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Censured for Censorship in China
Dwarg writes "On Aug. 10, [Human Rights Watch], headquartered in New York, came out with a report criticizing the three companies for their role helping to censor the Internet in China. The report is particularly damning of Yahoo, which Human Rights Watch says censors its Chinese site far more vigorously than either Google or Microsoft."
Everything except the following (in decreasing severity):
1. Some separatist propaganda and information (Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan). You will have to work hard to read epochtimes (an FLG propaganda site) in China.
2. Some FLG information.
3. Human rights organizations' web sites, which are concerned about points 1 and 2.
4. Tian'anmen incident.
5. Google is not censored, but using it triggers the cut-off mechanism all too easily (for no valid reason). I would recommend banning spiders from competing baidu.com on your own site until this unfair practice is mended.
6. A few select porn sites.
7. BBC World News (they are pissed at the BBC for some reason).
8. Occasionally Wikipedia, Blogspot (accessible as of today again) and other blog sites.
Normal surfers hardly ever note the presence of the great firewall, except when Blogspot is affected. Also note that there is no blocking of P2P and other services, and that you can get any information you want if you are determined to. The firewall is aimed at preventing the masses to get hold of sensitive information regarding Chinese politics. Which in itself is stupid, since those with access to the internet already know all about it, being the educated elite.