Internet: April 2005 Archives

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 in many other countries, China’s filtering regime appears to be carried out at various control points and also to be changing over time. China operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated, and broad-reaching system of Internet filtering in the world. China’s intricate technical filtering regime is buttressed by an equally complex series of laws and regulations that control the access to and publication of material online. However, ONI found that most major American media sites, such as CNN, MSNBC, and ABC, are generally available in China (though the BBC remains blocked). Moreover, most sites we tested in our global list’s human rights and anonymizer categories are accessible as well. Click for the full report

from OpenNet Initiative

By Mark Ward
Technology Correspondent, BBC News website

In less than 10 years China has gone from a net newcomer to the country with the world's second-largest online population.
The first international internet data from China started travelling across the net in 1994, yet now the country has more than 100m net users

That puts its second only to the US with its 185m web users. But China looks set to pass that within a few years - especially when you consider that China's net users represent barely 8% of its population.

If Chinese net use grows to the levels seen in many Western nations, it could end up with 750m people regularly going online.

But currently the experience of the average Chinese net user differs greatly from that of many in the West.

>> Read the complete article