Internet: May 2006 Archives

BBC News
May 29, 2006

Officially China does not censor the internet. According to the Chinese government, its internet regulation is no different from that in America, Britain, or anywhere else in the world.

China says it only blocks internet sites that are damaging, such as pornographic sites, or ones promoting things like terrorism.

The reality of China's internet is very different.

Just try logging on to the BBC News website from an internet cafe in China. You can't. The same goes for websites for The New York Times, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a host of others which could hardly be described as pornographic or "dangerous".

China probably has the most sophisticated internet monitoring and censorship system in the world. In the last few years it has spent tens of millions of dollars building what has come to be known as the "Great Firewall of China". In the past, whole websites were blocked. Today the system can block out individual parts of websites.

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By REUTERS - The New York Times
11 May 2006

Yahoo Inc. said on Thursday it was seeking the U.S. government's help in urging China to allow more media freedom, after reports linking information it gave to Chinese authorities with the jailing of a dissident.

Last month, the Internet media company was cited in a Chinese court decision to jail an Internet writer for 10 years for subversion in 2003 -- the fourth such case to surface implicating Yahoo.

Yahoo Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Semel said it had no choice but to comply with local laws and did not have the power to change Chinese policy.

``We tried, and we are going to continue to try as an industry to have our government help us,'' he told New York media executives at a Newhouse School event.

He said that closing down Yahoo's operations in China would not help boost free speech.

``In my mind one of the equalizers to lack of information happens to be the Internet,'' he said.

>> Read the complete article

BBC News
11 May 2006

China's leading web search company has launched an online, user-generated encyclopedia modelled on the US-based Wikipedia, which is blocked by Beijing.

The new service from Baidu.com, Baidupedia, is heavily self-censored to avoid offending the Chinese government.

Wikipedia had become increasingly popular in China until blocked in 2005.

China has strict laws on internet use and blocks content it deems a threat, including references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and notable dissidents.

>> Read the complete article

By Howard W. French | The New York Times
09 May 2006

SHANGHAI, May 8 — To her fellow students, Hu Yingying appears to be a typical undergraduate, plain of dress, quick with a smile and perhaps possessed with a little extra spring in her step, but otherwise decidedly ordinary.

And for Ms. Hu, a sophomore at Shanghai Normal University, coming across as ordinary is just fine, given the parallel life she leads. For several hours each week she repairs to a little-known on-campus office crammed with computers, where she logs in unsuspected by other students to help police her school's Internet forums.

Once online, following suggestions from professors or older students, she introduces politically correct or innocuous themes for discussion. Recently, she says, she started a discussion of what celebrities make the best role models, a topic suggested by a professor as appropriate.

Politics, even school politics, is banned on university bulletin boards like these. Ms. Hu says she and her fellow moderators try to steer what they consider negative conversations in a positive direction with well-placed comments of their own. Anything they deem offensive, she says, they report to the school's Web master for deletion.

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FACTS ONLINE | Switzerland
03 May 2006

110 Millionen Chinesen haben Zugang zum Internet. In fast allen Städten gibt es Internetbars, die rund um die Uhr geöffnet haben und kaum etwas kosten. Vor allem Junge nutzen das Internet zum Chatten, Mailen und Telefonieren. Wie in Südkorea und Japan sind Onlinespiele sehr populär. Politische Inhalte, vor allem in chinesischer Sprache, werden dagegen streng zensiert: Die Website der BBC und der chinesische Dienst der Deutschen Welle sind in China ebenso blockiert wie Tausende andere Websites.

Besucher von Internetcafés müssen sich ausweisen und die Betreiber ein elektronisches Logbuch der aufgerufenen Websites speichern. Die Zensurbehörden können so jederzeit zurückverfolgen, wer welche Site besucht hat. Nach Angaben von Menschenrechtsorganisationen sitzen mindestens 49 Chinesen im Gefängnis, weil sie im Internet eine Meinung geäussert haben, die der Partei nicht genehm war.

http://www.facts.ch