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Censorship Government The Internet Politics

100 Million Online in China 260

Posted by Zonk from the if-you-can-see-this,-welcome dept.
Colin Smith writes "Rising levels of personal wealth in the nation of China means that the country now has over 100 million internet users, and the authorities are discovering just how difficult it is to place a dam against information in the digital age." From the article: "Only last week, the authorities threatened to shut down websites and blogs that failed to register with regulators in a new campaign to tighten controls on what the public can see online. The so-called Great Firewall of China is constantly being breached as citizens and the authorities play a cat and mouse game with the flow of information."
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100 Million Online in China More

100 Million Online in China

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  • The interesting point for me is the US companies who participate in helping the Chinese government censor their internet (ie Microsoft, Cisco Systems). I understand there is heaps of money to be made, but I question the integrity of their decision. IMO ethically it is *wrong*, but does that mean these companies can be faulted?

    • Re:Fr**d*m *nd d*m*cr*cy? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CaymanIslandCarpedie ( 868408 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:23PM (#12961636) Journal
      IMO its ethically required! I cannot say I like the fact that Chinese gov is trying to block the free flow of information, but I like it even less when people seem to think if you aren't doing the exact same thing as the US you are evil or not ethical!

      There are different cultures and different ideals. Just because someone feels differently than you doesn't make them unethical. Also if someone helps that person who thinks differently than you, the person helping isn't nessesarily unethical.

      I know "your either with us or against us", "you either do stuff like we do or your evil" sentiments are pretty popular in the US, but different is not wrong.
    • Why not? IBM sold punch card machines to the Nazi's, which were used to track down Jews. It's the duty of capatilists to sell China the rope they are going to hang us with.

    • Frodo and Devil May Cry.
    • Business makes money. This is their sole purpose of existence. It is up to gov't to ensure that business' avenues to generate money align themselves with the public good.

      Microsoft and others are not to make ethical decisions about whether a particular gov't is good or bad, or whether to support a particular gov't edict. They are to obey the rules in whatever market they do business in. I don't want my pharmacy to stop selling a birth control pills and condoms because the owner is Catholic. I don't want bus
    • If plain text gets filtered, make it ENCRYPTED, and javascript will take care of it!
    • The interesting point for me is the US companies who participate in helping the Chinese government censor their internet (ie Microsoft,Google, Cisco Systems). I understand there is heaps of money to be made, but I question the integrity of their decision. IMO ethically it is *wrong*, but does that mean these companies can be faulted?

      There we go, all fixed. You can't just leave them off the list to try and increase knee-jerk-ism by listing MS. Lets try and be honest with our application of business ethic

  • Slashdot in China? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:15PM (#12961534)
    I would guess slashdot is one of the sites blocked in China. Is this correct? Anyone here from China?
  • But the Chinese authorities are less in love with the net. The government regularly tries to block access to material it considers pornographic or politically subversive.

    There goes about 80% or more of internet content.

    It sounds like the Chinese are pretty much limited to looking at propaganda sites and maybe a few for online businesses, and other sites run from within China.

    • It sounds like the Chinese are pretty much limited to looking at propaganda sites and maybe a few for online businesses, and other sites run from within China.

      makes you kind of wonder why China even allows people to connect to the rest of the worlds internet at all.
    • "But the Chinese authorities are less in love with the net. The government regularly tries to block access to material it considers pornographic or politically subversive."

      There goes about 80% or more of internet content.

      Yeah, that sounds about right. 80% or more of the internet is pornographic material.
  • How long before they just give up and cut routing to the global network for public internet connections to make it easier to clamp down?
    • Fine by me. I've already cut all communications with Chinese servers due to spam. I'm not the only one to do this, either. I'm willing to be that we will very soon have a Chinese Internet, and a rest-of-the-world Internet.
    • I don't think that that is a very feasible option for China. It seems to me that too many businesses rely on being able to communicate with the outside world. While China is on the rise as an economic power, cutting off all international routing would likely stop them dead in their tracks.

  • Geeze... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think this is going to be almost identical to the "War on drugs" in the United States.

  • Difficult, but... (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Raindance ( 680694 )
    Yes, it's very difficult to 'sanitize' the internet for 100 million people, especially over TCP/IP.

    However, let's not get complacent. What the network giveth, the network can taketh away, with enough tweaks and censors, from all but the most skilled computer users.

    Also, the chilling effect of government censorship-- that if you post things the Chinese government does not approve of, your post may go away (at best) is hard to quantify.

  • China is Also a Copyright-Free Zone (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DanielMarkham ( 765899 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:19PM (#12961576) Homepage
    With all those millions and millions online in China swapping programs, songs and such, you'd think the RIAA would go after them, if the purpose was really to prevent damage to the intellectual property holder.
    What's going to be extremely interesting is watching a closed society like China start talking one-on-one to the rest of the world. I'd give it twenty years before public opinion changes in China. I can't see them sharing information freely and being as nationalistic as they currently are. If you want to stop a future war with China, help them talk to each other all you can. My two cents.

