Saturday 5 January 2013

Are the Chinese Censoring UK Citizens?



When fellow political blog Pride's Purge found itself inaccessible on 3 Mobile, author Tom Pride tweeted 3 as to why. They responded that they had classified it as containing offensive material and therefore blocked it for anyone who had not explicitly removed automatic filters (a majority of 3UK users). Aside from the rare swearword his blog is as white as white. It doesn’t even contain pictures.

What 3UK may have taken offense to is a critical article written by Pride on how UK utility companies are being bought up by Chinese businessmen like Li Ka-shing a year ago. Li Ka-shing just so happens to be majority shareholder in 3UK. When Pride supporters questioned 3UK over their content blocking policies 3UK were unable to give a confirmed list or reason why the block had taken place.

Automatic content filtering isn’t a very reliable at the best of times. Has Pride unwittingly triggered an automatic block or are there more sinister motives afoot? Head on over to the blog post and see the discussion for yourself.

In an attempt to avoid such a block ourselves please glaze upon Li Ka-shing’s lovely picture below. Our hope is that 3UK won’t classify this article as offensive in fear of risking upsetting the great man himself.


No comments:

Post a Comment