The text cited a realization that the Chinese officials had after train accident in Wenzhou. As noted, nearly 250 million more people were watching television coverage online as compared to more traditional over-the-air or cable provided television. Social media was also highly utilized as a method of distributing information to and from the site of the disaster as opposed to more traditional method of new reporting. While this was a clear reorganization of what these officials believed in terms of media consumption by the citizens of China, there are likely similar numbers of swiftly changing percentages of online media consumption in other nations. Unlike what is thought of by other nations, the Chinese government seems to be more brazen in their public efforts to curtail public opinion, and ensure that the nation remain a homogenous culture that is dictated at the highest levels of a central government. This runs afoul of several of the provisions of the WTO obligations, namely the over-exertion of censorship abilities by a government agency. Yet, there are likely many similar concerns to be made about the US and EU, in terms of the larger availability of propaganda produced by foreign nations influencing the citizens of another. The Fake News epidemic is effectively producing a scenario that would almost excuse the prevalence of government censors, but certainly doesn’t in principle. Simply, censorship runs afoul of a free market concept.
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