    Brains! Brains! Give me Brains! [whattofix.com]
    • Interesting point on your RIAA comment: When I was in China and Hong Kong in 2000, I noticed that there were no legal DVDs of movies or CDs of artists to buy. At the time the big media conglomerates in the U.S. realized that the Chinese were not willing to pay full price for products. Those trading illegal copies weren't actually costing the companies a sale, but getting their products exposure.

      Because of this, MGM et al decided to license VCD copies of their movies to be produced and distributed at a

  • If you divide the 100 Million by the percent of the internet that gets though the Great Firewall of China, what's the real number?

  • Breaking past the "Great Firewall" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MirrororriM ( 801308 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:21PM (#12961611) Homepage Journal
    Just curious, if they can't host their blogs within China, why can't they do it elsewhere? Like perhaps in the US, Australia, or Canada?

    Also, if they can't *view* certain websites, what's keeping them from using a proxy (possibly an open proxy list [google.com]) within their web browser to circumvent China's methods of blocking?

    One would think that they can only block items for so long until their methods are circumvented. After all, where there's a will, there's always a way. Sounds like a huge cat and mouse game indeed.

    • Also, if they can't *view* certain websites, what's keeping them from using a proxy (possibly an open proxy list) within their web browser to circumvent China's methods of blocking?

      Because they also actively block the proxy servers maybe?
    • Also, if they can't *view* certain websites, what's keeping them from using a proxy (possibly an open proxy list) within their web browser to circumvent China's methods of blocking?

      This is definitally a good strategy, and works well. The proxy technology isn't the problem, it is the education of the Chinese internet surfers that is the problem. Here are a couple of issues:

      1) I would venture a guess that 95% of all proxy websites that either list proxy IPs or offer Proxy services are in English. Since

  • Oh oh (Score:3, Funny)

    by LegendOfLink ( 574790 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:24PM (#12961643) Homepage
    Now I will be getting e-mails from Mr. Lin from the Chinese government instead of Mr. Ubuntu from Nigeria.

    Either way, I've got my bank account ready ;)

  • Cultural exports are the key. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by J Barnes ( 838165 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:24PM (#12961644) Homepage
    The greatest weapon the US has against oppressive regimes is our cultural, entertainment and information exports. It's hard to oppress a people when they know that there's something slightly cooler then living in China under a communist regime.

    The Soviets could regulate so many aspects of their citizenry's daily life, but what they couldn't manage to get a hold on was what they thought was cool. It might be an overly simplistic view, but part of me thinks that it was Coca-Cola and Levi's jeans that brought communism to its knees in the soviet bloc. (and of course, coca-cola and levis is not much to base a government on, which is why so many countries have struggled with the concept of democracy)

    I think something similar could easily happen in China.

    I don't presume to think that the Chinese would try, or even want to be like the US, but I think there's a certain sense of freedom and independence embodied in American culture, and that freedom is alluring and infectious. The more the Chinese people have access to something as stupid as Slashdot or Wikipedia or...anything, the more they're going to crave more content. The more content they crave, the more content must be censored until something has to break.
    • Huh? The US has culture to export? Seinfeld, Friends, The Cosby Show, Carol Burnett, American Idol, ugh... I can understand why China is trying to filter the internet. I would too if I were them.

  • China's economy improving... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Krankheit ( 830769 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:25PM (#12961653)
    With inititives like Haier (Chinese refridgerator manufacturer) building a plant in South Carolina, United States, Chinese companies are definitely expanding. An article in Time (IIRC) said that China's ecnonomy will top that of Japan by 2015, and eventually the U.S. economy. It has been said that Chinese have gotten where they are today because of discipline. Each day, Haier would gather the employees around, and have the name called of who made the most mistakes (like leaving a screw out of a refridgerator) and have them stand on designated green foot prints painted on the floor. This level of discipline will hopefully continue.
    • Actually, the success of the Chinese is directly related to their opening up and accepting free markets.

      Look at how people suffered under the greatness of "communism" lead by Mao. 40 million people dead due to the inability of socialism to control the economy (which no government can).

      As consumers have more rights as well as producers you see the level of production and freedom rise. They won't be able to keep the lid on capitalism now that it is out of the bag.

      But there are bigger problems for China ahe
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Couple of good invasions ought to thin out the 200 million herd.

        Actually, what's going to make it even worse is a very large number of the "single child policy" kids aren't wanting to have any childern (mainly because they are spoiled brats), or if they do have childern, they'll only have one (because they -- and most other people around them --have no idea how to care for qty > 2)

  • You have to remember, with a country with a population of 1.3 Billion, with only 100million people online, that's still just over 7% penetration. While I admit it is growing by leaps and bounds, it is by no means a large percentage compared to the US, some European nations or Japan.

