Thursday, October 22, 2009
Theres Always Two Sides to a Story
Today many people all over the internet use Wikipedia as a quick reference guide to something they may not know. Recently we learned about the net control that the Chinese government has over its country, and this is another example of such censorship. Wikipedia in China is a hot topic. Like the version that we see here in the United States, Wikipedia serves the same purpose overseas. The only difference is that in China, certain issues or parts of China's history are a little different than the information on the English version of the website.
This article gave a bunch of examples of the differentiated stories that are seen with Wikipedia. One of the examples was that of the accomplishments or catashtrophies of Mao Zedong. In the English version, we see that Mao Zedong was "a mass murderer, holding his leadership accountable for the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese."
When we look at the Chinese version of Wiki, we see that he was "one of the main founders and leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People's Liberation Army and the People's Republic of China ... he had a great influence over 20th-century China and the world."
As we can see the two versions are opposite from one another. You can see that the Chinese version leaves out any information pertaining to him in a negative light. This exemplifies the net control hat China has over it's people.
Labels: Chinese, Net Control, Wikipedia
