New York Times

BEIJING — In the wake of Sunday’s deadly riots in its western region of Xinjiang, China’s central government took all the usual steps to enshrine its version of events as received wisdom: it crippled Internet service, blocked Twitter’s micro-blogs, purged search engines of unapproved references to the violence, saturated the Chinese media with the state-sanctioned story. It also took one most unusual step: Hours after troops quelled the protests, in which 156 people were reported killed, the state invited foreign journalists on an official trip to Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital and the site of the unrest, “to know better about the riots.” Indeed, it set up a media center at a downtown hotel — with a hefty discount on rooms — to keep arriving reporters abreast of events. (Link)

From the

As Arianna Huffington put it in her op-ed last week, China “slammed the door in the face of new media — and offered traditional reporters a front row seat.” Now, from the Associated Press we find out that Afghanistan is learning from China’s example:

KABUL — The Afghan government has blocked access to four Web sites with President Hamid Karzai’s name in the address that are critical of the Afghan leader or have links to sites advertising locally taboo subjects such as online dating and mail order brides. The shutdown order comes ahead of the country’s Aug. 20 presidential election. An Information Ministry spokesman initially said the original complaint about two of the sites came from the Karzai campaign. Karzai’s campaign spokesman agreed, but later called back to deny involvement. (Link)

Kharzai’s actions might seem strange, since most of his rival candidates have no internet access. But that’s not the point of doing this. By blocking the site, he controls the public perception of his regime through state media.

And “state media” really is the operating phrase. Newspapers are easy to shut down; so are TV stations. You can block a website, but you can’t block an internet user so easily. The more access people have to the tools of new media, the less control a government has over what the world sees, hears, and reads about it.

Via email, Juan Cole tells us what happened in Tehran on Friday:

Every time Ansari mentioned the Supreme Leader, the crowd booed. Every time he referred to the opposition as traitors, chants of “liar, liar” started. When he mentioned that everyone should listen to the advice and dictates of the Supreme Leader, chants of “Death to the dictator” were loudly shouted. When he derailed (sic) America and Britain for muddling in Iran’s affairs, the crowd erupted in chants of “Down with Russia” (because Russia immediately recognized the re-election of Ahmadinejad and congratulated him). As he spoke of the recent killings of Muslims in China, the crowd chided him and the system for its hypocrisy.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has kicked the man-on-the-scene reporters out of Iran because, unlike in China, the regime in Iran has been unable to quell dissent in the streets. Reporters will not be allowed to return to Tehran until it goes quiet — and the demonstrators are determined not to be quiet. Indeed, they have proven impossible to shut up.

We know this because more emails, blogs, and videos come out of Iran every day. They wind up on YouTube and get reposted through social media sites. We listen to thousands of voices jam the call to prayer, or chant Allah’u’akbar in the night: