On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 8:42 AM, Marshall Eubanks
<tme(_at_)americafree(_dot_)tv> wrote:
The Chinese government has imposed a rule on all conferences held
since 2008 regarding political speech.
Perhaps more material to this discussion, the government has imposed
severe and wide-ranging restrictions on people's access to the
Internet. This bites most sharply at the Web/HTTP level.
[Non-rhetorical information-seeking question: Is IRC access unrestricted?]
Thus, operators of a Web-centric conference might have to decide
between declining to go, based on the Web's being restricted to a
crippled subset of itself, or alternatively to use an event there as a
teaching platform as to the benefits of an uncensored Web.
Also, bear in mind that there are a large number of people around the
world who are very angry at the Chinese government, and are looking
for opportunities to stage protests as visibly as possible. It is not
inconceivable that some of them are IETF attendees and might choose to
try to do this in the IETF context. The thought of the IETF or hotel
being held liable for what the government perceives as illegal action,
or on the other hand being forced to be a party to trying to prevent
what I'd see as a legitimate protest, are both extremely unattractive.
Finally, it wouldn't be that surprising if there was some amused news
coverage about the IETF meeting in the world capital of Internet
censorship.
-Tim
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