While Americans are celebrating their freedom and independence this July 4th, let's not forget that everyone isn't as fortunate. The Chinese in particular live in a highly restricted society, but they are finding new and clever ways to express themselves and defeat the censors.

To slip past Internet censors squashing reports of a weekend riot in China's Guizhou province, some Chinese Bloggers have started writing backward.

Some 30,000 rioters set fire to government buildings over the weekend to protest the way authorities handled the death of a teenager in the province's Weng'an County. While state-controlled media provided immediate coverage, government censors moved fast to delete online posts providing unofficial accounts and deactivate the accounts of those users.



So bloggers on forums such as Tianya.cn have taken to posting in formats that China's Internet censors, often employees of commercial Internet service providers, have a hard time automatically detecting. One recent strategy involves online software that flips sentences to read right to left instead of left to right, and vertically instead of horizontally.

These techniques scramble the message juuuust enough to confound censors, but not enough to render the message itself unreadable.


[Via NowPublic.com]

Labels: blogs

The Democrats may have wrested back control of power in Congress, but that hasn't quieted the ire of American cable news broadcaster Keith Olbermann. The 47-year-old is known for his Special Commentary segments on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann," where he regularly tears apart US President George W. Bush.

Olbermann's outspoken political views have also made him a hero/villain in the blogosphere. Olbermann's show is a frequent topic of debate on both conservative and liberal political blogs and his "Special Commentary" segments are all over digital video websites like YouTube. It seems like every time Olbermann opens his mouth people sit down at their computers and start typing. Does Olbermann = Internet buzz?

The promotional executives at NBC must think so. They are taking advantage of all the attention Olbermann is getting online. Last week MSNBC ran a very ballsy blogad campaign with this Olbermann quote:

"The President of the United States owes this country an apology."

The blogad campaign also featured an Olbermann desktop widget that pulls headlines from the shows RSS feed every 30 minutes. Even the biggest Olbermann junkie doesn't need more Keith than that, right?

With all this hype on the Internet, you are probably wondering how Olbermann's TV ratings are doing. Olbermann's fast-paced melange of politics and pop culture has made "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" MSNBC's top-rated show. Not bad for a former anchor of ESPN's Sportscenter. Maybe Craig Kilborn should take some notes. His performance in Bench Warmers wasn't exactly Oscar worthy.

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Labels: blogs