Beijing Olympics pose internet challenges
Freedom of information is already a recurring theme of this Olympics.
It鈥檚 something the grappled with in one small form over the issue of whether to allow .
The main concern for the IOC was that of media rights 鈥 ie a blog could in theory be used to 鈥榗over鈥 the event as a journalist tool.
The way round this was to that: "The IOC considers blogging ... as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism," and to allow bloggers only to do so from unaccredited areas.
This was followed by which says that the IOC has relaxed its stance on internet reporting generally.
Restrictions used to stipulate that only media organisations which were accredited rights-holders could use material recorded within Olympic venues.
But the Reuters report said those rules had now been relaxed so that:-
'Bona fide' news organisations will be allowed to broadcast via the internet all or a portion of news conferences that take place in the Media Press Centre with a time delay of 30 minutes.
The report says the IOC has gone even further in Australia where internet sites will also be able to show short videos of the actual action through .
"Under the deal, non-official sites will be allowed to show three minutes of Olympic events a day, in 60 second clips, but will have to "geoblock" their sites so they cannot be seen by Internet users outside Australia," said the report.
It鈥檚 also interesting to see the .
China has said it will lift the during the Games 鈥 not least so the thousands of journalists in Beijing will be able to do their jobs properly.
But officials have always been very vague on the subject.
There was something of a major step forward last week when the (though the Chinese government would never admit the block existed).
We鈥檙e excited about the fact that .
Of course, as , many will not necessarily be big fans of the West 鈥 or indeed the 91热爆 - and may well be their against the accusations which many human rights groups level against them鈥
However, as the level of debate about China鈥檚 hosting of the Games increases as we get nearer to and the protests mount (for instance at this weekend鈥檚 ), one wonders whether China will re-introduce the block.
One also wonders whether the restrictions will be lifted for English language-websites 鈥 but remain for Chinese-language sites (the block on the 91热爆 site still apparently applies to its Chinese language section or apparently any links in Chinese).
In this way they could ensure the majority of the population will still have their view of the Games effectively censored.
According to the issue of censorship was raised on Wednesday at a three-day meeting between the coordination commission and Beijing Olympics organisers.
Officials were apparently asked by journalists whether state broadcaster CCTV, which routinely delays live coverage of events by up to a minute, could effectively censor the Olympics coverage.
The AFP reported that CCTV's 鈥渓ive鈥 coverage of the was delayed and that last week, CCTV cut away from the .
Overseas censorship seems highly unlikely as CCTV has no role in international transmissions from the Olympics 鈥 this is handled by the host broadcaster, Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, a joint venture between and the IOC.
Sun Weijia, director of media operations for BOCOG, told AFP: "There will be no delay from Beijing. The transmission signal goes out to international broadcasters as events unfold."
But there is presumably nothing to stop domestic footage being delayed or censored as it is relayed within China鈥
