Some of the leading tech executives, such as Facebook’s Vaughan Smith, Apple’s Bruce Sewell, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, and the hosts of other Internet community and internet policy makers are currently meeting in Wuzhen, China for the World Internet Conference. The conference starts today 19th November and will run through to November 21, 2014.
Isn’t that odd as some would say, that the World Internet Conference is taking place in China considering that China history about the internet usage and it’s massive system of online censorship, called the Great Firewall, that has continue to block a huge array of websites, including some of the most popular one such as Google, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc? Well, the event is currently happening live!
Other internet big-wigs in attendant includes – leaders from local Internet giants, such as Alibaba and Tencent. One would think that perhaps, China is having a second thought on their policy of internet censorship?
This is not the case, according to Bloomberg reports. “This temporary opening of the gates doesn’t mean China is having second thoughts about Web censorship. Not in the least. China often lifts its controls on the Web for attendees of high-profile international forums, as it did for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing earlier this month. The Internet service in the media center at APEC allowed access to nationally banned sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.”
Constative News will keep you posted about the latest happenings as the event progress while we look forward to the nearest future when one of our own here in Africa may be big enough to be recognized on the world stages. We in Africa are gearing up for innovation, we aren’t left out!
Meanwhile, at the press conference, Zhejiang provincial governor Li Qiang briefly introduced all the preparatory work that has been done for the first WIC and cordially invited guests from all over the world to join the gathering in Wuzhen.
Another strange call indeed coming from a minister in charge of the world’s greatest internet censorship. Let’s wait and see how things will turn out after this event. Who knows, China might just reconsider their stands on the internet censorship.
China’s world economic giant @ Ope.