No-one living in China will be able to access YouTube for the foreseeable future after the site was mysteriously blocked in the country at the beginning of the week. The reason? One video showing violence against Tibetan protesters.
It is not the first time we’ve seen problems with Chinese online censorship:
- Online Video Regulations In China | Where Even Infidelity Is Censored Not To Exist– Feb 2008
- Chinese YouTube on the Cards | Censorship Issues? – June 2007
Also we’ve seen censorship issues in other countries too including Thailand, Brazil and Turkey.
The Great Firewall Of China
The Chinese government has a bizarre relationship with the Internet. Its Great Firewall of China is in place to prevent the population of over one billion people (300 million of which are Internet users) from accessing Web sites the authorities deem unsuitable for general viewing. This has, in the past included such subversive destinations as the BBC, Wikipedia, and even Google News.
And now it’s YouTube, although the reasons for the wholesale blocking of the most popular online video site in the world are as yet unclear. The Chinese authorities have not officially informed Google of the block, but it became apparent something was up when traffic slowed to a trickle on Monday, finally stopping altogether on Tuesday.
Pro-Tibet Video
There’s a high probability that the government of China has blocked access to the site over a pro-Tibet video which was released last week by the Tibetan ‘government-in-exile’. First appearing on Tibet Online, the video quickly made its way onto YouTube, as every video usually does.
The video purports to show Chinese troops swarming through a Tibetan monastery. The monks are then seen being beaten, tied up, kicked, and choked, all in graphic detail. The video shows three different occasions of alleged brutality, ending with a Tibetan man being treated for his wounds in hospital. The man was reportedly tortured and left to die, and he eventually succumbed to his injuries in June of last year.
The Chinese authorities dispute the true nature of the video, claiming the footage was edited together in order to make the treatment meted out look worse than it actually was. They further claim that the wounds were fake, and that the Tibetan man the video claims died actually died from a disease at home while awaiting trial.
Google’s Next Move?
Regardless of the validity of otherwise of the video, it looks as though it’s the root cause of why China has now blocked YouTube from being viewed by any of its civilian population. How long the blockage continues is dependent upon Google’s ability to clear up the matter with the Chinese government.
The problem for YouTube is that removing the video to appease the Chinese would cause a political backlash in the West, which is almost-universally pro-Tibet. But if it does nothing, those 300 million or so Chinese Internet users are going to be effectively banned from viewing any content on the site, even if it’s a completely innocent video they want to watch.
