Talk:Internet censorship in China/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Internet censorship in China. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Citation needed spam

What's up the that? It's common sense that the things listed can bypass firewalls, it's like saying you need a citation for saying "pencils are used to write things". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.30.234 (talk) 18:07, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Wikipedia

I changed the sentence to say *most of* because not the entire site is available. For example, this very article is blocked and is impossible to reach except through VPN, at least in most of the country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.121.99.210 (talk) 06:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

CERNET

I have removed the part about CERNET's Internet access to foriegn web resource because it has nothing to do with censorship. The article says CERNET banned access to foriegn websites so students are encouraged to use proxies. This is rather inaccurate and misleading. What happens is CERNET offers the students extremely low price (almost none) for access to domestic internet. While access to foriegn resources cause extra cost, CERNET charge extra money for this access. For example, in Tsinghua University, CERNET charge 30 yuan (appr. 4 USD) for 80 hours in one month, which is much lower than the average price provided by comercial ISPs. This has totally nothing to do with censorship. Biggu 02:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

old

The People's Republic of China has set up a set of Internet censorship systems that are collectively known as the Great Firewall of China.

Is it known by that cute name in China as well as outside of China? If not, perhaps we should say "known (outside of China) as..." or "dubbed...by X" if you know who first tagged it that way. --Ed Poor

I've never heard in refered to this in China. Part of the reason is that it is cute in English, but the Wall in Great Wall and the wall in Firewall are two completely different terms in Chinese.

We Chinese usually call it "GFW". --Earthengine 02:57, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is banned? Why? wshun 06:26, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Why? No one really ever knows why a Web site is banned in China. However, Wikipedia was banned as of end of last year: http://asp-cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/list.html though I have not checked it specifically recently. - Fuzheado 06:32, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Are you sure? There are many people from mainland China now working on Chinese Wikipedia. If they can access Chinese Wikipedia, surely they can visist English Wikipedia?? In fact I have accessed Wikipedia(English and Chinese) laster December(almost the same date as in the list). --Formulax 06:57, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You accessed from within China? If so, odd that the Harvard site listed it as banned. Things are always in flux in China. It's also possible some folks in China are using proxy servers to bypass the block. - Fuzheado 07:06, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Actually now I am not in mainland. I visited Wikipedia last December in Shanghai, and everything was fine. But I am told by mainland Chinese Wikipedians that Wikipedia can be accessed in PRC. --Formulax 07:28, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Er, it IS banned in China, I'm here now and I'm telling you that's how it is. It's easy to see: traceroutes die at a certain point to banned IPs, and continue fine to others. (I am now logged in by proxy in another country). --prat 05:13, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Subheadings needed for a nice TOC. I tried by scanning, but couldn't do it appropriately. --Menchi 06:45, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

I would say that the article isnt long enough. --Jiang

HOw Ludricous----

The government now has started the education of AIDS in China now. There are even websites set up by AIDS patients.--Formulax 03:06, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

--- What is cheesecake? Secretlondon 19:39, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

2. Informal. Photographs of minimally attired women.

titillating photos of women in bathing suits and so forth. Maxim magazine, or Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Maybe I should pick a less American word... 64.228.81.75

As an American, I have never heard the word "cheesecake" refer to anything other than the food. It is best to choose internationally recognizable words and avoid informal words since, after all, it is an encyclopedia. Livajo 17:31, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Chinese Translation

Was there any voice from Chinese users about a translation of this article? ;-) -- Tomchiukc 03:41, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it is needed. The Chinese version has much more details, especially about recent development of enforcing laws and regulations.--Skyfiler 22:10, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Of China

What about internet censorship of China? i.e. the blocking of internet access from China. Mostly as a result of spam. Btw, should the companies/products that do the censorship be mentioned? // Liftarn

There's such a thing? Well, if one doesn't read Chinese, they might as well.... --Menchi 10:03, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Keeping cool

Let's try and approach this objectively even if it sucks. We should be careful about any speculation, especially when it concerns Wikipedia itself. Dori | Talk 03:49, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

Funny name

"Great Firewall of China " very imaginative name. I laugh a bit. ;) China wants its citizens to be ants.-Pedro 01:48, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Imaginitive, bull. It's a common term for dot see en's filtering system. --D.valued 09:56, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia section too big

The section on the effect on Wikimedia is interesting, but it's too out of proportion for this article. We've tried to avoid writing about Wikipedia in Wikipedia (ie. "navel gazing"). Perhaps this should be largely moved to Meta? Fuzheado | Talk 23:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It should be moved to History of Wikipedia, which gives no coverage and should. --Jia ng 00:32, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you want to, go ahead. But I think a summary should be left behind. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 00:55, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Has the Chinese government ever tried to edit Wikipedia?

I'm wondering if Chinese censors have ever tried to edit Wikipedia articles to suit their versions of history and politics? Does anyone know?

