Results tagged “activists”

• Meanwhile in China… Sweet Powerpoint-style Graphics of Government Growth Plans [GOOD] "As someone who works in design, and the visual communication of information (like our weekly Transparencies or our recent infographic challenge to explain the financial crisis), I find this wonderful. Sure, it’s like every bad trick in the powerpoint/clipart book has been ruthlessly piled upon these slides. But still, to see typically boring, impenetrable government plans presented in a visual manner that seems sincere in its attempt to communicate with anyone is fascinating."
• Chinese 'gold farmers' making a living playing computer games [The Guardian] "These virtual industries sound surreal, but they are fast entering the mainstream. According to a report by Richard Heeks at Manchester University, an estimated 400,000 Asian workers are now employed in gold farming in a trade worth up to £700m a year. With so many gamers now online, these industries are estimated to have a consumer base of five million to 10 million, and numbers are expected to grow with widening internet access."
• A Chinese Pirate Unmasks: Letter from China [The New Yorker] "In his Internet experiment, Wang has added a compelling twist on the nature of Chinese nationalism. He did not simply want to prove that patriots would predictably bristle at the criticism, but that Chinese readers of all stripes would listen to criticism more closely from an outsider, even if they did not agree with it."

People who made the news this week

Cyber dissident Wang Dejia was arrested for "subverting state secrets" (what else?), which means penning too many articles critical of the government. Some of those critical essays pertained to the upcoming summer Olympics:

In recent months, Wang also gave an interview to the Epoch Times, a media group backed by the banned sect F@lun G0ng, in which he claimed the Olympics would exacerbate the sufferings of Chinese people and leave them "living like dogs and pigs."

Continue reading "Beijing Olympics News: State secrets and Spielberg"