The great firewall of China

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I reported in my blog last month that China has over 40,000 internet policemen who are capable of removing any anti-government website within just 20 minutes of it being posted.

However, in the run-up to this summer's Beijing Olypmics, it seems that even these shady techno-cops have had to relax their stranglehold on China's press.

I am referring to today's revelation that people in China are now able to access the BBC News website after years of strict censorship by government authorities.

This marks a small victory for the Beeb in a Sino-BBC feud which has been raging for nearly 20 years.

In 1989, pro-democracy protestors took to the streets of Beijing to protest against the government's rigid control of civil rights in the country. The BBC's airing of those iconic images from Tiananmen Square provoked anger in the Chinese government, who objected to the intrusion of foreign media into Chinese affairs.

Ill-feeling brewed towards the BBC in China throughout the early 1990s, and was exacerbated by a BBC documentary about the life of former leader Mao Zedong. This was followed (rather prophetically) by a BBC investigation into Chinese rule in Tibet, which further embittered the Corporation's relationship with the Beijing authorities.

In 1994, however, Beijing saw a chance to get their own-back through the ever-pragmatic Rupert Murdoch.

In an attempt to secure extra space on the Chinese networks for his Star TV enterprise, Murdoch decided to sweeten the deal for the Chinese by offering to remove the BBC from the Star TV package, thereby ensuring that no BBC programmes would be aired in the country.

Shortly thereafter, all BBC radio transmissions entering Chinese airwaves were jammed, completely cutting the Chinese people off from any British media.

Relations thawed slightly in 2001 when the Beeb's international channel BBC World was granted an independent license to broadcast in China, although this was only within upmarket hotels and foreign apartments.

The BBC website, however, has long remained inaccessible from within China. At no point has the Chinese government admitted imposing restrictions on access to BBC Online, but any user trying to view the site was confronted with the message: "The connection was reset".

It was never likely that this was a glitch - that the most popular news website on the planet was just coincidentally unavailable in the country it had criticised most.

But with the furore unfolding in Tibet, from whose borders all foreign journalists have been driven, China needs to be seen to be relaxing its iron grip on the media.

During the recent unrest, access to the websites of the Times, the Guardian and YouTube have been blocked in the country, which seems to be trying to shield its people from the truth of events in Lhasa.

As of today, however, and with no official announcement, internet users in China have found themselves able to access large parts of BBC Online for the first time in years.

The firewall has not been entirely relaxed, however, and the Chinese pages and any Chinese links on the site remain blocked in China.

Many people, with good reason, are cynical, and have linked the loosening of restrictions to the fact that the BBC have been refused access to Tibet as part of the small group of foreign media organisations who are to be 'allowed' a limited tour of Tibet.

It remains to be seen how long the BBC's pages remain visible from the computer screens of most populus country in the world.

If this lowering of the guard is not a mere technical glitch, few will be surprised if the "great firewall of China" is lifted round the BBC once again should they publish anything the Communist government of China disapproves of.

But we journalists are soon coming to realise that what China says, goes. I am sitting now on the News Desk of the Independent reading about how 15 monks arrested by the Chinese authorities are still unaccounted for. This follows weeks of disporportionate crackdowns on protestors and years of human rights abuse.

A boycott of this summer's Olympic Games has been suggested and, from where I'm sitting, it seems like the only way to make heard a voice the Chinese authorities have been fleeing for years.

But while China continues to command so substantial a slice of the American and global financial pie, no-one in authority seems prepared to speak out, and human rights groups and the free press will just be howling into the wind...

Fakebook

I know Tiffany Hewett better than anyone. She may have 98 friends on Facebook, be invited to lots of parties, and have numerous suitors after her attention, but I still feel I have a closer bond with Tiffany than any other.

You see, Tiffany Hewett is young, beautiful, intelligent, flirtatious and witty.

And she is also entirely fictional.

