New Compilation of Banned Chinese Search-Terms Reveals Curiosities
An anonymous reader writes Canada's Citizen Lab has compiled data from various research projects around the world in an attempt to create a manageable Github repository of government-banned Chinese keywords in internet search terms and which may appear in Chinese websites. Until now the study of such terms has proved problematic due to disparate research methods and publishing formats. A publicly available online spreadsheet which CCL have provided to demonstrate the project gives an interesting insight into the reactive and eccentric nature of the Great Blacklist of China, as far as outside research can deduce. Aside from the inevitable column listings of dissidents and references to government officials and the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, search terms as basic as "system" and "human body" appear to be blocked.
I was thinking exactly that. Why China? If anything, we'd be far more interested in the relevant lists of the countries whose ban lists have an actual impact on us.
Who cares about what's censored in China? We want to know what's censored at home!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.