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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."
Somebody had to say it.
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Sounds like they block everything but spam.
In America we are given the righ to free speach. And this is actually a dangious right to have. Free Speach can give ideas that people will miss interpreate and twist around, or give them ideas that could be harmful to society. It is a risk that us westerners take for advantage. But other cultures see it as a danger and feel that they should limit speach thus reducing the risk. It it two sides of a simular issue. Do you take the risk of free speach or help control the risk with censored information. I feel that free speach is a good idea because it will lead to growth vs keeping the same. But the risk is always there.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
There are tons of anon proxies people can connect to to mask what sites they're going to. I'm sure the tech-savy are just using one them and surfing anyway.... The only way around that is to block all access to all ip ranges outside China's blocks.
Its a means to control the people without polarizing them and without causing a revolt.
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
As sad as it is, with everything that China has done, the world would significantly rather have China playing a global leadership role than America (their top pick, however, was France). That's how far things have degenerated...
Margaret Thatcher died the other day. It was a sad day, but I like to think that she's looking up at us right now."
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.
How else would they support their thriving piracy industry? Think before you type in future!
Why stop there? Why not just ban all forms of media, as it has to censor them too? But then the citizens could start talking and who knows what they'll talk about. Let's ban people from China too.
China has to balance its modernizing cities and urban population with its authoritarian communism. It's a fine line. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying I understand.
Hmm...
Mod down or comment?
Mod down or comment?
Commenting!
Because... it would affect their economic growth?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
China employs thousands officials and private citizens to build a 'pervasive, sophisticated, and effective' system of Internet censorship.
but it seems to me that there is a chink in their armor here. how does the government determine who is allowed to determine what is allowed to be viewed? employing thousands of people for the task of limiting the viewing capabilities of all the others doesn't seem very effective to me. what's stopping any one, or more, of them from building in a backdoor for themselves? from visiting "dangerous" sites? i'm sure there are very strict, probably painful, penalties for such actions, but it comes back to the question brought up earlier: qui custodiet ipsos custodes?
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
While I don't applaud the Bush administration's actions on censorship, I think it's still important to keep in mind that we have it much better than some places (China being just one example).
One should not become so cynical as to completely forget the good things about our form of government and the freedoms it provides. There are legitimate concerns regarding control of some information (trade secrets, confidential personal data, illegal material, national security concerns, etc.). The oft promulgated worldview that all information should be free (as in speech) is simply not a rational one.
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.
Maybe because they're sick of being 40 years behind the rest of the world?
I guess that just goes to show that the world is dumb, or perhaps greedy.
A small, efficient, uncorrupt, open minded country like the Netherlands or something seems like a much better bet.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I know that not all the content the Chinese censors need to filter is in Chinese, but this report made me wonder... how would applying filters to a logographic language such as Chinese differ from filtering content in Western language systems?
It seems like it would be a lot easier to block an idea if it were represented by a unique character than by a set of phonemes that could easily be 0bfu5cat3d without losing meaning. Does a language like Chinese generally lend itself better to computerized manipulation?
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
How ervasive and effective can a system be when you are paying people to review it. There are 3 problems that spring to mind.
1) Doesn't it defeat the purpose of hiding something when you pay thousands of people to read it?
2) How effective can any system that relies on human judgement be?
3) What's to stop a small dedicated group of people from letting a few "un-authorized" pages slip through the cracks.
"Freedom of speech has always been the abstract red-headed stepchild of the Constitution"
-Suck
I am sure they can get to Walmart.com
But, General Tsao makes better chicken than Colonel Sanders.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
For those who don't know much about Falun Gong. Here is a link to an interview with Li Hongzhi (the leader of Falun Gong) by Time in 1999 (just before Fa Lungong was banned in China). The following conversation on the 3rd page is particularly entertaining:
TIME: Where do they(the aliens) come from?Li: The aliens come from other planets. The names that I use for these planets are different . Some are from dimensions that human beings have not yet discovered. The key is how they have corrupted mankind. Everyone knows that from the beginning until now, there has never been a development of culture like today. Although it has been several thousand years, it has never been like now.
The aliens have introduced modern machinery like computers and airplanes. They started by teaching mankind about modern science, so people believe more and more science, and spiritually, they are controlled. Everyone thinks that scientists invent on their own when in fact their inspiration is manipulated by the aliens. In terms of culture and spirit, they already control man. Mankind cannot live without science.
The ultimate purpose is to replace humans. If cloning human beings succeeds, the aliens can officially replace humans. Why does a corpse lie dead, even though it is the same as a living body? The difference is the soul, which is the life of the body. If people reproduce a human person, the gods in heaven will not give its body a human soul. The aliens will take that opportunity to replace the human soul and by doing so they will enter earth and become earthlings.
When such people grow up, they will help replace humans with aliens. They will produce more and more clones. There will no longer be humans reproduced by humans. They will act like humans, but they will introduce legislation to stop human reproduction.
TIME: Are you a human being?
Li: You can think of me as a human being.
TIME: Are you from earth?
Li: I don't wish to talk about myself at a higher level. People wouldn't understand it.
TIME: What are the aliens after?
Li: The aliens use many methods to keep people from freeing themselves from manipulation. They make earthlings have wars and conflicts, and develop weapons using science, which makes mankind more dependent on advanced science and technology. In this way, the aliens will be able to introduce their stuff and make the preparations for replacing human beings. The military industry leads other industries such as computers and electronics.
TIME: But what is the alien purpose?
Li: The human body is the most perfect in the universe. It is the most perfect form. The aliens want the human body.
TIME: What do aliens look like?
Li: Some look similar to human beings. U.S. technology has already detected some aliens. The difference between aliens can be quite enormous.
TIME: Can you describe it?
