Tiananmen massacre images censored on Flickr China
By Jonathan Schlaffer
The Chinese government is at it again, this time censoring images on Yahoo! owned photo sharing site, Flickr. Pictures from the Tiananmen massacre were uploaded to Flickr China which have now been removed and rumors are floating around that Flickr is now completely blocked in mainland China.
Yahoo! has confirmed that Flickr China is not down because of a technical glitch or bug, it is simply being blocked and Flickr China users may be able to access the site but not view any images. I cannot check this for myself.
Ever since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the Chinese government has seen fit to remove references of it from history books, from the internet and from newspapers, several Chinese journalists have been fired because of articles they wrote about it.
The Inquirer had difficulty finding anything that wasn’t censored in China.
It seems China doesn’t want any of its citizens to know that it turned lose troops and firepower on unarmed civilians. Generally speaking, many younger Chinese don’t know it happened so if you travel to China; be careful not to bring it up because no one will know what you’re talking about or the police will take interest in your activities.
Chinese government officials were unavailable for comment. This is typical of any government body, not just China. And yet most of our consumer electronics are made in China. Not that I have a problem with that but when these kinds of things happen, it’s a little hard to swallow.
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July 2nd, 2007
Everyone in China knows about the Tiananman Square massacre. And feel free to bring it, the people will simply look embarrassed and probably stop talking to you. The police will take little interest in your activities as they are used to loud Americans (usually the ones who know the least) discussing the state of Chinese civil rights openly and without regard to Chinese sensitivities on the matter.
I don’t know why the government blocks its people from seeing images of the massacre. I guess it would encourage popular sedition.
September 5th, 2007
Yes, it seems to be true. I am user here in Beijing. Haven’t been able to see any photos on flicker for a long time. Now we can just wait for the censors to get tired and lax, as they often do. Nobody here is even interested in Tiananmen. Chinese people just want your money and for you to keep your opinions to yourself.
September 8th, 2007
Most Chinese know that ’something’ happened, I haven’t met any that don’t and I’ve been here 10 years. But if you talk to anyone about it (I stopped about 8 years ago) they will quickly tell you that the students were very very bad, got free train tickets, and the government was really nice to them but the students were just too greedy (and thus deserved to die). Also there were only about 100 students involved and they attacked the army first, all the murders were in self defense.
Chinese don’t know what happened last week in their country, why would they know the details of something that happened 16 years ago?
And why has the west forgotten that the current leader of China, Hu Jintao, personally ordered the massacre of 500 Tibetans in the same year. We are just as bad as the Chinese government for continuing to buy the cheap Chinese goods that keep the ‘government’ afloat.
Furthermore the government has mandated that all party members watch a propaganda video made in Feb 2007 about the massacre, which glosses it over and explains why there was no other choice but to kill the students, and why if it happened again today the top leaders would expect local government officials to do exactly the same thing in their provinces.
April 12th, 2008
As a chinese,I think I have duty to dispute the comments .Most Chinese know what happened during 1989,though the goverment try to cover it.We can discuss it free if we have the interest.Yes ,our goverment is not so free yet ,but our chinese is free.History is written by people,not the goverment.Every country has his own problems ,we now try to make a better future,but blaming before.We hope that everyone can be just to history,no matter in China or other nation.Especially,please listen to the real voice in folk,not in books.
April 12th, 2008
As a chinese,I think I have duty to dispute the comments .Most Chinese know what happened during 1989,though the goverment try to cover it.We can discuss it free if we have the interest.Yes ,our goverment is not so free yet ,but our chinese is free.History is written by people,not the goverment.Every country has his own problems ,we now try to make a better future,but blaming before.We hope that everyone can be just to history,no matter in China or other nation.Especially,please listen to the real voice in folk,not in books.
May 17th, 2008
the communist regime sucks! been waiting for its demise. the chinese deserve freedom and respect.