HOME WEB NEWS IMAGES CLASSIFIEDS YELLOW PAGESPOLLS - SURVEYS WIKI COUNTRIES PHOTOS US UK INDIA
Cities Stocks Weather Movies Coupons Travel Blogs Health Horoscope Maps ASIA EUROPE Classifieds Yellow Pages
 1
|
| Part of the series on | |
| Censorship | |
|---|---|
|
| |
| By Country | |
|
Algeria |
Malaysia |
| By media | |
| By channel | |
| By method | |
|
Book burning | |
| By context | |
|
Corporate censorship | |
Internet censorship in the People\'s Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. In accordance with these laws, more than sixty Internet regulations have been made by the People\'s Republic of China (PRC) government, and censorship systems are vigorously implemented by provincial branches of state-owned ISPs, business companies, and organizations.II. How Censorship Works in China: A Brief Overview. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved on 2006-08-30.Chinese Laws and Regulations Regarding Internet
Most national laws of the People\'s Republic of China do not apply to the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong or Macau. There are no known cases of the Chinese authorities censoring critical political or religious content in those territories.
The escalation of the government\'s effort to neutralize critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution and anti-corruption protests, many of which were organised or publicised using instant messaging services, chatrooms and text messages. Although the existence of an Internet police task force, estimated at more than 30,000,Watts, Jonathan (2005-06-14). China\'s secret Internet police target critics with web of propaganda. The Guardian. has been known for some time, attention is mostly focused on their work as censors and monitors. Critical comments appearing on Internet forums, bulletin boards, blogs, vlogs or any major portals such as Sohu and Sina are usually erased within minutes.
Contents |
The banning appears to be mostly uncoordinated and ad hoc, with some sites being blocked and similar sites being allowed or even blocked in one city and allowed in another.for an example, see Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China The blocks have been often lifted for special occasions. One example was the New York Times which became unblocked when reporters in a private interview with Jiang Zemin specifically asked about the block and he replied that he would look into the matter. During the APEC summit in Shanghai during 2001, normally-blocked media sources such as CNN, NBC, and the Washington Post suddenly became accessible. Since 2001, the content controls have been further relaxed on a permanent basis, and all three of the sites previously mentioned are now accessible from mainland China. In fact, most foreign news organizations\' web sites are accessible, though a small number (including BBC News) continue to be blocked.
Mainland China agencies frequently issue regulations about the Internet, but these are often not enforced or are ignored[citation needed]. One major problem in enforcement is determining who has jurisdiction over the Internet, causing many bureaucratic turf battles within the PRC government among various ministries and between central and local officials. The State Council Information Office has the mandate to regulate the Internet, but other security agencies in mainland China have a say as well.
Some legal scholars have pointed out that the frequency at which the PRC government issues new regulations on the Internet is a symptom of their ineffectiveness, because the new regulations never make reference to the previous set of regulations, which appear to have been forgotten.
The Golden Shield Project (Chinese: 金盾工程; pinyin: jīndùn gōngchéng) is owned by Ministry of Public Security of the People\'s Republic of China (MPS). It started in 1998, began the process in November of 2003, and the first part of the project passed the national inspection on November 16, 2006 in Beijing. According to MPS, it is to construct a communication network and computer information system for police to improve their capability and efficiency. According to China Central Television (CCTV), up to 2002, the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project cost US$800 million (equivalent to RMB 6,400 million or €640 million).金盾工程前期耗8亿美元 建全国性监视系统 (Chinese)
The Golden Shield Project is part of what is sometimes known outside of mainland China as the Great Firewall of China (in reference both to its role as a network firewall and to the ancient Great Wall of China). The system blocks content by preventing IP addresses from being routed through and consists of standard firewall and proxy servers at the Internet gateways. The system also selectively engages in DNS poisoning when particular sites are requested. The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical.War of the words. The Guardian.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis and the University of New Mexico have asserted, however, that the Great Firewall is not a true firewall since banned material is sometimes able to pass through several routers or through the entire system without being blocked.ScienceBlog.com. China\'s \'Eye on the Internet\' a Fraud. Retrieved on 2007-09-12.
Some commonly used methods for censoring content are:Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China.
Research into mainland Chinese Internet censorship has shown that censored websites include:
Blocked websites are indexed to a lesser degree, if at all, by some Chinese search engines, such as Baidu and Google China. This sometimes has considerable impact on search results.controlling information: you can\'t get there from here -- filtering searches. The Tank Man. Frontline (pbs.org). According to a Harvard study, at least 18,000 websites are blocked from within mainland China.Jonathan Zittrain, Benjamin Edelman. Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China. Retrieved on 2006-12-30. According to The New York Times, Google has set up computer systems inside China that try to access Web sites outside the country. If a site is inaccessible, then it is added to Google China\'s blacklist.Thompson, Clive (2006-04-23). Google\'s China Problem (and China\'s Google Problem) 8. The New York Times. However, once (if) unblocked, the websites will be reindexed.
