No certain things can be deleted and suppressed due to the private ownership nature of the media. Its just a more sophisticated form of censorship.
Blogs and public protests can't be blocked. Just because they can be deleted doesn't mean they can be silenced.
You can accuse it of being censorship, but in the end that censorship isn't legally enforced, and it doesn't represent a unitary interest. There will be counter-censorship from competing interests. I get my comments about progressive causes on Fox news sites deleted. I get to delete far right comments on my liberal blog. The phenomena of censorship may not disappear, but its effects are different (both views are still out in public space even if they are not universally endorsed), and that matters.
So a right justifies an outcome? Besides Chinese people can speak and differ that does not even have to do with the media.
No. I am merely saying that you shouldn't expect an outcome just because there is a right.
If Chinese people speak and differ, and that can be done in public,
that is the media. The media isn't just institutional, it's systemic.
You are just making excuses for the propaganda aka "free" media. The main stream media does actively prevent someone who offers a contrary view.
I am saying that if the mainstream media does actively prevent me from offering a contrary view it still doesn't matter. I can find alternative mediums to express my views, and if they actively intrude upon me personally in order to prevent me from sharing my views, I have legal protection, and can sue on personal and civil rights grounds.
It may be the mainstream media, but it is not the only allowed and accepted media source in a free media system.
And I would say most Americans do not think they are indoctrinated.
Sure, but that doesn't refute my point. The question is would you know if you were indoctrinated. If so how?
So police pay visit to all these netizens who disagree in China? Also in the US they certainly keep track of individual who they feel are trouble makers, with huge collections of information on some individuals.
No, not all. They try to block most of them, and go after the worst "offenders". That's significantly better than what they used to do though (before the internet).
In the US they keep track of individuals who are trouble makers in the socially disruptive sense. Harping a point of view in public is not socially disruptive. And yeah, the US exercises the power of surveillance, but every state does. The difference is unless I actually go and do something that is disruptive or damaging I am not going to get arrested (maybe fined for small disturbances or sued for libel and slander).
Not really, I have said they disagreements are for show not a matter of changing reality. Obama have followed much of same policies as Bush, more wars and conflicts, more debt and so on.
He's also followed different ones. His Mid-East policy is very different. Bush would not have hesitated to go into Syria for example and would have the US more involved with Libya. If you think disagreements about tax policy, healthcare, and entitlements are for show then you are sorely mistaken. Also, following your presumption, that would mean Bush would have been very similar to Clinton, and they are not.
Despite all the bickering, some real differences are discussed in the media, and it's reflected in public life in places like local town halls.
FLG, Tibet, you know where they stand.
Sure, but nothing prevents me from publishing a pro China article about Tibet. If no newspaper will accept it, I can post it on a blog or a social networking site. If I work as an editor for a paper I can publish it. On Facebook I can join the "Tibet is not a country" group or "If every person in Mainland pissed in the ocean Taiwan would be underwater" group, just like other people can air out their views on the equivalent opposing group page.
In my first year of college there was a lot of public activity and publication on both sides of the Tibet topic by different student groups (the Mainland student body in Berkeley is pretty freakin huge). I thought the people who thought Tibet was independent (including some of my friends) were a bunch of screws but that did not mean I or any of the other Mainland students who felt strongly about the issue were prevented from putting our views to the public.
Being able to publicly disagree with the "mainstream" would be difficult on a Chinese campus.
Similarly, it's not like there aren't people in the US who believe Clinton murdered people, or that Obama is a socialist nazi, or wasn't born in the country, etc. The conservative messaging machine isn't making Obama's job any easier either, so that pretty much throws the "they're all conspiring together" notion out the window.
Their interests are sufficiently connected that its no longer an oligopoly but a monopoly. Again the government is very much involved.
There interests are sufficiently connected because? They don't compete against each other for market shares?
Do tell what the government involvement actually is, because last I saw there have been stories in the media that have critically damaged government interests, like the coverage of Iraq or Afghanistan.
It is suppressed, its just a more sophisticated form of suppression using money and influence. Again due to its influence its does not need to actively cut off access.
Again, the notion of a free media system is defined relative to the state. They can "suppress" with money and influence, but because the state is by law neutral, there is also legal protection for the individual. If they buy me off, that is not suppression. That is me making a decision that my personal welfare is better than what I believe the public welfare to be. I have the choice of refusing. If anything, we just had a clear example of why media organizations don't get to lord over people. Search google on News Corp and hacking. Rupert Murdoch isn't the only one whose collar is feeling a little tight. A lot of people in parliament may be losing their seats for that one. Clearly people aren't just the tools of their government.
Furthermore, if that ability to actively suppress different public opinion were so successful, we would not have far right militants in the US who can freely recruit. Yes, they are allowed to exist so long as they don't do anything against the law.
By whom? Unlike you I am not trying to defending any particular media only to criticizing the one that is the most hypocritical and damaging to a society. The results speak for itself.
By your parents, your education, and whatever else contributed to your formation of beliefs? Technically we are all "indoctrinated".
I am not defending any particular type of media either--merely explaining what free media is and isn't. I have also not criticized "alternatives". Saying that non-free media also brainwashes is not a criticism, it is a fact. All media brainwashes so long as people don't consume them critically. Just because a media criticizes and damages another society (or its own) does not determine whether it is free or not.
I did not say a free media system is not hypocritical (it inherently is), or can't damage a society (itself or another), or is fair. The difference is in what is allowed, not in what the outcomes must be.
On a side note, if you're bitter that the US media snipes at China all the time (while sounding hypocritical), keep in mind that the Chinese media happily snipes back (while also sounding hypocritical).
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