Li: You don't want to have that kind of thought in your mind.
TIME: Describe them anyway.
Li: One type looks like a human, but has a nose that is made of bone. Others look like ghosts. At first they thought that I was trying to help them. Now they now that I am sweeping them away.,
Obviously he was inspired by The Alien, Man In Black, Species, and Matrix.
They really need a FOX News affiliate over there to convince them that up is really down...
-- Fratz, human
There are also other end-user (working) anonymous-p2p programs such as:
The site Anonymous-p2p.org has a good list of anonymous p2p programs as well.
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.
ok, first off id like to start by saying...
[this post has been filterd to remove all useful content...]
and secondly,
[this post has been filterd to remove all useful content...]
so you see, this is why we must rise up and welcome our new [this post has been filterd to remove all useful content...] overlords!
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
China treats the rest of the world a lot better than it treats its citizens. And, for what it's worth (not that I'm saying it's much), pre-emptive military action is more or less prohibited by their constitution. Considering our recent track record and international arrogance, this is something of an understandable position, pragmatically speaking.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
US companies Cisco and Goggle were both named in a Washington Post article as being duplicious in aiding the Chinese governments efforts to censor the internet. Although it states the study does not mention either company and both companies have denied aiding the Chinese government it still begs the question whether US companies, especially, Goggle, would put profit ahead of freedom of speech. It harks back to the business done between companies from both sides during WWII.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
What frightens me is that all this filtering and only exposing their people to information that the government wants them to hear turns it's citizens into zombies. I have seen my dad go wanting china to leave Taiwan alone to thinking that china is good for Taiwan. This change in thinking happened after he bought a condo in shanghai and lived there for a good many months. It also bothers me that he claims that there is no Internet filtering going on at all. It's really creepy, two years ago my dad hated china. Now he loves them. This is probably the desired effect though. Also a lot of people that I have talked to in china find it almost insulting to think of Taiwan as independent.
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
It would be so much better if China wouldn't censor all this crap. Sure, their retarded Communist government will fall apart within a decade, but so what? A Republic that is based on human freedom is going to be so much better for the world, not only because individuals will enjoy more freedoms, but also because the Chinese currency will become subject to the same market forces as other currencies around the world, which will increase the Chinese standard of living to a significantly higher level than it currently is.
*POOF*
(Somewhere in China)
Nerd: "HEY Where did Slashdot go?"
Official: "No such thing, No Slashdot! now come with me to slave labor prison work camp, where we make toxic toys for American children!"
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Is there a one can try it out? It can be pretty intresting for someone living out of china to check what it is like.
:).
Some kind of chinese proxy maybe that follows the rules from the chinese goverment?
P.S Yep, it is in our blood. If we're not oppressed, than we have to know what it is like.
In America we are given the righ to free speach. And this is actually a dangious right to have. Free Speach can give ideas that people will miss interpreate and twist around, or give them ideas that could be harmful to society.
You must recognize that the concept of "that which is harmful to society" is equivalent to "that which is immoral."
Given that, you must agree with me that free speech gives people the right to have immoral thoughts.
But who is the arbiter of what is a moral thought and what is an immoral thought? Christians think that my talking about gay rights is an immoral thought. I think that Christians' belief in superstition and mysticism is immoral. The fact is that everyone defines for themselves which thoughts are moral and which are not. The whole purpose behind free speech is that everyone opines but does not know which thoughts are immoral and moral, so let people think and say what they want and limit the prohibitive powers of government to only those actions which deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property. You don't have the right to not be offended.
Due to this, people will say things that you think are evil and they have a right to say them. I say that I do not believe in god and people get hopping mad. I say that I do not think AIDS is a single disease caused by a pathogen and people get really fsking, fist-shaking, screaming mad. The right to free speech protects me in these cases, just like it protects you when you say that "free speech is a dangerous right," which makes me a little hot under the collar.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Censorship and Propoganda work hand in hand. You have to give people the impression that the truth is available to them - while simultaneously handling them falsehood - and filtering dissent. The average internet user in China could very well assume that they have access everything they need about the truth. Hey...they could call the Chinese Ministry of The Internet the Ministry of Truth...!
Nah, not really. Perhaps I was a little hasty in my "20 years or so", it was probably over a longer period all in all. We aren't talkin WW2 camps here, where genocide was horrifically paired with industrialization. There were still natives around to bury the dead in the usual way, and it's a big country. Smallpox infected blankets given to infants don't really lead to mass graves.
No one wants to hear bad things about their country. It's not a big conspiricy or anything; most media is scored on ratings/viewers/copies, and flag waving usually wins out. Just look at Jerry Bruikheimer, he's built his career on it! ;-)
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.
Okay... 100% Access Back Open Again
Oops! Nooooooooooo They Blocked Port 1701!
I want to know what this orgy over China is all about? It seems too many of the enlightened class of the world believe that if act all "nice nice" with China that that will somehow reform them.
NOT!
China is playing countries off on each other to great effect. They are setting the stage to walk all over Taiwan. They will get it to the point that the EU will probably actively prevent the US from exercising their promise to protect this island country.
China sits there and violates most things that both the EU and the US find offensive yet all the EU and US can do is bicker about each other. They both bend over backwards to accomodate China.
What will it take? Execution of thousands who find a way to protest during the Olympics? China alreay executes thousands each year! How about destruction of Taiwan? Will that be allowed? When will that occur? Before or after the Olympics.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Is Gmail POP access blocked in China? I know someone that's having trouble accessing Gmail through the POP server, and I'm wondering if it's just him, or if it's blocked there.
"China employs thousands officials and private citizens"
Is there such a thing as a "private citizen" in the People's Republic?
...as long as they pick the right targets
Sendou Wave Kick!!