It may say on her online profile that she was born on March 23rd 1985, but Tiffany actually came into being last Wednesday afternoon when I created a fictitious profile for her on the social networking website Facebook.

I gave her a full back-story.

She went to high school in New York and studied Media at San Diego State University before moving to London as a fashion reporter. Her interests include surfing, going to parties and meeting new people. Her favourite book is The Da Vinci Code, although she admits it is a bit crap really. And, as the crowning glory, she has a very attractive photograph of herself to accompany her profile.

Aside from hoping no-one would spot the uncanny resemblance between Tiffany and the little-known American actress whose photo I had hijacked, I waited for people to stumble across her profile.

I did not have to wait long.

“So, how you doing Tiffany?” asked John H in a message. “You look very attractive in your picture. Have you got a personality to match? Where are you from? I’m from Essex.”

Simon L touchingly pointed out that: “I think it’s a man’s moral obligation to acknowledge a good looking woman when he sees one. Hence...here I am.”

Some of the messages, however, were more confusing than lecherous. Hasan A wrote: “Hum really wld be nice that u r wd be with ur new friends and drinking so wen u calling me for drink and?” Your guess is as good as mine.

By the end of Wednesday, Tiffany had received requests of ‘friendship’ from 12 people, and had made 11 requests of her own. All of which were accepted.

Many red-blooded males, clearly flattered by the attentions of so alluring a young lady, promptly responded with messages attesting their attraction in no uncertain terms. Others, and only a few I might add, were understandably confused by a request of friendship from a stranger, and wrote asking who Tiffany was and how she knew them.

The content of these messages taught me a number of things.

Firstly, punctuation is evidently an optional extra when sending Facebook messages, and sentences must be deciphered from among a chaos of abbreviations and suspect grammar. Secondly, ‘buff’ apparently means attractive, as does ‘fit, ‘lush’ and, as far as I could tell, ‘bootyful’. And finally, everything said on Facebook is evidently a source of great hilarity, since it seems imperative to use the acronym ‘lol’ at least three times in every sentence, lest it go unnoticed by the recipient that the sender is in fact ‘laughing out loud’ between every infernal misspelled word.

By Thursday evening I had employed a number of friends to bolster Tiffany’s credibility.

One friend posed as Tiffany’s cousin, with some authentic-looking childhood photos to prove it, while my friend Tess wrote in a public message: “Tiffieeee! I can't believe you’ve finally made the move to London! Can't wait to see you at the party on Saturday!”

This party, you see, was to be the pièce de résistance.

Sure, within 36 hours of her creation Miss Hewett already boasted 44 virtual friends and 51 personal messages, but how many people would be willing to go that extra mile and actually meet her?

Facebook being the all-encompassing social behemoth that it is, you can even organise your diary on the site and create event listings to which you can invite your friends.

Thus, John H, Simon L, Hasan A and 41 other over-friendly social networkers were cordially invited for Saturday drinks in Leicester Square to celebrate Tiffany’s 23rd birthday which, as luck would have it, was coming up that very weekend.

I watched intently throughout Friday as ever more keen Facebookers swelled the ranks of Tiffany’s friends to 80.

Some, however, decided not to prostitute their friendship so easily, and chose instead to ‘Poke’ Tiffany, a bizarre virtual mechanism by which one can molest one’s friends by giving them an electronic nudge with a small blue hand. In terms of human communication, it falls just behind playing chess by post.

By Saturday evening - party-night - three of Tiffany’s 84 friends had RSVPed to say they would be coming to the shindig.

I pushed through the madding crowds that flocked out of and around Leicester Square tube station. Every toe I trod on was potentially the toe of one of my guests-to-be, and I scanned the passing faces on the look-out for one of the faces I had memorised.

Lo and behold, lingering hesitantly in the doorway of the Salisbury pub was a face I recognised. It was Jacques G, a Frenchman who listed “quantitative finance” among his interests.

Jacques craned his neck expectantly at every new entrant to the pub. He looked from me to the door and back again, perhaps wondering why I was watching him from the bar.

