Friday, February 18, 2011

China warns US: Do not use Internet freedom to disturb other countries


Beijing has warned Washington not to covertly use Internet freedom to meddle with the internal affairs of other countries, in a report by The Washington Post.
That was the reaction of Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu when asked to comment on the speech of US State Secretary Hillary Clinton about Internet freedom.
The US promoted its call for more online freedom breaking government boundaries through the social media with its rival countries, China and Iran when Clinton ordered Arabic and Farsi tweets.
Online discussions about Internet freedom were started on Wednesday by US envoy Jon Huntsman and other diplomats in Beijing who quoted Clinton's speech.
Messages in Tencent Weibo--China's Twitter--read, "Liberty and security are often presented as equal and opposite. What do you think is more important, liberty or security?"
Netizens were then asked if they concurred with the State Secretary that "freedoms to assemble and associate also apply in cyberspace."
Users noticed that their re-tweets related to the issue started to disappear.
Huntsman said, "We are disappointed that some Chinese Internet sites have decided to remove discussion of Secretary Clinton's Internet Freedom speech from their websites."
"It is ironic that the Chinese are blocking an online discussion about Internet freedom."
Ma reiterated Beijing's position that bloggers enjoy freedom of speech "in accordance with the law."
Details of this story here.
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