Isaac Mao at Expression Under Repression
Isaac Mao rounded out the trio of citizen journalists speaking at the first panel of Expression Under Repression. One of the first Chinese bloggers online, Isaac spoke with a great deal more caution than Hoder or Taurai. He’s received warnings from people in China that his family might be in danger as a result of his decision to speak in public about the Internet in China. Isaac makes it clear that he takes these threats seriously and is choosing his words with caution.
Isaac was one of the major organizers of the recent Shanghai blogger’s conference. It’s difficult to hold meetings of over 200 people in China without attracting government permits. Isaac and friends managed to hold the conference by having it over a weekend in the hopes that the authorities wouldn’t notice.
Chinese media - and bloggers - tend to police themselves, Isaac tells us. He believes that “free thinking is more important than free speech right now”, that people in China need to learn how to think beyond the self-imposed constraints they’re bound by.
A BBC journalist interviewed Chinese bloggers at the Shanghai conference - none were willing to speak on camera. Isaac points to this as another example of self-censorship.
In the hopes of improving communication between the English and Chinese blogospheres, Isaac is urging his compatriots to start translating content from sites like Global Voices - to avoid a “one way world” in which all the content in China comes from Chinese media and where US media characterizes China, and Chinese people don’t speak back.
He also revealed that he’s planning on moving his blog, in the near future, to an overseas host. Isaacmao.com has been blocked for over three months in China - it forwards automatically to notisaacmao.com in the meantime.
November 17th, 2005 at 7:36 pm
[...] Speakers included Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi, Chinese blogger Isaac Mao, Iranian blogger Hossein Derakshan, and Zimbabwean internet activist Taurai Maduna. Ethan Zuckerman blogged about the circumstances under which we opened the seminar and my opening remarks. (See my own pre-seminar notes here.) He also blogged some of the presentations: Isaac and Taurai. Jeff Ooi spoke eloquently about how blogging is helping to democratize a media environment in Malaysia in which the media has traditionally been dominated by the ruling party and its allies. [...]
November 18th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
Isaac Mao at Expression Under Repression - Ethan Zuckerman
The idea of market socialism has become a major field of interest among political theorists, sociologists, and economists on the left. Even as proponents have devised many ways in which soci…
From Global Voices: (thanks, Andrea!) Isaac Mao rounded out the trio of citizen journalists speaking at the first panel of Expression Under Repression. One of the first Chinese bloggers online, Isaac spoke with a great deal more caution than…
November 19th, 2005 at 1:02 am
[...] 6: WSIS: Issac Mao attended the WSIS panel. As Ethan Zuckerman posted, he believe “free thinking is more important than free speech right now “. Rebecca Mackinnon, who was also on this panel, divided Chinese blogosphere into several categories based on her observation visiting China. [...]
July 6th, 2006 at 12:17 am
[...] Certainly, the priority of most Chinese Internet entrepreneurs are in business to make money; they have not chosen their professions out of some sense of civic duty, for the most part (though there are some admirable exceptions). This is, interestingly in stark contrast to many Chinese journalists and news editors, who are sticking their neck out and taking some risks to push for more freedom of speech. [...]