Chinese censors tighten rules to stop foreigners spreading news – World – Times Online — Read between rthe lines on this story. This censorship thing is a scam. There is nothing to censor. It’s a money grab by a Minister trying to make his numbers look good.
The new rules give the state-owned Xinhua News Agency the power to censor the agencies’ reports in China. The measures, which take immediate effect, ban foreign agencies from distributing their content except through Xinhua or its authorised entities.
Xinhua said that reports that disrupted China’s economic and social order or undermined social stability would be banned. Also prohibited is news that endangers national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
While the latest rules do not specify economic reports, they resemble similar regulations issued ten years ago when Xinhua tried to muscle in on such financial news providers as Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones by requiring registration of all contracts and a 15 per cent fee.
The new rules might prove to be a goldmine if Xinhua is able to demand a cut of the agencies’ revenues from distributing financial data to China’s fast-growing markets.
the key paragraph here:
In a recent unpublished speech Mr Tian said that one of the goals of his agency was to put Reuters and Bloomberg out of business in China, replacing their services with Xinhua’s financial information and data.
Interesting perspective — I might have simply taken this at face value had I read it on my own.
Stands to reason that somebody’d try and strongarm us, as many people as are falling all over themselves to get into bed with Chinese business and tap their market. Hopefully somebody has the presence of mind to tell them to go piss up a rope on this one.
Damned commies.
I was almost starting to miss them.
Just as modern geneticists have found a leftover Stone Age “switch” that enabled religion — sooner or later — someone will find a gene that allows for a landgrab bureaucrat mentality.
Maybe we’ve been breeding for Washington DC all these years without realizing it?
For the bureaucrat, if you didn’t write it down it never happened. I guess for the news bureaucrat in China, if it wasn’t reported and nobody read about it it never happened. Censoring market news has plenty of advantages. If you eliminate any negative data, all you are left with is positive data. It would make it difficult to decide where to invest because you wouldn’t know what companies were in the tank. People could just keep pouring money into the market with no idea what was going on. Big rally, everyday with no downside. Maybe the Chinese will buy the Wall Street Journal some day or open a news outlet here and we’ll have the same advantages that come from not knowing up from down. Ignorance is bliss.
Should merge this with the Google rant.