The Golden Shield Project
Aka the 'Great Firewall of China' is a censorship and surveillance project that is run by the Chinese government. The purpose of this filter is to enable it easier for police or other government agencies to monitor what information has been moving in and out of the country and by whom. They have collaborations with American companies such as Cisco systems (Provide hardware) and other major search websites such as Google & Yahoo.
There are a large number of sites that are not available to Chinese internet users and these sites are important to the history of the country. An example of a blacklisted search term is 'Tiananmen Square' in reference to the infamous protests of 1989. If you go here http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org you can test to see if a website is banned. Very useful and important sites such as Wikipedia are not available to these people.
In April 2004 a journalist called Shi Tao used his Yahoo account to send details surrounding the governments plans for the news coverage of the 15th aniversary of Tiananmen to an overseas website. His email was caught by the golden shield and the Chinese government requested his identity (and files) from Yahoo. They obliged and he was arrested and placed in prison for ten years.
Google's slogan 'Do no Evil' doesn't fit with their censoring of websites.
Yahoo would not be the term that comes to mind after your free webmail host gives you up for an opinion.
The Chinese government is wrong in their actions but when international megacorporations are complicit why is it we rarely see them in that negative light and their actions condemmed by websites?
It makes me wonder... perhaps those sites are filtered over here.
There are a large number of sites that are not available to Chinese internet users and these sites are important to the history of the country. An example of a blacklisted search term is 'Tiananmen Square' in reference to the infamous protests of 1989. If you go here http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org you can test to see if a website is banned. Very useful and important sites such as Wikipedia are not available to these people.
In April 2004 a journalist called Shi Tao used his Yahoo account to send details surrounding the governments plans for the news coverage of the 15th aniversary of Tiananmen to an overseas website. His email was caught by the golden shield and the Chinese government requested his identity (and files) from Yahoo. They obliged and he was arrested and placed in prison for ten years.
Google's slogan 'Do no Evil' doesn't fit with their censoring of websites.
Yahoo would not be the term that comes to mind after your free webmail host gives you up for an opinion.
The Chinese government is wrong in their actions but when international megacorporations are complicit why is it we rarely see them in that negative light and their actions condemmed by websites?
It makes me wonder... perhaps those sites are filtered over here.
posted by Hcou005 at 10:13 AM
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