Internet filtering

New Documents about Green Dam Software

Rebecca MacKinnon has posted documents relating to the controversy of the mandated Green Dam filtering software, including a disclaimer included with the software in new Sony Vaio computers. She continues: I have also received...

China Internet Filter Challenged in Rights Uproar (Updated)

The ongoing saga on the battle on the government requiring pre-installed software for filtering new computers in China (the software dubbed the Green Dam) by July 1, and the netizens and companies that oppose the infringement,...

China’s Computers at Hacking Risk

The BBC reports that flaws in compulsory government software are vulnerable to hackers:  The potential faults were brought to light by Chinese computer experts who said the flaw could lead to a “large-scale...

China Faces Criticism Over New Software Censor

After the Chinese government announced that all new computers would be required to have pre-installed filtering dubbed the Green Dam, whose main purpose is supposed to block “unhealthy” content like...

Users Take Aim at China Telecom Software – RFA

From The Radio Free Asia: Broadband customers across China have hit out at software provided by the country’s biggest Internet Service Provider (ISP), saying it limits their autonomy online. Forums and chatrooms have been buzzing with annoyed comments from customers of industry behemoth China Telecom, which has the lion’s share of the broadband market nationwide, […]

Skype’s Chinese censorware – Rconversation

From Rconversation: Some good news and some bad news about Skype censorship in China. Since I last wrote about how Skype has admitted without apology that it allows its Chinese partner, TOM Online, to censor user chats with the joint Chinese-language TOM-Skype client, a lot of people have been downloading and testing the TOM-Skype client […]

Two mainland Web portals blocked – Shi Jiangtao

From the South China Morning Post, via Asia Media: The search engines of two of the most popular Web portals on the mainland have been blocked in a sign of intensified internet censorship, with millions of users expected to be affected. Sina and Sohu are the latest victims of Beijing’s increasing control of the internet […]

Beijing’s censors accused of disrupting Google.com- Mure Dickie

From The Financial Times: Chinese internet users have had serious problems using Google ‘s international search service, prompting speculation it is being disrupted by government censors . The problems have not affected Google.cn , the US company’s China-based search service, which is censored. A Google spokesperson said on Wednesday: “We have heard reports of users […]

China ‘blocks’ main Google site Ôºç BBC

From BBC News: Chinese authorities have blocked most domestic users from the main Google.com search engine, a media watchdog said. Internet users in major Chinese cities faced difficulties accessing Google’s international site in the past week, Reporters Without Borders said. But Google.cn, the controversial Chinese language version launched in January, has not been affected.

One Internet, Indivisible – Ethan Zuckerman

From Inc.com (link): A major reason the Internet has been such a boon to business is that it’s been a single network, accessible to anyone from anywhere. Any entrepreneur can create a website that can be accessed by literally hundreds of millions of users. What country a customer lives in or what Web service he […]

Exporting Censorship – Xeni Jardin

From the New York Times (link): AMERICAN technology firms are taking heat from the public and Congress for helping China’s government police the Internet. But this controversy extends well beyond China and the so-called Internet Gang of Four: Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft. Just how many American companies are complicit hit home for me last […]

Keywords Used to Filter Web Content – The Washington Post

From The Washington Post: The Washington Post obtained a list of keywords used by a Chinese blog service provider to flag offensive material. Of 236 items on the list, 18 were obscenities. The rest were related to politics or current affairs. Most words on this list can be posted on Chinese Web sites, but their […]

China’s Web Watchers – Matthew Forney

From TIME: Nothing in Zheng Yichun’s upbringing foreshadowed his landing in a political prison. His English-speaking father interrogated captured American G.I.s during the Korean War, and as a teenager two decades later, Zheng led his middle school’s Communist Youth League. Only when the reform era hit China in the 1980s did the aspiring poet have […]

Beijing ahead in the Internet game – Tamara Renee Shie

From The Asia Times: The Internet, long proclaimed a conduit for democratization, is meeting its match in China. While Western libertarians believe China is fighting a losing battle as protestors and dissidents increasingly organize online, the Chinese leadership is betting its dual strategy of censorship and development will ultimately succeed. The Internet provides an unprecedented […]

Dan Nystedt: Taiwan prods China to drop ban on two news Web sites

From The Industry Standard: Taiwan has expelled journalists from two Chinese news agencies and won’t consider letting them return until China lifts a ban on the Web sites of two major newspapers from the island, an official said Friday. “We think it would help people in China better understand our views if they had access […]

OpenNet Initiative: Internet Filtering in China

A new report by OpenNet Initiative examines the Chinese government’s filtering of web content: The OpenNet Initiative tested China’s Internet filtering of web content, blog postings, and e-mail correspondences. Our testing found efforts to prevent access to a wide range of sensitive materials, from pornography to religious material to political dissent. Unlike the filtering systems […]

OpenNet Initiative: Filtering by Domestic Blog Providers in China

OpenNet Initiative, a group of university researchers just published their latest study on domestic blog providers in China. Chinese blogsphere has been growing rapidly, but the study gives a outline of what censors had done. Here is their report: “Weblogs, most often called “blogs” have become one of the fastest growing segments of the Internet. […]

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