If you live in the United States and you want to get your YouTube fix, you flip on your computer, log on to the site and you're good to go.

But if you happen to live in China, you're just as liable to flip on your computer, type in the YouTube address and get an error message and a blank screen.  At first you might think, oh my computer's slow today or something must be going on with the server, but you'd probably be wrong. 

That's because China's been blocking YouTube to its citizens for the last several weeks in order to block the viewing of videos of anti-China protests in Tibet.  Many of those protests have become violent and depending on who you believe, they were fostered by pro-democracy pioneers who were set upon and brutalized by the Chinese government or rioting agitators determined to foster unrest and make China look bad, especially during this Olympic year.

Now I must say, I didn't know a lot about the relationship between Tibet and China until the last week or so, but the issue of trying to control the internet is an interesting one that I felt deserved exploring.

A lot of the impetus for the timing of the protests on the one hand and the ferocity of the crackdowns on the other is the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Bejing.  Today during the torch lighting ceremony in
Greece, three protesters displayed a banner and called for a boycott of the Bejing Games.  As reported on CNN.com: "Broadcast live, the stunt left Greek commentators speechless. But Chinese state-run television cut away to a pre-recorded scene and made no mention of the event."

The Chinese, like most totalitarian regimes, seem to think that the best reaction to unrest is the appearance of no reaction.  Today's state run China Daily News website
covered the lighting of the Olympic flame but didn't mention anything about the disruption by the protesters.  It was the same over at the Shanghai Daily website and the CCTV website.

On the contrary, the CCTV site had a couple of articles about how inaccurate the media in the rest of the world has been when covering the events in Tibet.

I had the chance to ask an internet friend of mine who lives in China about her experiences with the media and YouTube in China right now.  What she said was, if you try to log onto YouTube, you'll get a blank screen and an error message.  If for example you want to do a Google search, and you put in search words like democracy, or Tiananmen Square you'll get the same result.

When it comes to television news, she said there is access to CNN Asia, and MSNBC, but if the screen just goes blank with no warning during the middle of a newscast that means the story was something the
government did not want the public to see.  She said there's a running joke among her friends about how there's a little man sitting all by himself in Bejing, his only job to push a button when something unsuitable comes on.

As far as what is in the newspapers and on television, the message from the government is consistent:  "China has everything under control," or "There was an uprising, 16 rioters were killed, but the government's ultimatum was successful and everything's calm."

My friend told me that one strange dichotomy relating to the internet is that if she wanted to she could create a Blogger blog and upload it, but she wouldn't then have the access to actually see it.

According to this AP report last week about the Chinese YouTube blackout:

Chinese leaders encourage Internet use for education and business but use online filters to block access to material considered subversive or pornographic.

According to that same report, last January China tried to "limit video sharing to state owned companies," except they thought better of it because they were afraid it would stunt the growth of a burgeoning industry.  They conceded that  "private companies that were already operating legally could continue."

This after last October, China limited RSS feeds in what was referred to by some critics as China's "Great Firewall."

Karen Coates at Ramblingspoon.com wrote recently of her memories traveling in Tibet, and she used a deliberately cryptic style:

Why, by the way, am I writing in this silly script of T?b&t and
Ch@n%? To make something of a statement, in reaction to an email sent
from a friend who has lived for years in that “motherland.” Suffice it
to say, she is appalled by this week’s events, though the country’s
historical record shows that “nobody should be shocked” by what’s
happening now. And beyond all that, the Ch*n%s& government is
blocking email messages containing the word T&b?t. The website I
share with Jerry has been banned in Ch@n& for years; I’m curious
whether this will slip through.

The Washington Post.com began their article "China's Patchy Tibet Blackout" this way:

As news reverberated around the world that bloody disturbances had erupted in Tibet, a star journalist for a leading Chinese newsmagazine was asked if hehad any good sources in the remote mountain region. "Why?" he asked, unaware that anything was going on.

On a personal level, I find it very sad that any country's citizens are being lied to about crucial events that could affect their futures and their lives.  And I'll say it before anyone else does, some would say that's what our government does to us all the time.

However, for the most part I'd have to respectfully disagree.  Not that our government doesn't try to slant the news to its advantage, not that our media isn't slanted in one direction or another---can you spell Fox News
Channel?---but the difference is, if we choose to, we have access to a variety of sources of information that can broaden our knowledge.

I tried to put myself in the shoes of the average Chinese citizen, blissfully ignorant of such significant political unrest.  Part of me fantasizes I might actually like it.

I might actually like not knowing how bad things are in Iraq, I might actually like not knowing the economy is in a slump that might cause me to lose my job, I might actually like not knowing about the mistakes and failures of our government officials that make me wonder if we're all going to hell in a hand basket.

Momentarily, those thoughts provide me with a sense of security:  things are calm, everything's under control, it's someone else's responsibility to handle the bad stuff.

But if you live in the United States, if you live in a democracy, it's our responsibility to know what's going on.  We all have to handle the bad stuff along with the good.  We have to share the responsibility for action or non action.  We have the power to know the worst and if we don't like it, we have the power to protest and march and vote the bums out of office.  Does it feel less secure?  Absolutely, but that's the price of a democracy.

And that's my speech for the day.

Related Reading:

Let The Glass House Fall
AppScout
Hot World News Blog
The Age.com
Perth Norg

Megan Smith is a BlogHer Contributing Editor covering TV/YouTube.  Her other blogs are Megan's Minute and Video Runway.