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"Big mama" (Chinese:大妈 Pinyin: da ma) is the informal name given to an Internet censor on web bulletin boards in the mainland of People's Republic of China. The name is derived from the name for the wife of the eldest uncle, who in the traditional Chinese family has to take care of everyone. The big mama is usually an employee of the company sponsoring the board whose job it is to take down politically sensitive postings. Big mamas act quite openly, and are not at all reluctant to admit that they are censoring and why. Actions of big mama are generally taken more with annoyance and amusement than with alarm, and there is often some humourous bantering with big mama. Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉è¯æ‹¼éŸ³; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: , lit. ... The highlighted area in the map is what is commonly known as mainland China. Mainland China (Simplified Chinese: ä¸å›½å¤§é™†; Traditional Chinese: ä¸åœ‹å¤§é™¸; Hanyu Pinyin: , lit. ...
Critics suggest that the existence of big mamas are an example of infringement of freedom of speech and expression, and particularly fault Western companies such as Yahoo! for hiring big mamas on their Mainland Chinese sites. They note that big mamas extend the ability of the Chinese government to control and monitor content on discussion boards. Yahoo! Inc. ...
Others have pointed out that by allowing web discussion sites to exist in the first place, the system actually promotes freedom of expression. Furthermore, they argue that it is far better to have the internet content provider itself perform the censorship than it would be to have officials of the Chinese government review all of the content on the message boards. They note that the actions of big mama are confined to deleting objectionable postings, and that there is no effort made to track down posters and punish them, and that replacing them with Chinese government officials would have a far more chilling effect on discussion. A chilling effect is a situation where speech or conduct is suppressed or limited by fear of penalization at the hands of an individual or group. ...
The National Peoples Congress of the Peoples Republic of China has passed an Internet censorship law in mainland China. ... Spoiler warning: Big Brother is an enigmatic dictator in a totalitarian state taken to its utmost logical consequence. ...
External links
Tsui, Lokman (2001). "Big Mama is Watching You: Internet Control by the Chinese government". Unpublished MA thesis, University of Leiden.
Guttman, Ethan. (2002) "U.S. Capitalists Spread China's Communist Propaganda". NewsMax.com
Bigmamas act quite openly, and are not at all reluctant to admit that they are censoring and why.
Actions of bigmama are generally taken more with annoyance and amusement than with alarm, and there is often some humourous bantering with bigmama.
They note that the actions of bigmama are confined to deleting objectionable postings, and that there is no effort made to track down posters and punish them, and that replacing them with Chinese government officials would have a far more chilling effect on discussion.
Winner of an Academy Award in the Documentary Short category, BigMama depicts a devoted grandmother's struggle to raise her orphaned grandson under the watchful eye of a complex and difficult social welfare system.
BigMama follows 18 months in the lives of Viola Dees, an African American grandmother, and Walter, her grandson, as she tries to raise him alone in South Central Los Angeles.
BigMama candidly chronicles the family when life deals them several blows.
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