Censorship of Chinese Social Media Is Real, Comprehensive 62
chicksdaddy writes "Threatpost has a write-up of a study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University that provides the first conclusive evidence that Chinese government censorship extends to social media sites like Sina Weibo, the popular micro blogging Web site that many have likened to a Chinese Twitter. 'The study ... found that censors in China delete around 16 percent of the messages submitted to Sina Weibo ... The study, released in March, concludes that "soft censorship" in China — the removal of controversial subject matter from blogs and Web pages — is at least as popular as hard censorship, like the blocking of offensive sites. The result is suppression of news about events or individuals that are deemed threatening to the ruling Communist party.'"
Re:Uh... (Score:2, Informative)
The fact that you were able to read that story below shows the difference between the two countries.
Congressional testimony doesn't mean much, it's mainly for show, not for getting new information.
Or they could have... (Score:5, Informative)
...just asked someone who works at a Chinese IT company. I live in Beijing and have a friend at a local social networking site - they receive a list of words every month, anonymously, and they know what they have to do with it. I imagine it involves an SQL query featuring "DELETE FROM".
But Chinese netizens always find a way around it, whether through homonyms, synonyms or even numerical trickery (see May 35th).