4 ms·

Not just in China, I'm sure if this was AlJazeera being blocked in the US the majority of Americans wouldn't care as well.

codewright 14y ago
That's not true at all. Not only are westerners rather proprietary about their freedoms, but most of the more politically engaged people I know read AlJazeera. One of the most conservative people I know, a PoliSci major, gets a large portion of his news from AlJ. If you took that away from him he'd hoist the black flag and start slitting throats the next morning.
- kooshball 14y ago
  >That's not true at all. Not only are westerners rather proprietary about their freedoms, but most of the more politically engaged people I know read AlJazeera. Lets be realistic. Only a small portion of Americans follow AlJ. Just like I'm sure there are small proportion of Chinese that follow western news stories about china closely. The parent post was talking about average citizens not political engaged people.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - ImprovedSilence 14y ago
    Yeah, but here's the thing about the US. It's a large enough number of people, to the point where somebody would be making noise until it was remedied. Also, I'd like to think that the US is culturally diverse enough, that there are large communities and groups of people outside the standard "white male" category who are reading AlJ, and would complain loudly if said paper was fire-walled. Lastly, hopefully there would be trusted academics and professors who would yell and howl and moan about the ethics of it. Then the stereotypical American would get involved, over the simple facts that his is America, and he loves freedom.
wilfra 14y ago
If the Obama Administration started regularly deleting tweets and removing things from Google search results, a pretty big chunk of the American people would be really pissed off about that - including the Supreme Court and most Attorneys General. And people would vigorously hunt down the information that was being hidden from them. Generally speaking, this is not the case in China. The people know this is being done, don't really care and don't go out of their way to learn the truth. Ultimately I guess thats why they can get away with it. If this were something the average Chinese person got really angry about, it would never work. They'd have another revolution on their hands.
- ihsw 14y ago
  They already do it with torrent websites and nobody cares, how much of a stretch is other politically inconvenient sites being unilaterally blocked?
  - nicholas_tuzzio 14y ago
    Said torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US and many other nations and shouldn't be compared to the NYT.
    - fijal 14y ago
      I'm sure NYT is at odds with the laws of China by publishing things that blatantly (and I'm sure falsely) accuse the ruling elite. That does not mean they should be compared. However, your argument is flawed (and you can do much better than this to prove why they should not be compared).
    - jarek 14y ago
      Defaming sovereign leaders is against the laws of many other nations - laws as popular as Anglo-Saxon copyright laws.
    - smokeyj 14y ago
      > torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US Right. We have free speech as long as it's legal. Just like the Chinese.
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
Are you apart of the wumao? If the US blocked AlJazeera, their would be holy hell to pay in the press. It would be a huge story and their would be huge consequences. We really value free speech that much. We might not care to read it, but if it is blocked, that would go against our principles.

codewright 14y ago

That's not true at all. Not only are westerners rather proprietary about their freedoms, but most of the more politically engaged people I know read AlJazeera. One of the most conservative people I know, a PoliSci major, gets a large portion of his news from AlJ. If you took that away from him he'd hoist the black flag and start slitting throats the next morning.

kooshball 14y ago
>That's not true at all. Not only are westerners rather proprietary about their freedoms, but most of the more politically engaged people I know read AlJazeera. Lets be realistic. Only a small portion of Americans follow AlJ. Just like I'm sure there are small proportion of Chinese that follow western news stories about china closely. The parent post was talking about average citizens not political engaged people.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ImprovedSilence 14y ago
  Yeah, but here's the thing about the US. It's a large enough number of people, to the point where somebody would be making noise until it was remedied. Also, I'd like to think that the US is culturally diverse enough, that there are large communities and groups of people outside the standard "white male" category who are reading AlJ, and would complain loudly if said paper was fire-walled. Lastly, hopefully there would be trusted academics and professors who would yell and howl and moan about the ethics of it. Then the stereotypical American would get involved, over the simple facts that his is America, and he loves freedom.

wilfra 14y ago

If the Obama Administration started regularly deleting tweets and removing things from Google search results, a pretty big chunk of the American people would be really pissed off about that - including the Supreme Court and most Attorneys General. And people would vigorously hunt down the information that was being hidden from them. Generally speaking, this is not the case in China. The people know this is being done, don't really care and don't go out of their way to learn the truth. Ultimately I guess thats why they can get away with it. If this were something the average Chinese person got really angry about, it would never work. They'd have another revolution on their hands.

ihsw 14y ago
They already do it with torrent websites and nobody cares, how much of a stretch is other politically inconvenient sites being unilaterally blocked?
- nicholas_tuzzio 14y ago
  Said torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US and many other nations and shouldn't be compared to the NYT.
  - fijal 14y ago
    I'm sure NYT is at odds with the laws of China by publishing things that blatantly (and I'm sure falsely) accuse the ruling elite. That does not mean they should be compared. However, your argument is flawed (and you can do much better than this to prove why they should not be compared).
  - jarek 14y ago
    Defaming sovereign leaders is against the laws of many other nations - laws as popular as Anglo-Saxon copyright laws.
  - smokeyj 14y ago
    > torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US Right. We have free speech as long as it's legal. Just like the Chinese.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago

Are you apart of the wumao? If the US blocked AlJazeera, their would be holy hell to pay in the press. It would be a huge story and their would be huge consequences. We really value free speech that much. We might not care to read it, but if it is blocked, that would go against our principles.