China: We don't censor the Internet. Really

[Slimy]

While many countries block off some Web sites, China has long drawn heightened scrutiny because of the breadth and sophistication of its Internet censorship. Which is why it came as a surprise on Tuesday when a Chinese government official claimed at a United Nations summit here that no Net censorship existed at all. The only problem: Few cases of Net censorship are as carefully and publicly documented as the Great Firewall of China. A study by researchers at Harvard Law School found 19,032 Web sites that were inaccessible inside China.

A report from a consortium of British, American and Canadian universities concluded: "China's Internet-filtering regime is the most sophisticated effort of its kind in the world. Compared to similar efforts in other states, China's filtering regime is pervasive, sophisticated and effective." In fact, Google has cited China's intermittent blocking of Google.com as the primary factor in the company's creation of the Google.cn censored search site. Read on for excerpts from Tuesday's discussion in Athens.

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Chinese government official: We have talked a lot about China, and that's rather strange, because if we participate in forums like this, I think that we should spend more time reflecting on the issues that have been raised. There are millions of Chinese that have no access to the Internet. We are here because we would like to promote openness. But we have not really raised the issue of how we could participate more fully and how we could have better access to the Internet.

We need to also protect tourists in our country. And I have to say that I am a Chinese citizen, and I feel that I need to be protected. For example, we are threatened by terrorism. We do need protection. So we should be sure that everyone can come to China, enjoy our beautiful country, and I heard with great interest what our Pakistani colleague said. I don't think we should be using different standards to judge China. In China, we don't have software blocking Internet sites. Sometimes we have trouble accessing them. But that's a different problem. I know that some colleagues listen to the BBC in their offices from the Webcast. And I've heard people say that the BBC is not available in China or that it's blocked. I'm sure I don't know why people say this kind of thing. We do not have restrictions at all.

Nick Gowing, BBC anchor and session moderator: Would you like to elaborate on that?

Chinese official: How can I elaborate on it if we don't have any restrictions? Some people say that there are journalists in China that have been arrested. We have hundreds of journalists in China, and some of them have legal problems. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression.

Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC World Service: I'm glad he listens in Geneva. But if he was in central China, he would not be able to listen on short-wave radio and not be able to read our Web site. This is very well established. (It's) effectively blocked...and has been for years.

Source

[whitebread]

Uh huh... Methinks the Chinese person is full of ****

[Computer Guru]

Actually, Saudi Arabia's firewall techniques are more invasive: http://neosmart.net/blog/archives/239

It actually uses active heurestics, and content-identification algorithms to intercept and modify content intelligently on-the-fly.

Anyway, digg the China story? http://www.digg.com/tech_news/China_We_don...or_the_Internet

Edited October 31, 2006 by Computer Guru

[Premgenius]

Lies my friend is in Beijing and he confirms that they do censor the Internet.

[IGx89]

When I was there, *.wordpress.com was completely blocked :/. After 3 or so total blocked attempts internet was completely cut off for the entire day, too :(

[viciv]

haha. only 19,032 Web sites censored?

China: We don't censor the Internet, we censor the Intranet.

[Nexus]

Chinese government official: some of them have legal problems. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression.

Who is he trying to Bull****. That has to be the most transparent lie I've heard in a long time.

[Eli]

haha. ONLY 19,032 Web sites censored?

China: We don't censor the Internet, we censor the Intranet.

Quoted for the truth, bolded for emphesis

[neufuse Veteran]

uh huh they dont censor right.....

then why do when you look up tieneman square on google in english it shows pics of the massacure and tanks... but when you do it on the chinese google it shows NOTHING like that... just pictures of the square all fixed up... google says china told them to do that or not be in their country....

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&am...TF-8&tab=wi

vs

http://www.google.com/images?svnum=10&...amp;btnG=Search

[Amnesia]

I encourage the censorship of pornographic material

[Popcorned1]

I encourage the censorship of pornographic material

I'll give you a week without it then we'll see :shifty:

[struct]

When I was there, *.wordpress.com was completely blocked :/. After 3 or so total blocked attempts internet was completely cut off for the entire day, too :(

wow, that's funny yet at the same time sad.

I encourage the censorship of pornographic material

good to know. we were discussing material more along the lines of politics and free press/speech.

[ambiance]

No we don't censor and no we don't sell prisoner's organs on the black market.

[Danrarbc]

I guess we know where he works now.