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Study Shows China Tightens Internet Filtering
Torrey Clark writes "China is the world's leading censor of the Internet, filtering web sites, blogs, e-mail, and online forums for sensitive political content, according to a study released Thursday. The OpenNet Initiative said that China employs thousands officials and private citizens to build a 'pervasive, sophisticated, and effective' system of Internet censorship. 'ONI sought to determine the degree to which China filters sites on topics that the Chinese government finds sensitive, and found that the state does so extensively,' said the study. 'Chinese citizens seeking access to Web sites containing content related to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama, the Tiananmen Square incident, opposition political parties, or a variety of anti-Communist movements will frequently find themselves blocked,' the report said."
I find it interesting how the Chinese government is all up in arms about Japan rewriting their history books, yet censors controversial Chinese history (e.g. Tiananmen Square) as well as current events (e.g. Taiwan and Tibet).
Granted the Japanese is almost rewriting history as oppposed to censoring it completely, but I believe the fundamental mentality is the same.
It's good to see China gets most favored nation trading status. After all, a country that represses its own citizen to the point of shooting them en masse and trying to cover it up, censoring internet access, and killing off political opponents deserves our respect and trade.
Especially when that trade costs many American workers their jobs, and results in a massive trade deficit that's only good for China, American executives, and their puppet politicians.
Must be the whole "culture of life" thing at work.
Hmm...
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Because... it would affect their economic growth?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
What's with the department that submitted this being called the "not-that-any-chinese-people-will-see-this" dept? I'm chinese in insensitive clod! I just happen to live in Canada.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Despite conventional wisdom, though, ONI found that most major American media sites, such as CNN, MSNBC, and ABC, are generally available in China (though the BBC remains blocked).
Another proof (if needed) of the total uselessness of american corporate media.
China's dictatorial government doesn't even see them as a threat... Sleep tight america.
In this case, I think the good outweighs the bad. I can deal with spam if it means that people in China, N. Korea, etc. can get unbiased information.
The Chinese government is in an interesting state of duality now. They know the Internet is useful, just like they know capitalism is useful. However they still want to retain the control and power they've always enjoyed. So it's an interesting balance of allowing new economic and informational freedoms, but restricting them at the same time.
I'd argue it's not all bad, in that capitalism and freedom aren't something people just know how to deal with inherantly. For two good examples see Russia and Iraq.
In Russia, the country basically had capitalism thrust on them in a very short time. It has lead to chaos, massive economic problems, and rampant crime. The people didn't know hoe to set up a functioning capitalism, nobody told them how. Forever the state, (receantly communists, before that aristocracy) had told them what to do and how to do it, now there was nothing. Russia is STILL coping with these problems, and there isn't an end in sight.
In Iraq the people had freedom thrust on them in a very short time. They went from fearing being killed for pissing off the government in any way to being free to do nearly anything they wanted. The problem is that freedom has to have some limits in society. Well there are some, like the insurgents, that freedom means they should be free to impose their will on others, through violence if they want.
Now don't get me wrong, I certianly don't support China's human rights abuses or anything like that, but just because they aren't going full bore for free information and markets isn't necessiarly a bad thing. Rapid transitions can be a dangerous thing and cause all kinds of problems.
So China knows the Internet and it's free flow of information is a good thing, however at this point they don't want it to be completely unrestricted, for better or worse.
Everyone complains about China and other asian countries, yet no one says anything about the filtering in the united arab emirates, saudi arabia, yemen, sudan, egypt etc. All those middle eastern and african counties. Perhaps its because most of the countries supply oil? Their human rights records are abysmal, and their internet censorship, media black outs, and press restrictions are far worse than China. Yet it's China this and China that. There is no need to defend China, but at least be fair about the criticism, and criticise proportionally to the level of injustice. Those countries listed in this paragraph deserve far more criticism and attention from the media in our world than China.