http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/17/chinese-communist-party-online-crackdown
This article sheds light onto a a concept that we might not be very familiar with: the lack of freedom of speech.
As discussed in class a few weeks ago, most Asian countries value the community as a whole, rather than individuals--therefore the concept of freedom of speech might not hold as much value as it would here in America.
The article talks about large scale online bloggers that has come under fire for their use of blogging materials (usually against the government) feeding the wrong information to its followers. China is known for heavy censorship by their government for social media and this was no exception. Heavy fines and even prison time are the consequences of speaking out against the government. The government claims:
The Communist party's top theoretical journal – Qiushi, or Seeking Truth – warned that some were using internet freedoms "to engage in wanton defamation, attacking the party and the government …The internet is full of all kinds of negative news and critical voices saying the government only does bad things and everything it says is wrong."This is a prime example of China's authoritarianism where the central government has all the legal power opposed to democracy where the power is split between groups.
This simply makes me wonder how long China will have policies that are like this. I wonder if the next generation of Chinese leaders will continue to enforce the same polices for the sake of stability and order, or continue to westernize in ideologies.
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