Internet censorship in the PRC has been called "a panopticon that encourages self-censorship through the perception that users are being watched". The enforcement (or threat of enforcement) of censorship creates a chilling effect where individuals and businesses willingly censor their own communications to avoid legal and economic repercussions.
One part of the block is to filter the search results of certain terms on Chinese search engines. These Chinese search engines include both international ones (for example, yahoo.com.cn and Google China) as well as domestic ones (for example, Baidu). Attempting to search for censored keywords in these Chinese search engines will yield few or no results. Google.cn will display the following at the bottom of the page: "According to the local laws, regulations and policies, part of the searching result is not shown."
In addition, a connection containing intensive censored terms may also be closed by The Great Firewall, and cannot be reestablished for several minutes. This affects all network connections including HTTP and POP, but the reset is more likely to occur during searching.
Before the search engines censored themselves, many search engines had been blocked, namely Google and AltaVista.See History of Google. Technorati, a search engine for blogs, has been blocked.Schwartz, Barry (2006-04-28). Technorati Blocked In China. SearchEngineWatch.
Several Bulletin Board Systems in universities were closed down or restricted public access since 2004, including the SMTH BBS and the YTHT BBS.Students protest restrictions on most influential BBS. China Digital Times (2005-03-20).
Although blocking foreign sites has received much attention in the West, this is actually only a part of the PRC effort to censor the Internet. The ability to censor content providers within mainland China is much more effective, as the ISPs and other service providers are restricting customers\' actions for fear of being found legally liable for customers\' conduct. The service providers have assumed an editorial role with regard to customer content, thus became publishers, and legally responsible for libel and other torts committed by customers.
Although the government does not have the physical resources to monitor all Internet chat rooms and forums, the threat of being shut down has caused Internet content providers to employ internal staff, colloquially known as "big mamas", who stop and remove forum comments which may be politically sensitive. In Shenzhen, these duties are partly taken over by a pair of police-created cartoon characters, Jingjing and Chacha, who help extend the online \'police presence\' of the Shenzhen authorities.
However, Internet content providers have adopted some counter-strategies. One is to post politically sensitive stories and remove them only when the government complains. In the hours or days in which the story is available online, people read it, and by the time the story is taken down, the information is already public. One notable case in which this occurred was in response to a school explosion in 2001, when local officials tried to suppress the fact the explosion resulted from children illegally producing fireworks. By the time local officials forced the story to be removed from the Internet, the news had already been widely disseminated.
In addition, Internet content providers often replace censored forum comments with white space which allows the reader to know that comments critical of the authorities had been submitted, and often to guess what they might have been.
In July 2007, the city of Xiamen announced it would ban anonymous online postings after text messages and online communications were used to rally protests against a proposed chemical plant in the city. Internet users will be required to provide proof of identify when posting messages on the more than 100,000 Web sites registered in Xiamen.Chinese city bans anonymous web postings. United Press International (2007-07-07). Retrieved on 2007-07-08.
Some hotels in China are also advising internet users to obey local Chinese internet access rules by leaving a list of internet rules and guidelines near the computers. These rules, among other things, forbid linking to politically unacceptable messages, and inform internet users that if they do, they will have to face legal consequences.Chinese Internet Browsing Rules & Guidelines. Freeman China (2007-06-17). Retrieved on 2007-07-25.
In September 2007, some data centers were shutting down indiscriminately for providing interactive features such as blogs and forums. CBS reports an estimation of half interactive sites hosted in China were blocked. Why Did China Shut Down 18,401 Web sites?
One controversial issue is whether foreign companies should supply equipment which assists in the blocking of sites to the PRC government. Some argue that it is wrong for companies to profit from censorship including restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Others argue that equipment being supplied, from companies such as the American based Cisco Systems Inc., is standard Internet infrastructure equipment and that providing this sort of equipment actually aids the flow of information, and that the PRC is fully able to create its own infrastructure without Western help. By contrast, human rights advocates such as Human Rights Watch and media groups such as Reporters Without Borders argue that if companies would stop contributing to the authorities\' censorship efforts the government could be forced to change.
A similar dilemma faces foreign content providers such as Yahoo!, AOL, Google and Skype who abide by PRC government wishes, including having internal content monitors, in order to be able to operate within mainland China. Also, in accordance with mainland Chinese laws, Microsoft began to censor the content of its blog service Windows Live Spaces, arguing continuing to provide Internet services is more beneficial to the Chinese.Congressional Testimony: “The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?”. Microsoft.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-30. Michael Anti, a Chinese journalist whose blog on Windows Live Spaces was removed by Microsoft, agreed that the Chinese are better off with Windows Live Spaces than without it.Roundtable: The Struggle to Control Freedom. PBS.org (2005-04-11).
