Just in case you had any illusions about the benevolence of the Chinese communist party, who’ve shared the love three times in a month. First with ditching Tung Chee-hwa and simultaneously eviscerating any remaining possibility of democracy in Hong Kong, then acting like kindergarten megalomaniacs with the Taiwan reunification/anti-secsession bill and the latest move against university internet bulletin boards is indicative of a regime in no way planning on celebrating freedom of speech any time soon. The communist internet police have effectively shut down several of the country’s largest university bulletin boards, allowing access only to users inside the university network. China Digital News has masses of coverage on the bans and resulting student protests, EastSouthWestNorth covers “the collection of official notices and insider reactions” here and here. More info is being aggregated at Technorati and Flickr using the smth tags.
From March 16, some of the most influential University BBS (Bulletin Board System) in China, including the one of Tsinghua University (水木清华 smth.org), Peking University (一塌糊涂 ytht.org) and Nanjing University (lilybbs.org), have been restricted to users with an IP inside the university only. That means public users, who make remarkable contribution to the conversation, are not able to access these BBS any more. Before, these BBS hosted very active public forums and attracted millions of registered visitors inside and outside the university. Protests have been organized around Chinese universities. People are calling it an insult on the freedom of speech, but soon their posts were deleted and their voice stifled by university administration.
