BEIJING: A newspaper affiliated
to the Communist
Party of China on Thursday said they have lessons to learn from the rumors
concerning people from India's northeast that caused widespread disturbances in
the country. The paper also blamed the US for the role played by Facebook and
Twitter in fanning the troubles.
"The scene is familiar to (the one faced by) Chinese. What happened in India can help us understand more objectively whether the Internet can foment social instability and how it does so," the Global Times newspaper said.
"It is hard to imagine rumors causing an exodus. The government's reaction and public's ability to discern false information are much better," the paper said.
There were signs that Chinese officials felt vindicated because Facebook and Twitter are banned in China. "But New Delhi's worries that the internet promoted the rumors didn't come out of nowhere. As the inventor of social networking sites, the US has experience in regulating them," editorialized the Global Times. The paper did not name Pakistan, blamed by India as the source of rumors. It also ruled out an Assam-like situation in China and said India is unlikely to see anything resembling the Arab Spring. "A revolution is unlikely to happen in India. But recent disturbance in Assam show that unrest stirred by rumors is unrelated to a country's political system," it said.
Suggesting that Indian masses could easily fall victim to sweeping emotions, the paper remarked, "The Indian political system can withstand great uncertainty, but its public sentiment is very fragile when facing an emergency".
Commenting on the violence in India, a Chinese govt daily blamed the US, as the inventor of social networking websites, for the role played by Facebook and Twitter in fanning rumours.
Courtesy: Times of India, August
24, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment