While many netizens have expressed their outrage at the recent anti-vulgarity campaign, tightening controls over online gaming, and the Great Firewall in general, People’s Daily published an open letter to Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on Internet freedom which presented another perspective (translated by ChinaHush):
First of all, Chinese government does not restrict internet users to use and access the Internet. I am a commentary writer; I spend most of my free time on the internet, looking for news, looking for different angles, writing reviews, expressing my views and opinions, and sometimes giving my personal comments and suggestions to the Government. So far, I have published thousands of articles, millions of words on uncountable websites like People’s daily, Xinhua and China Net etc. The government never give me any warnings and notices to tell me not go get on the internet or not to express my personal views.
Secondly, I do not find information on the network unable to flow freely. 9 Am this morning, I turned on my computer, and went on People’s Daily, Xinhua, China News, Sina, Sohu, Netease, IFeng and other major websites. I can open and view information about politics, economic, military, sports, entertainment and current affairs. I sent an email to my friend “Yixiao”and Netizen “Yixiao” got my email quickly. I also chat with my friends on QQ group and never was affected by anything or noticed any information not able to flow.
All the comments on the People’s Daily site showed support for the author. But ChinaHush also found the article reposted on other Chinese forums, where all the comments mocked the writer or said s/he must be a member of the Fifty Cent Party. From one comment on Netease:
Did not want to post, but I saw this news really made me angry, When the authors talks about the internet situation here why do I feel like I am dreaming?
