China’s so-called Great Firewall is well known for filtering out controversial content relating to democracy, Tiananmen Square and criticism of Beijing. But as this New York Times article shows, a large part of the censorship effort includes positive spin to proactively promote the government’s view:

Not content merely to block dissonant views, the government increasingly employs agents to peddle its views online, in the guise of impartial bloggers and chat-room denizens. And increasingly, it is backing state-friendly clones of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, all Western sites that have been blocked here for roughly a year.

The government’s strategy, according to Mr. Bandurski and others, is not just to block unflattering messages, but to overwhelm them with its own positive spin and rebuttals.

Read the rest of this entry »