Slashdot Mirror
The Great Firewall of China - Samples of Filtered Sites
Loligo writes "Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society has released a study listing some of the sites filtered by Chinese internet connections. Sites about Taiwan are maybe understandable, but Red Lobster?" We've mentioned the ongoing Berkman study before; one of their interesting findings is that the list of blocked sites is a moving target, and some sites are blocked only intermittently. Here are summaries from The New York Times and MSNBC, by way of The Censorware Project. Update: 12/04 21:03 GMT by T : Seth Finkelstein points to his report "Searching Through the Great Firewall of China," which "describes a simple technique which can be used
with some search engines to bypass censorware bans on searching for
forbidden words. Particular emphasis is placed on the situation of the
Great Firewall Of China."
They don't want their children seeing prawn.
This is what happened to the Censorware Project (censorware.org), for anyone wondering why the domain name has changed.
here.
From this perspective, I hope you can understand why they might find the idea of plunging a 'red' lobster into a tank of boiling water to be as offensive as any pornography our country has to offer.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Is it now unacceptable to criticise anything unless the critic is perfect? If so, I suggest you stop expressing your opinions, because I am sure you have some flaws, too. That aside, I think you are missing the difference in scope and degree that exists between your examples.
USA:
Miniscule control of contested content as part of an on-going struggle over intellectual property. This control is almost entirely public, and any punishment is delivered openly after proper trials. An open and energetic debate is taking place within the USA regarding the correctness of these actions.
China:
Sweeping control of political expression. This control is as covert as possible. Much of the punishment is delivered in an arbitrary and concealed manner. Public debate within China is limited because people fear arrest if they complain.
Neither situation is ideal, but equating the situation in the USA with the situation in China diminishes the situation the Chinese people must endure.
Filtering of taiwanese sites 'understandable'?
Never mind that you can't understand why China would block taiwanese sites.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I don't have children, but if I did, you'd better believe I'd set up a mandatory web filter until they reached a reasonable age.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I *do* have a proxy that blocks ads.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I have an email spam filter.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
My browser does not display ads when they're obvious.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I use google with the lowest level of filter (that isn't off) just to avoid the crap.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
I use killfiles when reading usenet.
Filtering is bad, PERIOD.
Finally, I imagine I'll add you to my "enemies list" (hate that term - it's just a kill file) here at slashdot.
If I drank coffee, I'd use a filter there, too. Have a nice life - look out for the grinds...
dude, blood is on the hands of every nation on earth. hypocrisy is equal opportunity.
;-P
does america suck big time on some issues? sure. no one is denying the obvious criticisms you have pointed out.
but surely you can see that america has more freedoms when it comes to the press, speech, etc., then china, which actively seeks to control these things. or the other nations you mentioned: pakistan, iraq, afghanistan.
does this make america better than china or these other nations? of course not. that is just nationalism. nationalism stinks like racism or sexism stinks. so maybe we, and this includes you, can move beyond the america sucks/ america is better rhetoric and focus on the issues at hand: basic freedoms, regardless of where in the world we are.
because no one else is talking about these issues in this thread as an "america is better" or "america is worse" kind of way except you. who cares about that. china censors these sites. that sucks. all by itself that sucks. whether america is the center of all evil in the universe or all americans walk around with haloes of purity and innocence on their heads. either way, this censoring of sites by china still sucks. period. end of story. get it?
so i'll make you a deal: we'll move beyond the nationalist rhetoric as soon as YOU move beyond the nationalist rhetoric, capice?
geez.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No visible obstructions last time I looked
(the following is a slightly modified email that I sent to the people who did the study. I did get a response, but I will not post it since I didn't ask for permission.)
...Or perhaps to an increase of users in a particular layer of Chinese society?
******
It occured to me that this is only interesting because of the very large number of potentially affected people. If the same study was done about filtering in the country of, say, Morocco, I probably would not have bothered to read it. As such, I feel that the analysis sort of begs the question. How many people in China actually have Internet access, and what parts of the society are they in?
If only 1% of the country uses the Web on a regular basis, and 90% of those are "well to do", then the filtering has much less significance because the potential impact of Internet access is already minimalized.
(I have made the assumption that "well to do" citizens are less likely to want to modify the status quo, meaning that Web content would have minimal impact on their actions, filtered or not.)
Does an increase in filtering correalate in any way to an increase in Chinese Internet users?
******
(The gist of the response was that the study was not concerned with any implications of the filtering, just the filtering itself.)
Even if you ignore what happened before, the current situation is that the Censorware project had to start up a new site at censorware.net, and Sims is using the original URL - censorware.org, as a rant page against Finkelstein.
Sims admits at the top of this page that many people visiting it will be hoping to find information pertaining to censorship. However, rather than do what most people who claim to be concerned about censorship would do (allow the visitor to get the information they are looking for), he just rants on about Finkelstein.
Seemingly, for Sims - ego and flaming Finkelstein gets a higher priority than educating people about censorship. Don't take my word for it, visit censorware.org and see for yourself.
Oh, also - be warned. Sims is known to use his Slashdot editor status to remove these discussion threads, claiming they are off-topic (he can't really use that excuse here).