But this story from the NYT is just stoopid.  I’m reminded of a article in Time or Newsweek a year or so ago that was equally as clueless.  One of my coworkers commented that it read like an article written by someone who’d read a book about China.

Quoting Adam Minter of Shanghai Scrap blog in full:

On Monday, the New York Times ran a story on the tightening of internet controls in China that included this anecdote in the lede:

BEIJING — If anyone wonders whether the Chinese government has tightened its grip on electronic communications since protests began engulfing the Arab world, Shakespeare may prove instructive.

A Beijing entrepreneur, discussing restaurant choices with his fiancée over their cellphones last week, quoted Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The second time he said the word “protest,” her phone cut off.

He spoke English, but another caller, repeating the same phrase on Monday in Chinese over a different phone, was also cut off in midsentence.

Here at Shanghai Scrap, we believe in the strictest journalistic standards, and so, for the moment, neglecting the New York Times reporting standards (censorship stories in CHINA led by anecdotes about foreigners quoting Shakespeare over the phone), we would now like to report the results of our STRICTLY controlled study of whether or not quoting Shakespeare over mobile phones in China results in a loss of connection.

METHODS: The staff prepared three phrases. A) Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks;” b) “I like Bob Dylan’s protest songs, the most;” and c) “PROTEST PROTEST PROTEST!” The staff also prepared a list of five individuals with phones in China. They are a) a foreign Shanghai entrepreneur; b) a Shanghai school teacher; c) a Beijing-based foreign correspondent; d) a Beijing-based scrap metal entrepreneur; e) a Foshan-based scrap metal entrepreneur. Each individual was called from a Shanghai phone line, and asked to listen to the three phrases, repeated twice.

RESULTS: In all five cases, the connection was sustained and the staff was subjected to varying degrees of bewildered responses:

a) Foreign Shanghai entrepreneur: “Is this about the  upcoming Bob Dylan show?”

b) Shanghai school teacher: “Are you drunk?”

c) Beijing-based foreign correspodent: “I thought that story was bulls*** too.”

d) Beijing-based scrap metal entrepreneur: “I don’t understand.”

e) Foshan-based scrap metal entrepreneur: “What do you want me to say?”

CONCLUSION: The staff of Shanghai Scrap conclude that, a) Foreigners can feel confident that they can quote Shakespeare, in English, when discussing restaurants in China on the phone; b) the New York Times needs to widen its circle of sources on censorship beyond people who quote Shakespeare, in English, when discussing restaurants on the phone. Further study needed on whether or not phones used by New York Times correspondents and assistants are the most reliable means of judging phone censorship in China.

[Addendum: It turns out that my friend Kenneth Tan at Shanghaiist conducted a similar study, with similar results, earlier today. Dr. Tan's study, here.]

[Addendum 3/24: And the unsuccessful attempts at verifying this episode continue, both among China's foreign correspondent corps (some distinguished verifiers, here,here, here, and here) and among expatriate, er, civilians (a tiny sample, here, andhere) Now, just to be clear: this ludicrous, unverifiable example of 'censorship' should not detract from the simple fact that internet controls in China are tightening. That's a real phenomenon, and one can only wish that, in the future, the New York Times decides to front its stories with the many actual verifiable examples of censorship occurring here (especially as they impact the Chinese, and not expat correspondents).]

UPDATED after the page jump …

[UPDATE 3/24: The byline for the NYT’s story belongs to Sharon LaFraniere and David Barboza. However, like many NYT stories, this one was a team effort, with additional reporting provided by reporters around the globe. Among the team members on this story was Jonathan Ansfield – at the end of the story, his role is described as follows: “Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting from Beijing.”

A little while ago, an email directed me over to Ansfield’s twitter account. It’s rarely used, but in the last 24 hours, Ansfield has used it to re-tweet two tweets related to this article. The first re-tweet was of one of mine, in which I inform my followers that it is, in fact, safe to quote Shakespeare over the phone in China. The second re-tweet is of Beijing writer and translator Brendan O’Kane, in which he announces that he is writing to the NYT’s corrections department over the ‘protest’ lede, and encourages others to do the same. Seriously: can anyone come up with another example of a New York Times reporter making such a public effort to back away from a published story with which he or she has a credit? I can’t. Here, for posterity’s sake, is a screen grab of the re-tweets:

An excellent fisking, Mr. Minter.

First it was eBay, then Yahoo, and more recently Google. But will Skype be the next foreign internet firm to withdraw from China?

In late December, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that all voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) telephone services other than those provided by the country’s state-owned telecom carriers were “illegal” and will face closure.

The news, published on the People’s Daily website, quickly fuelled speculation that Beijing was going after Skype, which is VoIP-based. Even though Skype says it is yet to see any change in official treatment, the announcement sounds ominous. Skype claimed it had more than 88 million registered users in China at the end of June last year.

This is frustrating to hear, as we use Skype daily in our business and it would create at least short-term hardship should it be blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

Upon hearing this news, one commentator asked when the USA, UK, etc. were going to haul China before the WTO, as this seems a clearly protectionist measure.  The article cited above goes on to list one Chinese-grown version after another of ubiquitous Western online companies – Facebook, eBay, Google, Twitter, etc.  We can debate whether the strategies of these companies were suitable for the Chinese market – for example, I think Google tried to run things from the USA and eschewed a customized approach in China to their detriment – but it is undeniable that the Chinese companies are growing free from the international competition they would face on the other side of the Great Firewall.

Let’s see if the 112th Congress pushes this issue.  Doubt it.

Have a great weekend.