China = Online Censorship strictest??

Let's talk about China's online censorship today.. Is China's online censorship really the strictest? Let me show you all some examples.. For instance, an internet user in China searches for the word "persecution", he or she will see a blank screen showing that "page cannot be displayed." There are lots more words that the internet users in China cannot search for.. such as "Tibetan independence", "democracy movements" or weird sounding terms like "oriental red space time" which is the code for an anti-censorship video made secretly by reporters at China's state TV station. An activist on AIDS and other issues, Hu Jia was sentenced to 3½ years in jail for articles that he had wrote for Boxun.com, a U.S based Chinese language website that was blocked in China. Gillian Chung, the Hong Kong pop duo "Twins" was involved in a sex video scandal and China had blocked her even though she apologized.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRWyYNab898

However, the Chinese government had denied that anyone has been arrested for internet postings, despite a series of dissidents jailed in recent years for online comments criticizing corruption and calling for democratic change. They said that no one should ever be prevented from posting news online or writing a blog which taps more than 100 journalists who are keeping them informed. Aren't they too strict in online censorship? Does anyone agree with me??

These are the methods that China used to suppress information:

Creating Bottlenecks

According to journalist James Fallows, internet traffic to China is channeled through three computer centers which are near Beijing, Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou. Chinese authorities can easily monitor all traffic into or out of the country by building in chokepoints.

Checking Internet Traffic for Subversive Material

This is like police dogs that sniff airport luggage for illegal drugs. The Chinese install “packet sniffers” and special routers to inspect data as they cruise past the chokepoints. They can block the connection when the detectors spot a Chinese internet user trying to visit a suspect website. Web users will get a note that warn them to behave or apologizing for technical problems.

Demanding Self-Censorship

Beijing’s internet controls are strictest where Chinese authorities control commercial websites for what appears on them. The authorities even issue orders to website managers through mobile phone text messages and demand that they comply within 30 minutes.

Issuing Propaganda

The Chinese authorities in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen had created two cartoon cybercops- the male named Jingjing while the female named Chacha that will pop up on websites to remind internet users that they are being watched. Chinese officials also order websites to reprint official propaganda such as a report encouraging internet users to tolerate by online etiquette.

Getting Outside Help

China had policed the internet with assistance from U.S firms- Cisco Systems. For example, China used original routers that supplied by Cisco to monitor internet traffic. Google had created a censored search engine for China. Users at other countries who search for images of “Tiananmen Square” through Google can get pictures from the 1989 pro-democracy protests that ended in a crackdown that left hundreds dead and included the iconic photograph of a lone man staring down a line of Chinese tanks. While in China, users can only get tourist images of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City across the street. Yahoo turned over e-mail that authorities used to jail a Chinese journalist who leaked information about China’s attempts to censor coverage of the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.

Censorship Loopholes

A company named Dynamic Internet Technology created a software, Freegate that finds holes in the firewall and takes Chinese internet users to banned websites. The owner of Dynamic Internet Technology, Xia sent millions of e-mail messages into China for customers such as Voice of America and the activist group Human Rights in China. The e-mails contain links to forbidden sites at an ever-changing list of temporary internet addresses, part of an effort to stay a step ahead of Chinese censors. The Chinese government was reluctant to admit anything had gone wrong, so users turned to defector websites to get practical information on weather conditions and rail service. Chinese authorities even constantly find new ways to plug the holes that Freegate finds. Chinese internet users also use decidedly low-tech methods to avoid official attempts to censor their e-mail or online commentary. The authorities had try to update their list of banned terms which now running into the hundreds to include those with creative punctuation.

Can you all believe it?? China is really strictest in online censorship.. They eventually have so many methods to censor on the internet and some of it I can’t even believe that they will use the method… I hope that they will loosen their online censorship..

Kindly drop me a comment.. =)

Sources:
URL: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2008-04-22-InternetBandits_N.htm
URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/08/tech/main2164867.shtml