[iDC] Re: The Internet in China

[Kenneth Fields]

>
A short reply from Beijing:
Today at the Beijing CC Salon - I bumped into some China Wikipedians.
They are unconnected to any effort to legitimize their knowledge  
building
and instead look for temporary technical fixes (proxies, mirrors).
They have never been approached nor can they find anyone to question
regarding the continued blocking of their site. We have come up with
a possible strategy to move forth on that issue.

It is my opinion that the blocking of Wikipedia (etc) is in no way an  
intelligent design!
The people in the information ministry have no access to a  
sophisticated view of
'net culture,' and would never have the slightest hint at what  
significance wikipedia (etc)
holds for their society. It 'was' my textbook, and portal for my  
students. The students
here have to learn a 'contributer' mentality to the building of a  
knowledge base.
Instead, a passive, consumer role is perpetuated.

The current 'policy' (no such thing) as I understand it is that like  
Google and Yahoo,
Wikipedia would need to implement a China filter in order to gain  
access to 'mainland'
consciousness. From my perspective, I do not agree with the current  
strategies
of corporate appeasement. That said, if Google, like Wikipedia were  
to suddenly disappear
from the information-scape in China - life as we know it would cease  
for foreign
workers attempting to survive here.

It is not an easy matter of course, China needs to have access to an
informed consulting group - like an academic/professional digital  
media board -
as other countries have access to. However, most (all) professional  
associations are
extremely artificial here. In most cases, their credentials are not  
the key issue,
but their 'affiliations' are. A media art association of China was at  
one time set up with
full govt backing - however the director of the initiative has since  
bolted. Unfortunately
he started a Beijing Siggraph chapter also... If he's out there,  
please call home.

China!?

Interesting,
Ken



>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: The Internet in China (Ryan Griffis)
>
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 19:07:55 -0500
> From: Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis at gmail.com>
> Subject: [iDC] Re: The Internet in China
> To: idc at bbs.thing.net
> Message-ID: <27B499A4-8A39-4661-8B6C-20A981364BBD at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
>> Most of you are probably familiar with the comparison of image search
>> results for ³Tiananmen² between Google China and Google¹s homebrew.
>>
>> Google China:
>> <http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananmen>
>>
>> Google US:
>> <http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen>.
>
> i recently saw a Frontline documentary regarding this very erasure of
> history that was quite interesting
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/
> it also discussed growing popular unrest - demonstrations against the
> state and economic policies from 50,000 in number 2 years ago to
> 87,000 for 2005.
> best,
> ryan
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 19:16:51 -0500
> From: Ryan Griffis <ryan.griffis at gmail.com>
> Subject: [iDC] Re: What you myspace will be held against you
> To: idc at bbs.thing.net
> Message-ID: <E2CAF6E8-DB03-4EF3-9015-392FA15BECA3 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> on a more microl level... in Chicago recently i witnessed a teen
> party being broken up by a bunch of patrol cops. A person i was with
> asked the cops what was going on, they said they found out about the
> party from myspace.
> ryan
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> iDC mailing list
> iDC at bbs.thing.net
> http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc
> _______________________________________________
> Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC)
> _______________________________________________
> www.distributedcreativity.org
> _______________________________________________
> The research of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
> (iDC) focuses on collaboration in media art, technology,
> and theory with an emphasis on social contexts.
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> End of iDC Digest, Vol 20, Issue 6
> **********************************
>