International Law

I?ve Had Enough of the Web Filter Stories

By Stan

As of last weekend, I am officially sick and tired of all the stories about the Green Dam web filter and the government’s attempts to restrict access to porn sites. With the exception of a later post (probably tomorrow) on the merits of a WTO case in this area, I think I’m going to leave this one alone for a while.

Yes, some news continues to come out on the saga, and I will continue getting updates from folks who actually know what the *@^$ they are talking about (particularly Rebecca MacKinnon), but when you start seeing stories like this from PC World, with the headline “Is China Trying to Prevent Another Iran?”, you know this thing is getting old or, to use a very narrow allusion from the American entertainment world, the coverage has “Jumped the Shark.”

I think we are in the late phase of a big story where some media outlets are trying to cobble together articles from whatever issues remain uncovered, whether they are relevant/interesting or not. The fun part about the PC World article is that the author even admits that he is, in my opinion inexpertly, trying to force a connection between two hot current events stories where one doesn’t exist.

On the face of it, Iran and China are in completely different situations, but . . . [I'll do my best to paper over those differences for the sake of this article].

I like talking about Net porn as much as the next guy (well, perhaps more than the next guy), but let’s move on to something else, folks.

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on June 29, 2009 (boomark / email).