Censorship in China...

Despite all the horror stories you hear about China about a lack of free speech and a non-existent free press, I've encountered very little censorship during my time here.

Much of that has to do, I'm sure, with the fact that the Olympics are in town. The government has cleaned up its act for a month or two, Internet barriers have temporarily come down (all except, for me, Facebook, Wordpress and, weirdly, one of my credit cards) and the local media has continued its tradition of self-policing and China promotion. While my troubles on the 'net are an annoyance - particularly the Facebook thing, since I can sometimes get on and sometimes not - the most censorship I've experienced has been from a mulit-billion dollar American company. One I happend to work for not so long ago.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket into the Bird's Nest to see the Mens 100m Finals - arguably the marquee event of any Summer Games and, really, the only one I definitely wanted to make sure I saw. It lived up to the legends of Olympics past: Tyson Gay's injury keeping him from the finals, the current and former world record holders lining up for the finals, a pair of unsung Americans running alongside and the culmination of Usain Bolt (who, by the way, started running the 100m less than a year ago) breaking his own world record to win gold.

As the eight sprinters lined up to start, the capacity crowd of 91,000 fell to a hush and rose, as one, to its feet. We stood there, poised and ready, as if we were tensed to run the race alongside the Olympians. The entire crowd could hear the call of, "On your mark... set!" and then let out a defining roar milliseconds after the starting gun. We screamed for 9.69 seconds, took a breath, and then screamed some more - in disbelief, in joy, in celebration, in the Olympic spirit.

I had my Flashcam with me and I captured that moment live, in the stadium, just soaking it all in. But NBC, apparently, thinks it owns the rights to the very Olympics itself and keeps kicking my video of YouTube. And there's nothing I can do about it. Apparently, one of the world's ten largest companies that generates billions in revenue each year thinks that someone shooting at an event their television network covered (not even using their footage) could bring down their entire profit stream.

So, thank you GE and NBC Universal. You've just shown me what censorship is all about in China.

Dear SeeMikeWrite,

NBC Universal (Sports) has claimed some or all visual content in your video Usain Bolt World Record - live from the Birds Nest. This claim was made as part of the YouTube Content Identification program.

Your video is no longer available because NBC Universal (Sports) has chosen to block it.

Claim Details:

Copyright owner:	NBC Universal (Sports)
Content claimed:	Some or all of the visual content
Policy:	Block this content. Applies to these locations: Everywhere

NBC Universal (Sports) claimed this content as a part of the YouTube Content Identification program. YouTube allows partners to review YouTube videos for content to which they own the rights. Partners may use our automated video / audio matching system to identify their content, or they may manually review videos.

For more information about this claim, visit the Video ID Matches section of your YouTube account.

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the suspension of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide. If you believe that this claim was made in error, or that you are otherwise authorized to use the content at issue, you may file a counter notice. For more information on this process, please see: How do I file a counter notice?

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Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team