Depends on what you mean by "censors". The whole censorship thing seems to be carried out in a haphazard manner, at several levels of authority, with self-contradictory results. Besides, they don't need to. My impression is that the average Chinese youth on the internet is much more radical in opinion than the government. -- ran (talk) 03:35, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

This month (June, 2005) China sent out bots to change the pages. This reported from user Masterhatch, who is currently away. -- Kojangee 22:30, Jun 23, 2005 (Beijing Time)

This has never been occurring. You should hold suspicion of propaganda origin from other sources such as cult of Falun Gong, who may freely attempt public relation distortion use medium such as Wikipedia. Wen Hsing 22:10, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Everyone take a look at what the bot wrote just above this line. "This has never been occurring. You should hold suspicion of propaganda origin from other sources such as cult of Falun Gong, who may freely attempt public relation distortion use medium such as Wikipedia." We can all tell it is a computer generated bot because it can't speak English. There are only 8 million people in China who I would even begin to think have any brains or sense. The rest are just bots listening to the guy with the big gun in their face. This makes the average chinese person evil or just pathetic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.127.251.137 (talk) 02:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC) maybe user: wen hsing doesn't know english to well -he is chinese after all-, it doesn't mean that its a bot, he could have just used google translate or babelfish —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.181.152.73 (talk) 20:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Move request

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. Internet censorship in China → Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

The article is clearly about Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China, as implemented by the government of the People's Republic of China. —Lowellian (talk) 08:25, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)

Support. See above. —Lowellian (talk) 08:25, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
- Support This is a move you can easily do yourself without requiring an admin to move it. The destination page doesn't exist, so there are no conflicts like getting edit histories merged, and stuff, so just use the move button at the top of the page (next to history). —ExplorerCDT 16:47, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  - ExplorerCDT, you don't need to tell me that. Anyway, I am an admin. I am listing this page here because it is potentially a controversial move. —Lowellian (talk) 01:02, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
Oppose at the time being. The article is clearly about Internet censorship in mainland China, i.e. the PRC excluding Hong Kong and Macao. I support moving to "Internet censorship in mainland China". (Please add {{move}} to the article. :-D ) — Instantnood 07:49 Feb 24 2005 (UTC)
- Conditional support if a notice in italic is added to the top of the article to tell readers the article is about Internet censorship in mainland China, without affecting users in Hong Kong and Macao. I remain oppose if the notice is not added. — Insta ntnood 18:37 Feb 27 2005 (UTC)
Support. A.D.H. (t&m) 17:09, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
Support. I don't think the firewall affects Hong Kong users, so IC in PRC would be a more suitable title. prat 01:23, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- But HK is part of the PRC (but not 'mainland' China -- small caveats to both those assertions). Alai 05:54, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Support. This rule is set by the government of the PRC. There is no political entity called "mainland China".--Huaiwei 06:51, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Support. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:47, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Comment: I would like to suggest an alternative to the move of title. The Internet censorship does not affect users in Hong Kong and Macao. "Mainland China" is a term referred to the PRC with Hong Kong and Macao excluded. The alternative I suggest is "Internet censorship in mainland China". Please see also the relevant discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Insurance companies of the People's Republic of China. — Instantnood 17:08 Feb 25 2005 (UTC)
- Mainland China is not a clearly defined term. It lacks clear delimiting in both a political and a temporal sense. prat 23:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  - Politically: I would suggest that some, such as Taiwanese and those referring to the PRC/ROC split would include Hong Kong and Macau in the term 'mainland China', whereas others such as yourself may argue otherwise. prat 23:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  - Temporally: If in fifty years time the name of the country changes, an article that is properly written should not require changes. Rather than being a history article (where 'History of China' is accepable as a cross-dynastic reference) this censorship article is firmly rooted in one government. I believe associating it with that government is the clearest way to define the article both now and in the future. prat 23:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    - Politically it is seldom used to include Hong Kong and Macao (see Talk:Mainland China). In colloquial speeches, these terms are often not clear cut. This article is firmly rooted in one government, but the suggested title is referring to censorship in (the entirety of) the territories under this government, but that's not the case. — Instantnood 07:22 Feb 26 2005 (UTC)
      - I agree with Pratyeka. The focus of this article is the policy of a specific government. —Lowellian (talk) 02:28, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
Oppose Article title is perfectly understandable as it is, no need to have a longer title for the sake of it, jguk 19:14, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- The article title is POV, that's why it needs to be changed. —Lowellian (talk) 02:28, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
support. --Ji ang 06:01, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This discussion is no longer active. violet/riga (t) 20:26, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ran/Me

Ran, sorry, I don't want to revert war with you because we've always come to a resolution without going back and forth.

If the article says this is about censorship in the mainland in the first sentence, what good does it do for the reader to say "mainland" again in the second and third sentence? How does reverting back to having these superfluous statements provide any understanding of the situation in HK? Do mainland internet users refer to it as "the great firewall"? Let's add a statement specifically about HK and remove the repetive phrasing.

