hit the front pages of U.S. newspapers and magazines, Congress held hearings in February about the ways in which U.S. Internet companies cooperate with Chinese censorship.

But in this case, it appears the Chinese government wasn’t involved. By Thursday, a day after the shut-downs, the blogs were back up and running.

In an interview, Beijing-based journalist Wang Xiaofeng of Massage Milk says he shut his blog down to make a point about freedom of speech — just one directed at the West instead of at Beijing. He calls the Western press “irresponsible” and says that the hoax was designed “to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always the way you think.”

You say, example of rich Chinese sense of humour: I say, wankers.

Talking of which, what kind of a site is this “massaged breasts” anyway?