International Law

Two reports today highlight China's conflicted relationship with the internet.  First, a disturbing story drawn to my attention by Duncan Riley on  TechCrunch:

A Chinese blogger has been beaten to death by Government authorities for the crime of attempting to record a protest on his mobile phone.

When Wei was present at some sort of confrontation or protest by local villages against municipal authorities when more than 50 municipal inspectors turned on him, attacking him for five minutes.

According to CNN, the killing has sparked outrage in China, ?with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.?

Read more here.  And then there was Techdirt's story about an apparent double-standard on the regulation of video internet sites:

Just last week we wrote about China's new laws for online video sites that would require those sites to be government owned, as well as actively censor any content the government would prefer not be online. There was some fear over what this meant for all of the Chinese YouTube wannabes out there. However, it appears that most of the companies aren't all that worried, as they believe that China won't do anything to scare off venture capital money coming in to the various startups. If anything, those firms may need to "partner" with state-owned television stations, but otherwise should be allowed to continue moving forward. Of course, that same article says that the reason for this policy is that China is upset that people are watching online video rather than state-owned TV. If that's true, then it doesn't seem to mesh with the idea that the government will let things slide. Perhaps it just comes down to which is more important to the Chinese government: bringing outside venture capital into China, or trying to get more people to watch official government propaganda?

Read more here.