We have to mention somewhere that the firewall applies only to mainland China, not Hong Kong. Personally I think this entire article should be moved to Internet censorship in Mainland China; then we can remove the disclaimer. -- ran (talk) 03:17, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

but that rename alternative wasn't well received a month ago. Is the "great firewall" term used within China or only outside? SchmuckyTheCat 04:09, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure. In China they just refer to certain websites being blocked or censored. -- ran (talk) 05:46, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

maybe not then [1] so lets leave that third sentence. ta ta. SchmuckyTheCat 16:04, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"China"/"PRC" vs. "mainland China" for page titles

Following the long discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) regarding proper titling of Mainland China-related topics, polls for each single case has now been started here. Please come and join the discussion, and cast your vote. Thank you. — Insta ntnood 15:16, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

YTHT, SMTH

Recent developments like the closing down of YTHT and the neutering of SMTH aren't even mentioned. Is it possible for someone familiar with these developments to write something on these topics? -- ran (talk) 22:43, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Role of foreign companies

I added links to Cisco which has provided the Chinese gov't with routers. Also, added point of view of human rights advocates Human Rights Watch & Reporters W/O Borders for balance (see guidelines NPOV --Kaspiann 11:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Corporate Responsibility

I added this new section as it's relevant and may influence American corporate policy --Kaspiann 11:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Censorship of foreign sites

The article mentions "Overseas Chinese websites" under the list of Foreign Sites censored. It doesn't appear to be true. Should it be deleted? - Bnitin 05:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Websites in chinese about censores subjects are censored. Many pages about Tibetan independence e.g. Can someone please check if theese sites are blocked? www.tibet.com www.studentsforafreetibet.org www.savetibet.org www.freetibet.org www.heartibet.org

I guess that many religious sites are blocked too. Falun gong, Jehova's witnesses... Al-Jazeera? www.iwtnews.com? Should we mention sites that are blocked? Not ALL of course, but some?

Awareness

Are the people of mainland China aware of the Internet censorship taking place in their country? the article mentions only it is possible to sense censorship ("white spaces in BBS'es"), but how many actually know about it? --Abdull 12:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Split. Other forms of censorship

Censorship in China redirects to this artice. Surely the Chinese government censors things other than the internet (try taking Bibles or Falun Gong lit. into China). Hence I suggest this article be split. LukeSurl 20:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well.--Daveswagon 05:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I split it: Censorship in the People's Republic of China. Please contribute if you can.--Daveswagon 18:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

A small test on GFW "bi-directional filter": URL keyword test

There is an article on xys forum (2005) discussing about URL keyword test.

article on xys forum：

From Yush on 2005-8-13, 04:37:19:

Test: visit any web page in mainland China (except default page such as index.html), for example the cover page of People's Daily:

1. Normal URL

http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1024/3613123.html

2. URL with arbitary parameter, such as "方舟子" (?x=%B7%BD%D6%DB+%D7%D3)

http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1024/3613123.html?x=%B7%BD%D6%DB+%D7%D3

3. URL with parameter of sensitive words, such as "方舟子" (?x=%B7%BD%D6%DB%D7%D3)

http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/1024/3613123.html?x=%B7%BD%D6%DB%D7%D3

Visits of 1 and 2 are successful, but that of 3 would be denied, and then the page and other pages (except the default page) on the website cannot be visited by URL 1 or 2 for a period of time.

Conclusion: The blockage occured on portal of mainland China network, through filtering of URL (instead of page contents)

Google China?

This is very odd. The article mentions Google being blocked. However, Google has now made a localized version, Google.cn which panders to the interests of the Chinese regime. Example:

Google.com (what the rest of the world can see) image search for "tiananmen square": woops, not supposed to see that.

Google.cn (what good Chinese are allowed to see) image search for the exact same string: nothing to see here, move along.

First image hit on Google.com for Tiananmen: tanks and oppression. First image hit on Google.cn for Tiananmen: tourists hugging.

How can this not be noteworthy in the context of the Great Firewall of China? Kasreyn 07:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

You need to read the article more caredfully, or simply search "Google" on the page.--Skyfiler 17:25, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I see now. It's mentioned - barely. I would certainly feel the issue deserves more than a glossing-over. The article, particularly its header info, makes it appear that the censorship is entirely the work of China, when in fact, at least one prominent western corporation has been willing to bend over backwards to assist in censorship. Internet censorship in China is therefore a cooperative effort between the Chinese government, Chinese businesses, and some western businesses such as Google. Kasreyn 01:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Your argument is like saying that Wal-Mart deserves credit for paying minimum wage, not the government that instituted this requirement.--Daveswagon 05:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This is wrong. Google has not censored China. There is a way around. See here: http://www.freewebs.com/googlechina scikidus (talk) 22:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Strangely enough, I just checked both of those links and both had images of tanks driving towards a protester. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.89.186.177 (talk) 23:37, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Removed this statement

This is inaccurate....

The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has passed an Internet censorship law in mainland China^[1].

This isn't a law passed. It's essentially a judicial interpretation of the law, which allows the criminal code to be used in internet cases. It's also not the basis for legal internet censorship in China, since most of the censorship involves administrative actions that aren't covered by the Criminal Code.

Just as a note, when you are dealing with Chinese Law, it is *very* important to keep in mind the difference between a law, a decision, an opinion, a measure. a regulation, and a decree. This different documents are very different from each other.

