Status: Apparently a hoax
Here's news of a hoax from China. (There seems to be more of them coming from there lately.)
Massage Milk (great name!) is one of the most popular blogs in China. It was featured in a Newsweek article last month about Chinese bloggers. But a few days ago its site went blank, and the assumption was that it had been forced offline by the Chinese government. At least, this is what news organizations such as
the BBC assumed. Turns out everyone was wrong. The disappearing-blog-act was just a hoax. Wang Xiaofeng, the author of Massage Milk, faxed a statement to the
Interfax news agency explaining that:
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. I thought that if I closed my blog, it would stir their imagination and then they would begin blah blah. It really is as expected. So let's they have an April Fool's day in advance."
The question is: Is Wang Xiaofeng now telling the truth? Was his site's closure really an early April Fool's Day prank, or did the Chinese government actually have a hand in what happened?
Some people think the latter is the case. If it was a prank, it does seem kind of pointless (after all, why shouldn't people have believed the Chinese state would have done something like that? It's not like China is known for its open internet policy), which lends credence to the government-censorship theory.
Update: The Wall Street Journal has
posted an article about the Massage Milk hoax. (And I should note that a second Chinese blog, Milk Pig, also participated in the self-shutdown hoax.) The WSJ notes that:
"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." Quite frankly, I don't get it. Is shutting his own blog down supposed to prove to everyone in the West that China actually allows more freedom of speech than journalists over here supposed?
Comments
😛
Sorry for ranting. 😊 I'm just in a mood ... a ranting mood.
I hate when people in Asia refer to "the west". I always take it to mean the western hemisphere...which really means the U.S. Just frickin' say it. If you're pissed at the U.S., then be pissed. No one is stopping you. Oh, wait. Your government is.
Get real, Maegan. "The west" includes any country whose people have western principles, philosophies, religions, cultural tastes, political and social heritage etc. Quite a few of them ... sort of all through the western hemisphere, really. Western culture was over half the planet before a white face was ever seen in the USA; you just imported it like every other western colony.
If it was a hoax, i think i get it. Western people really have a prejudiced opinion on China (i.e. aeiou), especially USA people, as China is the greatest treat to USA imperialism nowadays. Isn't it clear, or are USA people so blind nowadays that even something like this hoax is impossible for them to get?
From a Slashdot reply
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/03/14/1411254.shtml
Your kind of posts is exactly what they're talking about. There is absolutely no strong evidence that the Chinese government is behind it. But even then, you're already speculating that the government is involved even when they say the government isn't. Your "they're guilty until proven innocent" is exactly the irresponsible behavior they mean.
From China Daily
Wang Xiaofeng had been annoyed that he was constantly misquoted by foreign media. "Every time they interviewed me, they tried to steer the questions towards political topics, in which I have no interest. Even if I made no mention of anything political, the articles would come out as if I were an activist," he said. "Most of the foreign reporters are not readers of my blog, and the few snippets they read in translation are usually out of context so they appear to be political," he added.
Of Course, this does not mean China is a Saint. But what it shows is that China is not the bogeyman that politicans and the media make her out to be. Compared to 10-15 years ago, China has made important steps in freedom of expression. It is not North Korea, Shut off from the rest of the world under a one man tyranny. Rather it has opened up and is continuing to do so under the pressure of capitalism. Certaintly the Western Media should expose repression in China and elsewhere but they should do so with the same standards and practices. Anything less will resemble propoganda