[Update: See our October 22, 2007 post for more current developments]
If Europe and Australia can consider regulating online video, why not China?
Of course, China isn't dancing around the issue with niceties like consultations, studies and votes. They are jumping in head first and going whole hog. The same regulatory body that makes rules for TV and movies is going prevent sites from showing online videos unless the site is government approved. So far, YouTube and Google Video are among the many not on the People's Most Favored list. From the WSJ:
China's official Xinhua news agency yesterday reported that the country would "issue new regulations against Web sites which broadcast short films without state permission," citing the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or Sarft, as its source....
The Xinhua report said popular Web portals Sina, Sohu and Netease will be "authorized providers of online video programs" under the new regulations, while other sites "face an uncertain fate as the administration will inspect the online video contents they release."
As the government-friendly China Daily reports, the crack down stems from a wave of satirical user generated films that dare show a nuanced view of Chinese society...
Video spoofs have become so popular that netizens have even coined a slang term, "egao," to describe the act of using real film clips to create mocking send-ups....
A recent example of the trend, it said, was a 10-minute satire of a 1974 film called "Sparkling Red Star" which was remade with original clips to tell the story of an aspiring pop star competing in a television singing contest. The original film chronicles the struggles of a brave child soldier, Pan Dongzi, in revolutionary-era China.
The parody also turns the evil landowner who brutally exploited tenants into a silly judge taking bribes, and changes Pan's father from a Red Army soldier into a Beijing real estate tycoon.
The video attracted millions of hits.
Xinhua said the "Sparkling Red Star" satire was widely criticized, with some commentators saying that such a distortion of the country's revolutionary history was "immoral and unacceptable."
More on another favorite spoof can be found here and here.
From a CNET blogger in China...
The reason for steering the spoofs through the big portals is clear: The portals have centralized editorial structures and can follow and implement SARFT guidelines. They are also accomplished self-censors well attuned to what the Government will and won't accept.
This same blogger (William Moss), presciently wrote a month ago on the fate of user generated sites like YouTube and Flickr in China...
But all this raises another question. What does the emergence of Chinese video-sharing sites mean for the future of YouTube in China? YouTube does monitor uploads for IPR violations and sexually explicit content (with mixed success) but it's probably not paying much attention to things that would annoy Chinese Government censors. While the Great Firewall traps YouTube searches for obvious hot buttons like FLG, a search for Tiananmen Square (which is permitted by the Great Firewall because of tourism) yields a first page of returns dedicated almost entirely to the incidents of 1989. Friends of mine have wondered out loud if YouTube is headed for the same kind of blanket block or heavy-duty filtering that currently afflicts Blogger, Google's international site and other information sources in the Chinese Government doghouse. The Chinese Government is not, by and large, a fan of unregulated user-generated content or search. In fairness, many of us have been wondering the same thing about Flickr for some time, but it's still accessible here.
And here is another interesting question: If YouTube was blocked, would it go down the same path as other US Internet providers and launch a China version that satisfied the censors?
Indeed. And, it looks like YouTube and others will need to answer that question if they want to reach China's 120 million plus Internet users sooner than they might have thought.
(Of course, there are always workarounds, like this one for reaching Google Video in China).
Oh, and btw, as a few Chinese bloggers note. Folks there are mostly concerned about what this regulation will do to the YouTube clones that have recently launched in China and aren't on the "good" list. One is yoQoo.com. Here's a sample. I don't have any idea, either...
-SG
Well,
Thank god censorship has not come to
http://www.gofish.com. God bless America!
Posted by: Video Foxy | August 18, 2006 at 04:16 PM
DUDE. wtf man. thats so bloody stupid. i live in beijing and i go on youtube. its so stupid that they censored it! i mean havent they heard of proxy sites. people can still view it.. it just takes longer. bloody hell
Posted by: Leo | October 20, 2007 at 07:38 AM
THIS. IS. SO. STUPID. I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY BLOCKED YOUTUBE. EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT IT. Jeez. first they block Bebo. Then they block Youtube. GOSH! WHAT R THEY GONNA BLOCK NEXT?!
Posted by: Depressed Wallabees | October 24, 2007 at 02:48 AM
So I'm going to China this month for ten months. Does Facebook work? Pardon my ignorance, but how do you use proxies to see youtube and blogger?
Posted by: Helicase | August 01, 2008 at 11:06 PM