solanasaurus.com

In retrospect, I remember thinking how strange this message sounded: “Due to unavoidable reasons with which everyone is familiar, this blog is temporarily closed.”

WSJ: Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax Aimed at Censorship Debate

“In an interview, Beijing-based journalist Wang Xiaofeng of Massage Milk says he shut his blog down to make a point about freedom of speech — just one directed at the West instead of at Beijing. He calls the Western press “irresponsible” and says that the hoax was designed “to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always the way you think.”

“Reporters Without Borders issued a correction to its statement on March 9, calling the incident a “joke.” But Julien Pain, who runs the organization’s Internet Freedom Desk, says he doesn’t think Mr. Wang understands the consequences of the incident.

“If some bloggers start crying wolf this way,” Mr. Pain says, “nobody will listen to us when we try to support those who really need help. Censorship exists, as well as repression against Internet writers.”

Doesn’t seem like a very constructive campaign. I don’t get it – are they pro government censorship or something? It’s a fair enough point that no one really knew what was going on before the story was reported. Looking forward to the blog debate about this. Perhaps something positive (albeit unintentionally) might come out of it yet.

UPDATE: Former China correspondent for CNN and founder of Global Voices, Rebecca McKinnon offers her analysis of what the hoax was all about. Interesting quote from the prankster, Wang Xiaofeng: “I just wanted to make fun of Western journalists? [content] doesn’t need to be serious on the Internet. I don’t like it that Western media take a distorted view of China, though China does have problems.” It’s a good reminder how different people’s approaches to blogs are. Some do their best to side up with professional media, and others use it for something entirely different. Makes me despair at all the broad generalisations you hear of blogs being this or that. It’s a web publishing tool, right? And it is whatever you use it for.