Internet use and freedom

Earlier this week InventorSpot had an article on the issues facing companies using social media to target certain countries. (Social Media Strategy Targeting China, Japan, India & Brazil)

It linked to the June 2010 Internet World Stats report that showed a country by country break down of Internet use.

Not surprisingly China is #1 with 420 million Internet users, accounting for 21.4% of the world’s Internet users. Then comes the United States with 12% of world users, Japan at 55, India at 4.1% and Brazil at 3.9%.

The article also noted that before starting an online marketing campaign, the first thing a marketer needs to know are the censorship laws.

A grasp of censorship and state control issues in countries such as China need to be understood fully. Prohibited words, sensitive political issues and acceptable topics should be reviewed and curtailed in one’s communication.

This got me thinking about the Internet, its potential and how few people really get a chance to use that potential.

Let’s look at China. (Such an easy target.)

It has 420 million Internet users. That is more than the entire population of the United States and only 80 million short of the number of Facebook users in the world. We also know that Chinese Internet users are not adding to Facebook because — wait for it — Facebook is blocked in China.  As is Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. (To be clear, this is mainland China. Not Hong Kong or Taiwan. And, yes, people are able to work around the blocks but not easily.)

In fact, according to the OpenNet Initiative, China engages in pervasive and consistent filtering.

And China is always near the bottom in any objective survey when it comes to press freedom or other freedoms.

So, China has the most Internet users but are they getting the whole benefit of that use?

The answer really has to be in the negative.

Seeing the degree of censorship and number of people using the Internet in China reminds me of how some people would praise Cuba for achieving nearly 100 percent literacy but not see the irony that the people in that island nation are only allowed to read what the government allows.

As I told my journalism students over and over: “Context matters.”

Yes, it does matter that 420 million Chinese have access to the Internet. But it also matters that this is not the same Internet that folks in the United States, Japan, India or Brazil enjoy. It is a carefully monitored and controlled medium.

Threats growing against Ukrainian journalists

First posted at the International Journalism Committee site of the Society of Professional Journalists.

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has a detailed story about the dangers facing press freedom in Ukraine.

Ukraine: Journalists Face Uncertain Future

Since February of this year, journalists in Ukraine have complained of censorship pressures from the government. Reporters Without Borders issued a report in April that included:

“Many TV news reporters say they have been censored. Either their reports have been suppressed outright, or they have been changed substantially, always in such a way as to favor people of influence. They cite new formats or editorial directives that interfere in their reporting.”

Independent journalists report being targeted by police and security agents and even physically assaulted.

Blogger Oleh Shynkarenko criticized the president in July and the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) interrogated him for allegedly threatening the president’s life and insulting him. In September Artyom Furmanyuk, a journalist in the Eastern city of Donetsk, said he was severely beaten by police in an incident outside his home just hours after Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ran his article on local government corruption.

It is beginning to look as if Ukraine is moving back to the bad old days of the Soviet empire. This is really something we need to keep our eyes on. (And that includes pressuring the U.S. government and the European Union to speak out.)

Brazilian columnist comments on my blog. How cool is that?

Last week a Brazilian news anchor resigned on air because of pressure by a state governor to prevent the news organization from interviewing a political rival. And I posted a blog about that case and the larger issue of press freedom in Brazil: Brazil: Elections and censorship

I didn’t think much of it at the time. But…

Today in O Globo,Ricardo Norblat dedicated his blog to my posting.

Norblat read my posting from the SPJ International Journalism Committee blog site. (I often cross post there.)

Here is the original article: Controle da mídia no Brasil preocupa jornalistas dos EUA

And here is a Google translation:

Portuguese to English translation

Control of the media journalists in Brazil worries U.S.

The Globe

Responsible for Code of Ethics of American journalism, the Society of Professional Journalists has published in its blog network an article criticizing the proposal for social control of the media in Brazil.