Roadrunner 17:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

"Internet," not "internet"

Best as I can tell, every instance of the word "Internet" should be capitalized. This article has had a lot of trouble following this standard. Please take note of this when adding or improving content.--Daveswagon 05:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Organizing external links

The external links section is a mess. I'm trying to organize it. If you can help, please do. These links are suppose to offer information that the article doesn't, so many of them should probably be converted to references or outright deleted.--ShipSinker 14:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Broken language links

The titles of the Chinese versions of this article seem to have been changed to literal question marks, causing the links on the sidebar to be broken. (This may just be a glitch with my browser? Could someone else check?) --π! 02:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Turf Wars

I am visiting Beijing at the moment. The fact that I can visit and edit this page is a testament of how much censorship there is. Google.com is blocked at the moment, but it was working earlier today. There are some censorship, but they don't seem to be permenant, usually back on in a few hours.

I have spoken to a relative who is a IT professional here in China. He point out that the Internet connection both inside and outside China are worsened by the turf wars of the ISPs here. There are two major network providers in China, China Telecom and China Netcom. The connection between them are pretty bad even in China. Basically, they "intentionally" increase the latency and packet loss between each other to force customers to get their service. So a medium website that would want to reach all audience would have to pay for both services. (Big sites don't care cause they usually have distributed server farms.)

When I get back to the states, I will try to find sources to back up his claim and add them to one of those pages. --Voidvector 16:43, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Please do not make speculative and false accusation, is disrespectful and may cause unwanted commercial troubles.Wen Hsing 22:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

The mindless chinese bot speaks again. "Please do not make speculative and false accusation, is disrespectful and may cause unwanted commercial troubles You might be tempted to think that since Chinese follows SVO grammar the same as English that they could get some of it right but alas they are just too stupid to get any of it at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.127.251.137 (talk) 02:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

DNS affects UDP as well as TCP

The article currently has:

"DNS filtering and redirection. Don't resolve domain names, or return incorrect IP addresses. This affects all TCP protocols such as HTTP, FTP or POP"

Surely failure to resolve DNS affects UDP as much as TCP (and indeed any other IP protocols). Anyone have any objections to changing TCP to IP, and updating the examples? ConditionalZenith 04:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

WP block lifted?

This article says that the PRC has completely unblocked Wikipedia. Is that true? 24.93.190.134 02:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

There is now freedom to access website such as Wikipedia of course from all of China. Wen Hsing 22:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It was unblocked just a few days. Here in Beijing, Wikipedia is blocked. Wen Hsing, where were you able to access it? —Babelfisch 02:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I have recheck and you are correct, current situation is now block. It is not ideal situationWen Hsing 20:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Psiphon

Psiphon [2] is a software project designed by University of Toronto's Citizen Lab under the direction of Professor Ronald Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab. Psiphon is a circumvention technology that works through social networks of trust and is designed to help Internet users bypass content-filtering systems setup by governments, such as China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and others.

"We're aiming at giving people access to sites like Wikipedia," a free, user-maintained online encyclopedia, and other information and news sources, Michael Hull, psiphon's lead engineer, told CBC News Online.[3]

Octopus-Hands 23:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Golden Shield Project

a new article has been created. it is very big, the government spent over 60 billion rmb on it. so it deserves for its own place. I just copied some part. feel free to add more. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SummerThunder (talk • contribs) 01:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

Length

It is over 33K now... --Skyfiler 03:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

A too long tag on the talk page and an expansion tag on the article page? What the heck is going on here? Unless the person who put the too long tag there doesn't know how to archive or be WP:Bold, I'm assuming they're referring to the article page. Quadzilla99 20:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute?

Okay, someone just added a neutrality dispute tag to the page. If there is anyone who agrees with this, please state what elements of this page you feel are not neutral. Otherwise, the tag will be removed.--Daveswagon 04:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The tone of this article opposes the Internet censorship of mainland China. Wikipedia says to avoid self-references by avoiding mentioning Wikipedia as a blocked site. 71.175.43.242 22:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could identify exact sentences or sections that you feel are biased or missing counter arguments that you feel needs to be added. I read through the article and couldn't find anything that jumped out at me. Also, according to the self-referencing rule: "Wikipedia's free content is reused in many places. Don't assume that the reader is reading at wikipedia.org, or indeed any other website." There are no violations of this rule in this article. Saying "Wikipedia is blocked in China" makes sense regardless of if it is read on Wikipedia or not.--Daveswagon 22:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This article simply presents what is fact about Chinese Internet Censorship. The censorship of Wikipedia should be mentioned as it goes to the heart of censorship which is control. The Chinese government cannot control everyone who edits Wikipedia so it is blocked. This article is POV in that the Chinese government is of the opinion that it should not exist. This, however, is not sufficient reason to tag it. I am going to remove the tag. If anyone disagrees please discuss what should be changed here. Wikipediatoperfection 07:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Respectfully I oppose this article, because it is strongly bias. Words such as 'taboo' and 'blacklist' are aiming negative connotation to Chinese refinement of internet contents. Excessive detailing of circumvention, ans lack of emphasis benefits of content refinement are strong concern to me. Please administrator consider implications to operations. Wen Hsing 22:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