The Chinese version of MySpace, launched in April of 2007, has many censorship-related differences from other international versions of the service. Discussion forums on topics such as religion and politics are absent and a filtering system that prevents the posting of content about Taiwan independence, the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong, and other "inappropriate topics" has been added.Lu Enjie (2007-04-26). MySpace now available in China - minus politics and religion. Texyt.com. Users are also given the ability to report the "misconduct" of other users for offenses including "endangering national security, leaking state secrets, subverting the government, undermining national unity, spreading rumors or disturbing the social order."MySpace.cn使用协议条款 (Chinese). MySpace.cn. Retrieved on 2007-04-28.
May 9th 2007, Mr. Yetaai (冬劲) sued Shanghai Telecom, a sub-company of China Telecom, because one of his sites[citation needed] was blocked from access in China. He then took a series of steps including raising maintenance request and notarization. His lawsuit was accepted by Pu Dong Court, Shanghai. Mr. Yetaai reported it through his online diary (English). He also raised an item for online ticketing through an article on Digg.
Although restrictions on political information remain as strong as ever, several sexually oriented blogs began appearing in early 2004. Women using the web aliases Muzi Mei (木子美) and Zhuying Qingtong (竹影青瞳) wrote online diaries of their sex lives and became small celebrities. This was widely reported and criticized in mainland Chinese news media, and several of these bloggers\' sites are blocked in China to this day. This has coincided with an artistic nude photography fad (including a self-published book by dancer Tang Jiali) and the appearance of pictures of minimally clad women or even topless photos in a few mainland Chinese newspapers, magazines and websites. It is too early to tell how far this trend will go, but increasingly, censorship is applicable to political content rather than to sexuality. This does not hold true for many dating and "adult chat" sites, both Chinese and foreign, which have been blocked. Some, however, continue to be accessible although this appears to be due more to the Chinese government\'s ignorance of their existence than any particular policy of leniency.
On November 7 2005 an alliance of investors and researchers representing twenty-six companies in the U.S., Europe and Australia with over US $21 billion in joint assets announced that they were urging businesses to protect freedom of expression and pledged to monitor technology companies that do business in countries violating human rights, such as China. On December 21 2005 the UN, OSCE and OAS special mandates on freedom of expression called on Internet corporations to "work together ... to resist official attempts to control or restrict use of the Internet."
|
|
This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia\'s quality standards. Please improve this article if you can (September 2007). |
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of
Transwiki:Bypassing the Great Firewall of China
The firewall is largely ineffective at preventing the flow of information and is rather easily circumvented by determined parties by using proxy servers outside the firewall. VPN and SSH connections to outside mainland China are not blocked, so circumventing all of the censorship and monitoring features of the Great Firewall of China is trivial for those who have these secure connection methods to computers outside mainland China available to them.
Anonymizer, Inc. provides a free service to allow uncensored and anonymous browsing in China. The software is available through a number of sources, including a China-accessible website.
PsiphonPsiphon Official Homepage is a software project designed by University of Toronto\'s Citizen Lab under the direction of Professor Ronald Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab. Psiphon is a circumvention technology that works through social networks of trust and is designed to help Internet users bypass content-filtering systems set up by governments, such as China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and others.
"We\'re aiming at giving people access to sites like Wikipedia," a free, user-maintained online encyclopedia, and other information and news sources, Michael Hull, psiphon\'s lead engineer, told CBC News Online.Tool to circumvent internet censorship set to launch
Neither the Tor website nor the Tor network are blocked, making Tor (in conjunction with Privoxy) an easily acquired and effective tool for circumvention of the censorship controls. Tor maintains a public list of entry nodes, so the authorities could easily block it if they had the inclination. According to the Tor FAQ sections 6.4 and 7.9, Tor is vulnerable to timing analysis by Chinese authorities, so it allows a breach of anonymity. Thus for the moment, Tor allows uncensored downloads and uploads, although no guarantee can be made with regard to freedom from repercussions.
In addition to Tor, there are various HTTP/HTTPS Tunnel Services, which work in a similar way as Tor. At least one of them, Your Freedom, is confirmed to be working from China and also offers encryption features for the transmitted traffic.
It was common in the past to use Google\'s cache feature to view blocked websites. However, this feature of Google seems to be under some level of blocking, as access is now erratic and does not work for blocked websites. Currently the block is mostly circumvented by using proxy servers outside the firewall, and is not difficult to carry out for those determined to do so. Some well-known proxy servers have also been blocked.
Some Chinese citizens used the Google mirror elgooG after China blocked Google. It is believed that elgooG survived the Great Firewall of China because the firewall operators thought that elgooG was not a fully functional version of Google.
As Falun Gong websites are generally inaccessible from mainland China, practitioners have launched a company named UltraReach Internet Corp and developed a piece of software named UltraSurf to enable people in mainland China to access restricted web sites via Internet Explorer without being detected.
Other techniques used include Freenet, a peer-to-peer distributed data store allowing members to anonymously send or retrieve information, and TriangleBoy.
Browsing Wikipedia is also possible with a custom browser called Gollum, which can be used without installing it. At present, the Chinese government has not banned searching for Gollum on Google.
Another application that can be used is Freegate.
Wikinews has related news:
Bi-directional Censorship from the Great Firewall of China
Official websites
News reports
Analysis
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
