| There's still a lot of people out there who don't | | | | condemn the exiled Tibetan leader. That's just a tiny |
| realize China isn't a democracy, perhaps confused by | | | | sample of what the Chinese government deems as |
| its booming capitalist economy that's expected to | | | | inappropriate content. |
| replace Japan this year as the world's second biggest | | | | Google China made headlines by announcing it would |
| in terms of GDP. China doesn't have elections, has no | | | | not filter search results as required, threatening to |
| freedom of speech and, of course, censures the | | | | abandon China if the authorities tried to force them |
| Internet. | | | | to comply. Very noble on Google's part, but if you're |
| Recently it backed away from requiring that all | | | | in China, clicking on the search result links won't take |
| computers have its Green Dam software installed, a | | | | you to the banned sites. I'm not sure if Google's |
| content control system. Perhaps the embarrassing | | | | cached versions would still be accessible. Note that |
| public revelation that Green Dam contained code | | | | Hong Kong,although administered by the Chinese |
| copied from Net Nanny, a commercial Internet | | | | government, isn't subject to censure. |
| filtering program, and the subsequent law suit filed by | | | | How can you find-out if a web site, perhaps your |
| the publishers had something to do with the about | | | | own, is on China's restricted list? One way is to type |
| face. | | | | the domain name in the form at which will try |
| However, Green Dam wasn't absolutely necessary | | | | accessing the domain through a large number of |
| for the Communist party to achieve its aims, it was | | | | places, including Shanghai. Here's a few top domains I |
| just an additional measure to restrict what the | | | | tested and what transpired through China: |
| Chinese view over the Internet, and perhaps a way | | | | - Not blockedcia.gov - Not (Human Rights Watch) - |
| to identify subversive citizens. The fact is, what you | | | | BLOCKED |
| can see in China is already controlled via the Internet | | | | Wikipedia.org - Not blocked |
| service providers as well as content providers who | | | | Wikipedia page about Tiananmen Square protests: |
| cow-tow to the party's policy, lest they be summarily | | | | BLOCKED |
| unplugged and prosecuted. Industry insiders refer to | | | | Falundafa.org - (Wall Street Journal) page about |
| the censure system as the "Great Firewall of China". | | | | Uighurs' protests: Not blocked |
| Go to a cybercafe in Shanghai or Beijing and try | | | | From these results we can conclude that while a web |
| accessing YouTube or Facebook, and you'll get | | | | site itself isn't blocked, any pages it contains which |
| "server cannot be reached", or maybe even some | | | | refer to subjects the Chinese government is |
| Chinese web page that has nothing to do with these | | | | sensitive about may be censured, although they |
| sites will be returned. Then try searching for "Dalai | | | | appear to not have the means to catch all of them. |
| Lama" on Baidu, the country's most popular search | | | | If they could, there's no doubt that they would! |
| engine, and the results will be for web pages that | | | | |