'Benefits of content refinement' - you've got to be kidding me. Are working for the Chinese dictaroship or just reading out of their propaganda? Any neutral person would agree censorship is evil. Jörg Vogt 23:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Please no rudeness, I intend no offense, I am just a citizen who believes this report is too biased. Neutral point of view is major importance to Wikipedia project. 'Censorship is evil' - this is not neutral! And what is Chinese dictaroship? I have never heard such phenomenon, perhaps you will start new reportage about it? Also extentsive detailing of the circumvention methodology is irresponsible damaging to aims of the content refinement. Wen Hsing 00:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I made a correction regarding neutrality. Under the Golden Shield Project heading it stated that "article 15 officially creates an internet dictatorship". This is clearly not right because it doesn't place the internet under the control of a single individual; what an "internet dictatorship" would even look like is unclear. So it is pretty clear that "dictatorship" was just being used as a snarl word. So I changed it to "article 15 defines what information must be restricted" since this seems more accurate and less POV.

Recent developments section

I feel something needs to be done with the "Recent developments" section. It's a long and tedious list and will only become more so as it is added to. Furthermore, I think the article should focus on the current standing of Internet censorship in the PRC rather than giving a "play by play" of its progression. I would recommended cutting and pasting most or all of this section into a new article such as "Timeline of Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China" or "History of Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China". Does anyone having anything to say about this?--Daveswagon 19:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Information warfare

Some help is needed in making a potential article over here - about the alleged flooding of the internet with information by secret police used by a few governments (currently the Russians and the Chinese have been accused of doing this). Some notable sources are available in the references section.

The original article (which was very problematic and was deleted) was purely based on the FSB allegations, and an attempt is being made to make the future potential article more international. It is currently up for deletion review over here, where there is a tie of votes (9 to 9) between those who endorse its deletion and those who want it overturned and relisted.

This is a very controversial topic, but I'm hoping that there are to be enough notable sources to make a decent article out of it - perhaps someone here may be able to help.

The article is still heavy focused on the FSB's role - I'm trying to make it more international (note: I'm not the creator, I just think that it deserves some attention). Esn 03:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Please recall importance neutrality maintained. Do not unnecessary make accusation without proper investigation, and ensure you are not trick into disseminate criminal propaganda. Do not jeopardize friendly international relation of Wikipedia Project and recall commercial reality. Please consider benefit of Government correction of inaccuracy. Together we strive for common goal of truth, good relationship and prosperity.Wen Hsing 04:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Marxist Internet Archive

The MIA came under attack from the PRC a little while ago. I think it'd be worth putting up since China is a supposed "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist" nation. Thanks. Here's the site www.marxists.org User:MC John

Respectfully consider absurdity of falsity accusing PRC of leading 'attack' on the MIA webserver. There has never been forthcoming the proof to support such accusation. Perhaps technical misconfiguration is responsible for systerm failure, and MIA has blame China, due to ideological objection to our nation legitimate economic reform aimed to benefit society. MIA must show more responsibility in care to avoid cause social instability by inappropriate ideas.Wen Hsing 04:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

I think people say its not so absurd, because China is not really Marxist-Lenist in terms of economic policy. They are as capitalist as anyone now. And they abuse human rights. Jörg Vogt 03:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Man how many times is the bot going to be sent out. YOu would think that it would at least go back and edit its English so that we could get a glimse of the trash it wants to tell us but I am starting to think that it doesn't really care if we understand or not.

"Respectfully consider absurdity of falsity accusing PRC of leading 'attack' on the MIA webserver. There has never been forthcoming the proof to support such accusation. Perhaps technical misconfiguration is responsible for systerm failure, and MIA has blame China, due to ideological objection to our nation legitimate economic reform aimed to benefit society. MIA must show more responsibility in care to avoid cause social instability by inappropriate ideas"

Oh and Respectfully, when the Chinese government stops Chopping the Hands off of Catholic Priest for no reason what so ever I might start thinking that China isn't just all evil, but that isn't likely to happen since Chinese people think that the world loves them for killing people. Chinese people actually think they are better than everyone else and that some how gives them license to kill and destroy. I would say Nazi to describe them but communists in China are actually worse. I will say this though, for thinking that they are the best people ever to be put on the planet regardless of how many lives the destroy, they sure aren't smart enought to learn SIMPLE ENGLISH. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.127.251.137 (talk) 02:51, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

EMHI and Postimees blocked?

greatfirewallofchina.org claims that Estonian Meteorological and Hydrological Institute(www.emhi.ee) and newspaper Postimees(www.postimees.ee) are blocked. Can anyone confirm? --Tarmo Tanilsoo 10:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Stupid and irresponsible China-bashing. I live in Beijing and can access both sites without a proxy. —Babelfisch 06:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but Internet censorship in China is not always the same in all regions. Still, I wouldn't put much trust on the greatfirewall site.--Daveswagon 22:11, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Babelfisch, for checking them out, That's what I wanted to know. Them being blocked sounded too impossible for me. Indeed there shouldn't be put too much trust at greatfirewall site. I have done some Googling and others have questioned its results as well. --Tarmo Tanilsoo 05:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone check...