Released on the blog “journalism around the world”, the words “Brazilian anchor resigns under pressure from the governor of censorship” displays the video in which journalist Paul Behring resigns during his TV program in Central Brazil, Goias issuing government, citing pressure to not interviewing the PSDB candidate for governor Marconi Perillo, to remind the proposed creation of social control of the media and criticism of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the press.

“The Brazilian journalists have been feeling quite proud of their freedom and independence,” writes Dan Kubiske, a journalist living in Brazil and member of SPJ. “But some politicians have not gotten the message.”

Kubiske argues that the discussion on control of the press must be followed in the United States, because of the weight of Brazil in the international arena, making it important for other countries learn about the internal situation, for stories that are not controlled.

He repeats the editorial section of the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo “which says that social control of the media is a” euphemism for tying the free flow of information “to the government.

“What happens in Brazil affects the U.S. economy, and in some cases, domestic affairs,” argues Kubiske. “For the common man, which is the country of origin of the owner of Budweiser? Yes, Brazil,” quotes the columnist. “And for government planners in Florida, specifically Orlando, which country currently sends more visitors to the area? Yes, Brazil.”

Nice to see my work is read and appreciated.

Seeing the Tea Party movement with foreign eyes

Welcome to the world of the foreign press trying to explain to their home audiences the U.S. Tea Party movement.

It’s about the same as that story of the five blind men trying to describe an elephant. Each described the part he was touching but failing to understand the whole animal.

The Horror, The Horror… and the Pity: How the international media is covering the Tea Party.

In a way, each national report is accurate and yet not accurate.

• PAKISTAN: The Tea Party is an Islam-bashing political front
• GERMANY: The Tea Party is about fear of American decline
• CHINA: The Tea Party will lead to U.S.-China conflict
• FRANCE: The Tea Party is a movement of conspiracy theorists, reactionaries, and anti-elitists
• SPANISH-SPEAKING WORLD: An ultra-radical right-wing movement in the mold of authoritarians of another era

Many thanks to Foreign Policy for posting this. Even with the Internet and access to media from around the world, it still takes time to review all that material.

And it is interesting to see how each media outlet sees the Tea Party movement with the prejudices, biases or domestic agenda of their readers/viewers/listeners. And I would expect howls of complaints from the TP crowd — if they cared about how folks overseas see them.

But would they see that maybe the news from the rest of the world as written by American journalists might also have a cultural bias? (And not just the “liberal, lame-stream media” bias the claim on domestic affairs.)

UPDATE

Sorry, I missed an accompanying article by Kate Zernike who has spent a lot of time investigating the Tea Party and who spent lots of time explaining it — as best she could — to the foreign press.

The Tea Party, Exported: How do you explain Christine O’Donnell to the French?

The song that never ends. People’s Daily seems to slam Wen

The People’s Daily — mouth piece of the Chinese Communist Party — apparently doesn’t think much of the pronouncements of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

The New York Times reports that the paper rejected any calls for political reform. People’s Daily published a front-page commentary that said changes in China’s political system should not follow Western ideas but rather should “consolidate the party’s leadership so that the party commands the overall situation.”

To be honest I was waiting for the battle to become more public between the reformers and the hardliners who control the propaganda arm of the CCP.

In an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Wen stated clearly that China could not progress unless it loosened its censorship rules.

In a bit of bad timing — from a PR perspective — one week after Wen made this dramatic statement, the Nobel Prize committee awarded its Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Lu Xiabo for arguing exactly the same thing.

But it is one thing when the premier says it and another when a “convict” says it.

The first step came when the Chinese censors ordered all Internet sites to remove the CNN/Wen interview.

And now the party’s paper is attacking the party leadership.

“The idea that China’s political reform is seriously lagging behind its remarkable economic development is not only contrary to the law of objectivity but also to the objective facts,” it stated.

It later added: “In promoting political reform, we shouldn’t copy the Western political system model; shouldn’t engage in something like multiparty coalition government or separation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. We should stick to our own way.”

And I guess “our own way” is “shut up or be jailed.”

Wonder how long Wen will last. Or is he a slick enough politician to out maneuver the hardliners?

This is going to be fun to watch.