  • When will China become the standard? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:28PM (#12961680)
    If China becomes a dominant presence on the internet, I wonder when Chinese tech standards will become de facto standards for the net. Much as developers design for IE currently (regardless of the "issues" with IE), I wonder if future developers will target Chinese compatibility first, and ignore other de facto or de jure standards.

    Does anyone know if China is adopting/promoting DRM (perhaps for content control), open standards (to avoid U.S.-centric Microsoft technology), IPv6, or other internet-affecting standards.

  • But they only come up to your knees (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I like Chinese.
    I like Chinese.
    They only come up to your knees,
    Yet they're always friendly, and they're ready to please.

    I like Chinese.
    I like Chinese.
    They come from a long way overseas,
    But they're cute and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.

    Wo ai zhongguo ren.
    Wo ai zhongguo ren.
    Wo ai zhongguo ren.
    Ni hao ma; ni hao ma; ni hao ma; zaijien!

  • Free flow of information (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would
    deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
    -- Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri

    So true, so v

  • How idiotic! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by presarioD ( 771260 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:35PM (#12961757)
    the Chinese government is trying to stop a river with pebbles. What happened to the visionary leaders that opened up their market so they won't have the Soviet Union's fate? How long do they think they can buy time before information becomes utterly loose on their "kingdom"?

    Damn it folks! You can not stop progress! You can only impede it but never stop it! Get over it! You should either reform or perish! Do the Chinese Party commissars have to take history lessons anymore?
    • Well, China is till trying to have their cake and eat it to. They opened themselves up to trade but they are still messing with that process in order to put the advantage in their favor.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:43PM (#12961833)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Information wants to be free.

    Chinese Government wants to maintain full control.

    I'm placing my bets on Information.

  • They could learn from our government (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dgenr8 ( 9462 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:47PM (#12961878) Journal

    Soon the Chinese government will learn from modern democratic governments and sophisticated corporations that trying to control the flow of information is the wrong way to go about it.

    It's far easier and more effective to control the public's interpretation and prioritization of information than to limit the information itself.

  • the "Great Firewall of China" I think we have to see more bypass technology written in chinese and targetted for the Chinese audience. Mind you there area still a lot of Chinese people who do get through (proxies, satellite internet, etc.), it would probably increase with a targeted effort at the Chinese. T

  • 100 million of anything is hard to monitor. If what you're trying to monitor is a bunch of people who are as smart as you are, it could make for a long day.

    Freedom appears to be an innate yearning in the heart of people everywhere. It does no good to suppress the yearning; that just makes it stronger.

    When people learn that conditions elsewhere are more free than they have, they will eventually either move themselves to where the conditions are free or they will change the conditions where they are.

  • Maybe they'll eventually get the message (Score:3, Interesting)

    by VernonNemitz ( 581327 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @01:01PM (#12962023) Journal
    You CAN'T control what people think. You CAN'T control the urge to know. You CAN'T make people believe something is bad just because you say it is bad. You have to provide convincing evidence.

    For example, over in Denmark in the 1970s they dropped most restrictions regarding pornography. After 30 years, the nation did NOT turn into a gang of rapists. They probably mentally filter out billboards featuring naked people just like they filter out any other uninteresting advertising. So, where is the evidence to support Chinese government (or any other government) claims of bad things associated with pornography? It's in the unnecessary restrictions! Forcing it underground just makes it more interesting ("I want to see what they don't want me to see, to find out why they don't want me to see it!"). Exposing it takes away that incentive, and people tend to ignore what not's immediately relevant. A curb of freedom is ALWAYS immediately relevant!

    Now, you CAN influence what people do with what they know. Does the Chinese Constitution have any mechanism whereby it might be Amended, like the U.S. (and other) Constitutions? If not, then whatever curbs of freedom built into the Chinese Constitution will eventually and inevitably boil over into an ugly revolution. The leadership over there is going to find out, one way or another, just what The People can do. So, they can either plan on an England-like open system (which started with the Magna Charta), or they can keep a France-like repressive system (which ended with beheadings).
    • "You CAN'T control the urge to know. You CAN'T make people believe something is bad just because you say it is bad."

      The USSR and the older socialist bloc did a pretty good job of this for decades. Even now, in the Middle East, the often rabid antisemitism is fueled by religious leaders constantly bashing Jews. You can find plenty of other examples elsewhere and even in the US.

  • With the level of censorship in China saying these folks are "on the Internet" is like saying all those AOL users are "on the Internet." To take it further, it's like saying people who eat Spam are carnivours. I mean, c'mon!
  • I guess the USA must censor some stuff, or somebody in another country could give away music.
  • The so-called Great Firewall of China is constantly being breached as citizens and the authorities play a cat and mouse game with the flow of information.

    That's a race between weapons and armor. In such a race the weapons eventually always win.

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