However, before I could introduce myself as one of Tiffany’s friends and explain that she would be late, he made off into the night with a Gallic shrug.

A little later, as I sat with some of my non-electronic friends around a pint or three, my mobile phone buzzed to tell me I had an e-mail. It was for Tiffany. From Jacques.

“I went to the Salisbury pub, but I didn’t see you,” he wrote. “Unfortunately I will just have to look at you on Facebook from now on.”

Perhaps that’s for the best, Jacques. It would never have worked out. Long-distance relationships are hard at the best of times, but I just don’t think Tiffany would ever really have been there for you somehow.

A gaggle of people arrived fashionably late at about 10pm and bought one pint between them. They stood gazing furtively around the pub, hands in pockets.

At the head of the group was a man whose face I was sure I had seen peering from beneath a fancy-dress costume on his Facebook profile picture. Without the green paint and reindeer antlers, however, it was hard to tell.

“I can’t see her anywhere,” he remarked.

“Are you here for Tiffany’s party?” I asked, hopefully.

“We’ve got to go,” he replied, cryptically, before turning to lead his rubber-necked group back into the crisp Easter evening, leaving their one pint half-drunk on the bar.

I spent the rest of the evening gazing intently at the doorway. A few rather nervous looking people came in, only to make a quick circuit of the pub and leave again in one swift movement, as if they dared not admit why they were there.

I felt just terrible for Tiffany. Where were the rest of the 98 people who had so readily offered her their friendship? Perhaps they were happier to leer from behind their keyboards. Perhaps they didn’t really like Tiffany at all. Perhaps I was getting a little too involved in all of this…

So, what’s next for Tiffany?

I suspect a number of rather aroused young men will wake up tomorrow morning to find they have one fewer Facebook friend. Her loss will be hard to cope with, there’s no doubt. After all, she had 98 friends when she was so cruelly snatched away from us by the ‘Deactivate Account’ button.

Maybe her grieving friends will start one of those macabre Facebook memorial pages, where users pay their respects to the dearly departed by posting messages on their profile page. Maybe they will try to poke her back to life. Or maybe they will simply fill the Tiffany-shaped void with a new virtual conquest. Who knows?

What I do know, is that it really is that simple to make friends in this internet age. Why not sign up, log in, and give it a go? It’s free, easy, user-friendly and interactive.

And you don’t even have to exist.

Another Song Called Trouble

Have you ever noticed how the press sometimes takes a severe dislike to someone, often with very little rhyme or reason?

When it happens, that person is usually given a trial by media where their character is assassinated and they are pronounced guilty of whatever flaws, foibles or crimes the press deems them to have committed.

Below are the lyrics to a song called Another Song Called Trouble from my album The Guitarist in the Dark - inspired by the media's vendettas against its least favourite people.

I read about you

In the evening news.

They say it's all your fault,

That's nothing new.

Come on, come on now,

Open your eyes it can't be true.

I see past the bullshit

And want you to know

I'll stand by you.

But they don't seem to understand

They've got to write their headlines after all.

You've been dismissed right out of hand

And set up for a fall, I know.

And it's no surprise,

It's not easy, not easy

To read between the lines,

To see it all, and know it's all untrue

When they say that you're trouble.

I try a little harder now to stand right back,

To get a little less involved in all that crap,

But it's easier said than done to keep it inside

When they say that a bloody murder was a suicide.

Come on, come on now,

It's screaming out, it's plain to see -

It doesn't matter now,

Whatever they say you can trust in me.

But they don't seem to understand

That you're not quite so stupid after all

As to let them lead you by the hand

And just swallow it all again.

And it's no surprise,

It's not easy, not easy

To read between the lines,

To see it all, and know it's all untrue

When they say that you're trouble.

I've seen time again

Fingers pointing at you

When they tell me

That you're trouble and

It's all I can say,

It's all I can do

To tell them

You're no trouble to me.

© Kaya Burgess 2008