Chinese Censorship Story Of The Week A Hoax

Recently, two Chinese bloggers found a clever way to capitalize on the recent firestorm about internet censorship there. They set up a hoax -- shutting down their sites and posting a message about being forced down by government censors. Only after the story spread (it was picked up by the BBC and even the cover of Newsweek Asia), did they reveal that the joke was on the international press for demonstrating what kinds of stories from China they want to report on. Any reporter or news agency can fall for a hoax, but censorship stories, and censorship stories relating to bloggers in particular (like the recent BoingBoing dustup), are hot right now. While it can be debated whether it's navel-gazing or not that the press (and in particular the online press) places such emphasis on online censorship, it shouldn't be ignored that there are regular violent crackdowns on other rights that warrant attention as well.