milosevic - 7:11 pm on Dec 7, 2010 (gmt 0)

I made a blog article on my employer's website about China's business practices last year. About 2 weeks after that my personal e-mail account was hacked into (the originating IP seeming to be an Amazon AWS server), around the same time as the reported hacks from China on Google (which included various gmail accounts - see [guardian.co.uk...] ). Some without knowing me or the full details of the circumstances would put this down to coincidence, but I really don't think so, especially as the Guardian article specifically talks about the use of Amazon AWS servers. Now I know I'm probably on some sort of watchlist as a China dissident just because I blogged about them arresting Rio Tinto employees.

The censoring of Twitter and under-reporting of the stories in the conventional media with a lack of questions as @kaled points out seems like a move indeed towards Chinese style censorship, where the aim is is to pull the strings of media and steer public discussion behind the scenes.

I don't want to post something on Twitter about Wikileaks where it is permanently indexed and could be interpreted at any time down the line by potential future employers as me being a loose cannon or controversial. Maybe Twitter isn't the place to discuss politics (especially after the recent Robin Hood Airport incident), but it's also how people aren't discussing this on the street, or know only that "some documents got leaked on the internet but the guy what runs it is a rapist weirdo".

I think most disturbingly, US government agencies sent out a memo advising employees to not to read or talk about wikileaks material (even in their free time!) or it could affect their career prospects.

Are the techniques of hushing and censorship working on keeping the average, say, Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper reader in the dark?