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The International Olympic Committee acceded to Chinese government demands that some internet censorship be kept in place during the Beijing Olympics, reported The New York Times. Nevermind that IOC promised journalists could “report freely” from the games. Is this really a problem for reporters?

Long story short: this isn’t much of a problem. Journalists arriving in Beijing without regularly being stationed there have already spent however much money to get to China and stay in hotels. They can afford a VPN service, which will completely circumvent the government restrictions–that is, if their newsroom doesn’t have one already. Journalists will just have to learn how to use the internet under less-than-ideal circumstances.

The long story: for the unaccustomed, the restrictions will be a pain in the neck. Certain things will be blocked in certain places. You’ll never know exactly why something was stopped. Non-savvy reporters or those with old computers may have trouble using proxies and VPN.

But this doesn’t really stop reporters from “reporting freely.”

What would stop that is denial of access, denial of free travel, and threats or actual detainment or deportation after publishing something the government doesn’t like. I can say from personal experience certain towns in the northwestern province of Xinjiang were being treated as off-limits to foreigners and some Chinese from out of town as recently as 10 days ago. We’ve already seen Beijing police acting violently against reporters from Hong Kong and breaking camera equipment at an Olympic news event.

Reporting freedom will not be complete in Beijing, but internet censorship is not the reason. When foreign journalists are the target of restrictions, that’s not much of a civil liberties problem for Chinese people. Perhaps reporters should get over their own selves and write more about Chinese people.