For those of you who have been living in a cave, there has been a recent wave of activism in Tibet supporting autonomy for the region. Some highlights, from CNN:

Monday, March 10

•Hundreds of monks begin a protest on the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Beijing rule, which led to the exile of the Dalai Lama, now living in India.

•About 300 monks from Drepung Monastery on the outskirts of Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, peacefully march toward Barkhor Street in the central city, but Chinese People’s Armed Police stop them before they reach the city. Police arrest monks suspected to be ringleaders. All the monks were seeking the release of fellow Drepung monks, who apparently were detained as they tried to celebrate the Dalai Lama’s receipt of the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal in October.

Tuesday, March 11th

•About 2,000 Chinese troops fire tear gas to disperse hundreds of monks from Sera Monastery who are calling for the release of their fellow monks and shouting pro-Tibet slogans.

Wednesday, March 12

•About 100 Tibetan nuns from Chutsang Nunnery on the west side of Lhasa march peacefully toward Barkhor Street, but Chinese People’s Armed Police block them. No reports of arrests.

•Monks from Gaden Monastery, about 30 miles east of Lhasa, launch a protest. Police surround and seal off the monastery.

Thursday, March 13

•Two monks from Kirti monastery in Sichuan Province stab themselves in the chest, hands and wrists. A reporter for Radio Free Asia says they were protesting the arrest of 17 people in the Sera Monastery protest Monday. RFA says the two monks are in critical condition and not expected to survive. Other monks from Sera Monastery are staging a hunger strike to protest the arrests.

•Police arrest around 500 students from Tibet University.

Friday, March 14

•Monks from Ramoche Temple attempt to hold a protest march, but police block streets and prevent the demonstration. Laypeople join in and scuffles break out. There are reports of protesters setting fire to vehicles, shops and a main market in Lhasa.

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The Dalai Lama, from is home in Dharamsala India, called the actions of the Chinese Government a “cultural genocide”, and asked for an international probe into the situation. According to the exiled Tibetan Government, there have been 80 deaths so far in this wave — including women and children.

According to the exiles, “Monasteries have been completely sealed off by [the military] and remain under extremely strict surveillance… Monks are being followed even as they try to move within the compounds of the monastery.”

Today a Youtube video was released entitled “Tibet WAS,IS,and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China”, and has achieved 100,000 views in its first 18 hours online. The interesting part, however, is that the video has become the #2 most discussed video of the day because there have been over 10,000 pro-China comments during these 18 hours. People have even gone so far as to call the Dalai Lama a “terrorist” on many occasions.

While this sounds like an intense amount of support for the Chinese Government, in fact it is completely fake.

Upon further examination, one can see that literally thousands of new YouTube accounts have been created today and have only commented on this video. A classic case of an astroturf campaign, the goal is to bend our perception of reality: creating the false appearance that there is popular opposition to the exiled Tibetan Government. Popular movements are extremely strong, which is why it is extremely alarming that a fake one might be arising.

Given that coummunity averages far less than 1000 new accounts per day throughout the entire site, it is clear that YOUTUBE IS BEING HACKED IN THE NAME OF CHINA. It is beyond my technological capabilities to discover whether it is being done by the Chinese Government or simply from a Lama opponent, but I would be very interested to hear from anyone who might be able to find out.

The beauty of the internet and web 2.0 sites such as YouTube is that for the first time in history, inherent political bias is taken out of news reporting. Since everyone has access to thousands of first hand videos and responses to them by people involved, they are no longer forced to take what news networks report as truth. The events taking place today are extremely dangerous because they threaten to remove our ability to have this untainted window.

Falsification of information on YouTube with regards to Tibet are especially bad because we already start from a lack of information coming out of the region. TibetWatch claims that 80 people have died in the recent protests, including women and children — yet the Chinese Government claims that the number is only ten, all of which burned to death in the chaos of the riots.

I might be inclined to believe China if they let anyone verify that number, but major news networks beside Xinhua (owned by the Chinese Government) have been banned from the region and thus cannot report any new information. As always, lack of transparency implies there is something to hide. Every once in a while, an account will surface on Youtube, but it is clear that this last channel of unbiased reporting has now also been cut off.

An aside: Even without commenting on whether Tibet deserves autonomy, it is clear that China has been in the wrong during this recent wave. It is very hard to come up with an argument justifying the killing of monks in peaceful protest, ever. However, the warriors for the free flow of information do have one major thing working in our favor: the 2008 Olympics. Already there have been calls to boycott the games, and thankfully all eyes are on Beijing. Furthermore, the monks know this. Protests are expected to grow as the Olympics approach, and it will be impossible to ignore the events in Tibet — no matter how many thousands of fake accounts are created on YouTube.