Publish and be deleted

• Source: Global Times
• [22:12 February 25 2010]
• Comments

According to this national regulation, any organization applying for the establishment of an Internet news information service on the Chinese mainland must have registered capital of no less than 10 million yuan and at least five Chinese mainland editors who have engaged in journalism for longer than three years.

Yeeyan relaunched 39 days later under tight self-censorship, with all "political" news removed.

"It was difficult to figure out what we can say and what we cannot," Chen Haozhi, founder of Yeeyan, told the Guangzhou-based newspaper Southern Weekend.

The most devastating issue for translators was finding so much of their hard work deleted, said a former volunteer.

"It wasn't our fault because we couldn't twist the original meaning of the news stories," she said.

"I've got absolutely no idea what is sensitive and what is not."

Admittedly, she said, they knew their work was "risky" as "most foreign news about China is negative".

Yeeyan's partnership with the Guardian newspaper had made the staff especially proud, the translator said.

"The website attracted many readers as it helped them bypass the two walls," she said. "Most Chinese face two obstacles: the Great Firewall and the language barrier."

Neutering was the only option for Yeeyan if they wanted to continue in business, she said.

Yeeyan was also bound by copyright law, she said. The translation company had to delete a group translation of Dan Brown's blockbuster The Lost Symbol and apologize to the book's Chinese publisher last year.

No appeal

Aside from suffering censorship or shutdowns for reasons unknown, a common complaint among Internet users and website operators is the lack of an appeal.

"You can only go to related departments and beg them to give you another chance," Liao said.

As the Web master of an online poetry forum, Liao has a list of sensitive words he received from the local Internet authority.

"They hope we will delete posts containing these words," he said, "but I don't see it making much sense."

The forum was shut down twice last year.

"We have no idea why," he said. "It came all of a sudden."

In response, the site's server was moved to Hong Kong.

"It's impossible to rescue your website if you violated the related law," a Web master from China Unicom, Beijing branch, told the Global Times.

"As long as Douban is growing, it won't care about what users say because the real threat comes from the authorities," Fang said.

It's pointless fighting the system, he said.

"We can only fight the slavish social environment and gradually gain a sense of citizenship," he said.