Communist China says "no news of violence for you"

(BBC): "China has been aggressively censoring international media in an attempt to lock down information about the violent demonstrations in Tibet's capital, Lhasa.

• The anti-Chinese protests are an extremely sensitive issue for Beijing, which is desperate to avoid bad publicity only months before the Olympic Games.

In recent days, TV broadcasts have been blacked out, websites blocked or censored by China's keyword filtering system and reporters on the ground prevented from reaching the region.

• The degree of censorship appears to be fluctuating and uneven, however....

Other broadcasters like CNN have also been affected - with transmission blocked, and reporters obstructed, amid tight controls on physical access to Tibet, which is off-limits to foreign reporters without a permit....

• 'Connection reset'

China operates a sophisticated keyword filtering system to censor internet content, which is capable of spotting homonyms and synonyms and even some kinds of rogue punctuation that internet users might use to sidestep the censorship.

• Baidu, is the search engine most used by the Chinese - but this is heavily censored."...

From BBC report by Matthew Davis, "China Cracks Down on Protest News," 3/18/08

• (Which side do you consider crazy, silly, conspiracy theorists, marginal idiots at best? Or, would you prefer to censor your answer?)

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