Chinese leaders order internet whitewash amid rumours attempted military coup

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 22 March 2012 | Peter Simpson

[PotatoHeadMick]

'Tanks in the streets of Beijing'

Nervous leaders in China have blocked all internet reports of an alleged attempted coup.

Online reports of tanks on the streets of the capital Beijing and shots fired within the secure leaders' compound - which is located next door the top tourist attraction, the Forbidden City - are being closely monitored by the international intelligence communities, including the U.S. and UK.

Popular Chinese microblogging sites Sina Weibo, QQ Weibo and the bulletin board of the search engine Baidu, all reported 'abnormalities' in Beijing on the night of March 19.

[redgolum]

Thank you.

[ConservativeMind]

Of interest:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-economists-assert-political-wealth-nations.html

[darrellmaurina]

Bump. It looks like we now have an explanation:

Online whispers
The anatomy of a coup rumour
Apr 5th 2012, 7:22 by G.E. | Beijing
http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2012/04/online-whispers

In a free Western democratic system of government, rumors circulating on the internet about things like traffic blockages wouldn't even be considered news, but if they were, they'd quickly get proved right or wrong, either via the mainstream media or via “crowdsourcing” (of which Free Republic is a major example). Look, for example, at how quickly we learned about the plane crash in Virginia Beach.

In a country like China, minor stuff like this becomes an international incident and leads to a half-dozen people getting detained.

This is an excellent example of how authoritarian states fear information getting to their people, and while leaders of democratic states get annoyed by wrong reports, they realize the alternative is far worse.

Even with the American military, Army Public Affairs doctrine is “maximum disclosure, minimum delay.” If troops don't believe their commanders are being honest about battlefield defeats and crime in the ranks and corruption from senior leaders, they won't know if they can trust their leaders to be honest about the reasons for following orders that can get people killed or seriously injured.

The media can be a major pain in the neck, obviously. That's our job. What just happened in China is an example of why that job is important — the alternative to media being able to check out rumors and find out if they're true is that rumors spread widely and nobody knows what to believe.