Looks like China is working extra hard to prevent its citizens from freely expressing their opinions online. We’re on the good side of the Great Wall, so none of this affects us here per se, but it’s always fun to explore China’s Internet censorship.
Said censorship is becoming more sophisticated; it’s no longer merely a matter of setting off trip wires when someone searches for [“banned phrase”]. In an effort to “manage” public opinion, authorities there have turned to fancy text mining solutions to cut out the malarkey. With these in hand, authorities can eliminate all that pesky free speech before it exposes something. Who knows, maybe that slave scandal would never have been discovered if better Internet censorship were in place. Charter 08? Try to organize when the cops are snooping on your every move.
I wonder if Chinese authorities block us here at CrunchGear? We’re irreverent, sure, but mostly harmless.
Try http://www.websitepulse.com/help/testtools.china-test.html
It looks like Crunchgear is accessible.
Nick–any idea if Tor works over there?
I am sitting in Shanghai working right now. CrunchGear access is not a problem.
This article is a bit dated though; these types of censorship have been going on for a long time already. Not a big deal though, China does not block proxy sites.
Chinese censorship is a nice idea but not practible over the long term.
Jon
http://DreamClue.com …get the message!