Article quote - “Don't understand the hoopla over Wikipedia blackout in the U.S. today. We blacked it out here years ago. Where are OUR hugs?”
LA Times - Watching from China, where web censorship is practically a national hallmark, some can’t help but smirk and crack jokes about the controversy raging over Internet freedom in the U.S.
“Now the U.S. government is copying us and starting to build their own firewall,” wrote one micro-blogger, relating China’s chief censorship tool to the U.S. plan to block sites that trade in pirated material.
...The consensus here, however, appears to be this: Americans should try a minute in our shoes before invoking online Armageddon.
If anything, Chinese bloggers say, the debate underscores how privileged U.S. web-users and Internet companies are, even in times of duress.
“Only an American company could protest the way Wikipedia or Google has to the government,” said Zhao Jing, a closely-followed blogger in Beijing who uses the pen name Michael Anti. “A Chinese company would never get away with that.” Indeed, China’s Internet sector has no choice but to submit to government pressure... http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-tech-china-sopa-20120119,0,3423812.story
