Monday, April 14, 2008

More on China

Scott Spiegelberg has a thoughtful response to my postings on response to Chinese internet censorship and Tibet policy. Let me make it clear that I have no problem with the Olympic Games going forward, but I think we should not bother watching the broadcasts of the Games. As China censors so much information going into their country why should we be expected to consume the officially sanctioned information coming out of the country? This form of protest seems measured and if another country, including the US, was similarly censoring incoming information, I would avoid officially sanctioned information from that country as well. The free exchange of information is a basic and universal civil right, and I believe that acquiescence to China on this point (as is done, for example, by several western commercial search engines) is implicitly saying that the people of China are somehow less entitled to this right than the citizens of other states.

Others take an even harder stand: on the Tibet issue, Philip Glass advocates a boycott of the games altogether.

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