Chinese Internet Censorship

China is an emerging great power, but when talking about liberty, they are left behind quite a lot. The interesting part is that, despite the Communist leadership, they are slowly opening up to the world, and the best proof to that is what can be easily called the most important sports event of the year, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Until arriving to the Chinese censorship part, let me say that, apart from having a very strict policy regarding Internet content available in the country, the Chinese authorities are really opening up, and we'll see why right away...

"Fifteen years ago, style here was monotonous. Everybody looked the same. Today is different. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, old or young, everybody wants to reveal their personality in the way they dress," says Dider Grumbach, but he misses one thing - there is still an incredibly large number of people who barely have something to eat, and I am sure those aren't enjoying the chance to be different at all. Anyway, just as it happens in many places in the world, there can be striking differences between the capital and remote areas, so I won't get into this now. Let's follow the initial line now, and talk about censorship, shall we?

If we think about the fact that China will have more Internet users than the US in 2009, I think that censorship is partially justified, but with a condition - this shouldn't crush the liberty of expression. They can't open up to the world instantly, so let's say I would understand banning of various extremist sites, or explicit ones, but I will never understand banning blogs that try to reflect the truth.

According to Zhang Yu, a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, "during this year the Internet police became much more efficient in terms of surveillance of the Internet activities to suppress freedom of expression."

For example, Internet Cafe customers are being closely watched, being registered with their ID cards, having photos taken, and receiving unique ID numbers to log in, so the authorities can easily find out who did what.

Feelin' lucky? You should...because there's always worse than some BitTorrent traffic throttling, and it seems that if you end up in China during the Olympics, you may get a taste of the Chinese Internet censorship, because it has been decided already that full access won't be granted during the event. Not cool at all, but I have no idea what can be done to change things at this time. Do you?

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