Can anyone check if Happy Tree Friends is banned in China?--Dark paladin x 20:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This page's censorship status in the PRC

I think this very article is blocked - at least it was when I was in Dalian last week. At least, I think that's the only explanation for my browser terminating loading the page after a fraction of a second and displaying "this page cannot be found".

Does that count as original research?

203.118.29.177 15:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but you should be able to find articles that say wikipedia is blocked in China - which is the case. Blocks are usually on a whole site, not just a single page. John Smith's 15:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Google censorship viewer

I've put the link back in because I think it demonstrates really well how google is censored in the PRC. Wikipedia guidelines (from what I can see) urge plain search results not to be used - that isn't what we've got here, so I don't think they have to apply. John Smith's 22:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I failed to see significant different of the first page search results. The disparity may be quite significant at the time this links is added, however perhaps page rank algorithms blurred the difference. Besides, i feel a website with 30 Google hits does not qualify as a reliable source, and a primary source (PBS) has been cited for your argument.--Skyfiler 15:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, if you feel strongly then you can remove it again - I won't revert you. John Smith's 16:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Am I hearing this right?

Censorship is never conducted by logical people, but this article seems incredible. The Chinese government blocks access to foreign nameservers, but allows connections to Anonymizer? They block connections based on presence of controversial keywords, but allow encrypted connections abroad? I feel like such inefficient tactics could use some explanation. 70.15.116.59 (talk) 15:34, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, China does attempt to block Anonymizer but it has received money from the US government to actively try and fight blocks (as that article and Google searches mention). Disallowing encrypted connections will almost have a very significant negative effect on the Chinese economy and internet usage as it will prevent people from using internet banking and many, many other things where encyption is required or expected and frankly the fact that they aren't dumb enough to try and block encrypted connections show they are probably more logical then you think Nil Einne (talk) 05:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The impression I got when I was studying abroad in China is that the government doesn't mind if the censorship can be circumvented just like they don't mind if English books and websites put out moderately critical material. The implicit rational seems to be that if someone in China can read and write fluent English or has the technical skills to circumvent the firewall they are, by virtue of their education and skills, part of an elite is likely indebted to modern Chinese society and likely to contribute something of value. The goal just seems to be to prevent dissent and unrest from emerging among the great masses who are unable to circumvent firewalls or read English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.89.186.177 (talk) 23:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Flickr blocked

It appears that the photo-sharing website Flickr has been blocked in the PRC for several months. This should be noted in the article. Badagnani (talk) 06:08, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Golden Shield =/= Great Firewall

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding over this, but the term "Great Firewall of China" does not refer specifically to the Golden Shield Project. People have been using this term for at least the past couple years; for example, when MSN voluntarily complied in censoring Chinese blogs. The Golden Shield Project only went online fairly recently, but all internet censorship in China has been mockingly referred to in the west as the "Great Firewall" for a few years now. When people have said Great Firewall then, they haven't meant some sort of computer system that was coming in the future, they were referring to the situation at that time (the "current" situation, back then). The Great Firewall is not a specific computer system, it's an ironical, mocking term of the whole censorship situation (i.e. "The chinese government's efforts to control the internet will fail just like their efforts to keep out Mongol invaders")

For a citation that they are not considered the same thing, see here ( http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-11/ff_chinafirewall ) "The Golden Shield — the latest addition to what is widely referred to as the Great Firewall of China — was supposed to monitor, filter, and block sensitive online content." —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBilly (talk • contribs) 02:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

To 76.112.35.30

Please do not delete text without using an edit summary. That is vandalism, so I have reverted it accordingly. If you wish to make a case for removing text, ok - but the explanation is very useful in my mind so it should stay. John Smith's (talk) 12:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

very erotic very violent

Think we should find a way to mention this internet censorship related controversy in this article? ViperSnake151 15:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

BBC News

The Chinese language service is still blocked, which is rather important given most Chinese do not speak English. If this changes it would be a good idea to mention the fact it was lifted on a certain date, rather than give the impression that services were never blocked. John Smith's (talk) 08:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

An anon user has input the following text:

As of March 31, 2008, China has unblocked all access to Internet Web sites, including English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia, BBC, the Falun Gong home page, and the Dalai Lama's home page.

The article cited does not confirm this. Also personal research is forbidden, so we cannot take anyone's word for it. The latest we have had confirmed by the media is that various websites are still restricted, such as the Chinese-language BBC service.

Could we please get independent confirmation of this new text? If not it should be removed. John Smith's (talk) 12:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Motivation from the people point of view ?

Altough the motivation for such control of thoughts is obvious from the PRC Governances people, and as such, could be skipped from the article, it would still be interesting to write on why the Mainland chinese peoples themselves still choose to massively trust and believe on it, although they know they are actively denied access to any opposite point of view by this very government. Should it relates to Chinese_nationalism ? Benji2 (talk) 22:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Exemptions?

Are there any official exemptions from censoring, such as Internet pipes to foreign companies with offices in China? Or does it apply everywhere? -Rolypolyman (talk) 00:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Olympics

It's not clear if it's unblocked just for journalists in the Olympic village or for all of China. —Pengo 08:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Everyone, I believe. I'm in Shanghai (and not a journalist) and this article is unblocked for me (it wasn't a month ago). Adacore (talk) 07:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Not everyone. Some sites have been unblocked for everyone, such as Wikipedia (most of it). However, journalists still have much greater access then Chinese citizens. In general, it seems that China has relaxed (slightly) access for everyone but they still block many sites. Fanra (talk) 16:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Assured??

Quoting the article: "Initially, the Chinese government, the IOC and Jacques Rogge had assured that Internet access would not be censored at the Olympic Village press center.[21]"

The phrase "assured that" suggests that definite measures had been taken which would ensure that Internet access would not be censored. All they (i.e., the Chinese government, the IOC and Jacques Rogge) did, it seems, was to make convincing sounding statements to the effect that Internet access would not be censored.

It would be clearer and more accurate if "assured" was replaced by "stated".

Wanderer57 (talk) 13:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Reverse surveillance

This claim had not been tagged previously that I can see. Now, I am not saying that it is definitely 100% correct. However, to simply remove it because it is not sourced and is "too big" a claim is not appropriate. It should be left up for at least a few weeks to give people the opportunity to find a source. John Smith's (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Internet censorship is not used to remove anti-Japanese message lol".

I think following description, anti-Japanese, in the passage should be removed imediately, according to my own experience (which I learned in Hong Kong), China government do not use the system to remove the messages about anti-Japanese protest. But use it to block the access of some article which is against China government. In addition, if the China goverment do not argee about the content of an article, they will still blocking the access to that article. The following link is a very good example that shows that China government is still blocking some of the Wikipedia articles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989.

For my opinon, I will use a sentence to summarize this thing. China goverment do not use this system (Great Firewall) to protect their citizens and other countries (e.g. Do not remove the message about anti-Japanese), but use it to block the bad news of China and protect the power of themselves (e.g. Block the access to certain article that against China government and its policy).

This is the orginal passage: The escalation of the government's effort to neutralize critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution, and anti-corruption protests, many of which were organized or publicized using instant messaging services, chat rooms, and text messages. The size of the Internet police is estimated at more than 30,000.[3] Critical comments appearing on Internet forums, blogs, and major portals such as Sohu and Sina usually are erased within minutes.

The passage after modifying: The escalation of the government's effort to neutralize critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-pollution, and anti-corruption protests, many of which were organized or publicized using instant messaging services, chat rooms, and text messages. The size of the Internet police is estimated at more than 30,000.[3] Critical comments appearing on Internet forums, blogs, and major portals such as Sohu and Sina usually are erased within minutes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unknownzd (talk • contribs) 06:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Recalling of my own memory about the Olympic Games in China

According to my own memory, I have remembered that the China government has blocked the access to the China version of Wikipedia. Why am I having such a memory? It's because I am living in Hong Kong and and one of the Hong Kong television company have assigned a lot of journalist to the Olympic village (the television company is called TVB). When the team of the journalist arrived the Olympic village, they have done several test about the Internet. They foundd that they can go to the websites such as Google and the English version of Wikipedia. But if my own memory is correct, the journalists cannot visit the the Chinese version of Wikipedia at that time. But when I went to visit the chinese version of Wikipedia after two days at that time, I find that many China users (fake?????) have reported that they can visit the Chinese version of Wikipedia at the time I visited.

In addition, if you guys wanted to translate a Chinese version of articles to an english version, I think I could give you a hand to achieve this. My English writing level is not so good lol", so please just forgive me lol" But I think I could give you an exact meaning of a Chinese sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unknownzd (talk • contribs) 07:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Internet police officer jingjing.jpg

The image Image:Internet police officer jingjing.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --03:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Original research by jetsamjetsam

The edits made earlier today are clearly original research. Editors cannot make such analysis by themselves. If someone who is recognised in this area makes that sort of analysis, they can be quoted. But this is clear jetsamjetsam's opinion and thus falls under the original research prohibition. Thus I have reverted the changes. John Smith's (talk) 18:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Is the recent Vatican Chinese version blocked?

Holy See has a Chinese version of www.vatican.va now. Is it blocked in China?--Tricia Takanawa (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

no Livingchina (talk) 18:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Notification

The actual notice has now been removed for the second time. I see NO reason why our reader can not see/read the actual notice rather than an editors interpretation. The question at hand is censorship. To read how the government presents its side is certainly a positive for the article. We should leave it to our reader to evaluate. Is their some motive afoot that I may not be aware of? Please reconsider the value of including the actual notification. It doesn't take up much space...its verified and reliable...its on topic...--Buster7 (talk) 12:11, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing in that notice which isn't there in some form in the article as reportage and not as opinion. It fits the structure of the article very well, so I think it's fine as it is. Having the full text would be redundant. Ohconfucius (talk) 13:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

How does having the whole notice benefit the article? As it stood it dominated the entire section and had undue weight - that's why I cropped it. If we had even statements of the same length from every agency and/or organisation that commented on an issue, the article would be far too long. Keep things short. If people are interested they can follow the link to read more. John Smith's (talk) 13:47, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

This is called a discussion. This is how it works. Do not continue to remove a completely factual and, I feel, necessary inclusion to the article. The whole notice in its entirety, without edits, provides the basis for the reader to make his own decision. He doesnt need us to re-create and interpret to fit our point of view. He can make it himself. @ confucius...How is the notice opinion? It is neiter redundant nor opinion!!! Your edits create the redundancy. Not the notice. @ John Smith...If necessary I will rewrite the section to fit your space limitations. Lets not worry about other agencies. If they show up and get too wordy you can talk to them. You need to create a consensus of editors to continue what amounts to censorship at an article about censorship. I don't have a problem with you two deciding where in the article the entire notice should be. But Be, it will. Without the reader having to link to what amounts to it. It is essential and fits the rules of Wikepedia. --Buster7 (talk) 00:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

If people are interested they can follow the link to read more. The link to the notice is in Chinese. --Buster7 (talk) 00:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

This iswas a discussion. "But Be, it will." sounds rather dictatorial and not at all discursive despite the words surrounding it, don't you think? Ohconfucius (talk) 01:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Message on your talk page. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:48, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

^{The discussion is not finished, so I think your once again restoring the notice is rather aggressive. Call an RfC if you like, because we all have a right to our opinions, but to keep on reinserting it in the face of opposition like you have just done is, I believe, rather unproductive. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)}

You, or perhaps John Smith, initially deleted my edit....prior to and without discussion. So lets discuss, at Internet censorship in PRC, from the initial point of contact. But I request that my edit stay in place since it speaks exactly and clearly to the threads title...the Green Dam.--Buster7 (talk) 03:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It's just how things work around here - I refer you to WP:BRD. I still don't think it should stay for the reasons already given. I would just say that if I wanted to revert you, I would have done so by now. We should continue discussing this coolly and rationally, not conditional upon something being inserted or deleted (I only want to discuss if I get to keep the ball) ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 04:28, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:BRD is not a policy or guideline. How I see it is this....By inserting, we all get to see the ball. When it is deleted, the ball disappears. Game Over. That is why I request that my edit stay. It is not vandalism or lying or extravagant. Also, I would prefer to have any discussion of this matter at the article's talk.--Buster7 (talk) 04:40, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

see: Talk:Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China for further negotiations;--Buster7 (talk) 05:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Buster7"--Buster7 (talk) 06:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

As you see, when I edit I do not brutalize another editors work. I take what is given and, to the best of my abiltiy, work to improve it. You "chopped the head" off my edit and tried to hide it in the trash barrel. Unless you have an agenda that is other than "the sum total of knowledge" there is no explainable reason to remove the very notification that is being discussed in the article. BTW...Any redundancy came after my inclusion of the notice. To say that my edit was redundant was discourteous and inflammitory. We should have discussed during the half hour between my edit and your complete change of it. Let us not now pretend there was any discussion in place. But Be, it will is my statement of clarity, to myself, that I will be a good faith editor and do all that I can to assure that the notice not be hidden from view. Please allow our customer the freedom to know what the facts are...from reliable sources that are verified. Its the right thing to do.--Buster7 (talk) 04:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey Buster (is there a way of saying this without it sounding threatening?) I am still at a loss as to where you are coming from. There is nothing "discourteous and inflammitory (sic)" about editing what you posted, nor is there any attempt at censorship. What is more, no-one "chopped [your] head off", and it's quite irrelevant who or which edit "came first". You continue to appear aggressive, and your attack appears not to assume good faith on the part of others. I cite WP:OWN

You cannot stop everyone in the world from editing "your" stuff, once you have posted it to Wikipedia. As each edit page clearly states:

If you don't want your material to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it.

Also:

If you do not want your ideas (for article organization, categorization, style, standards, etc.) challenged or developed by others, then do not submit them.

I would urge you to take a couple of steps back. Please do not take any of the changes to the article personally. The article is in its organic growth phase, as information is continually integrated as more reports come on line, so it is quite normal for an article to chop and change. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Where I'm coming from------>

There is no explainable reason to remove the very notification that is being discussed in the article,
Allow our customer the freedom to know what the facts are...from reliable sources that are verified,
Wholesale deletion of notable and verified information, prior to discussion, can be construed as aggresion,
If you do not want your ideas (for article organization, categorization, style, standards, etc.) challenged or developed by others, then do not submit them works both ways. An editor, in good faith, can not drastically alter another good faith editors edits (unilaterally removing with minimal justification) and not expect a comment or two. If I misunderstood your motives, I apologize. Since you misconstrued mine, a similar gesture would be nice.--Buster7 (talk) 06:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

<- The "explainable reason" is that this is just a subsidiary article about Green Dam - the main subject is Internet censorship, which hasmany aspects. We have an interest in creating an interesting summary so that the reader will click on the {{main}} link. Therefore, the information exists in a summary form of the entire article (although I have already stated that the same information is already in the article, albeit not in the form of the notice. We don't want to bore the reader, nor to provide too much detail. If the reader is interested in reading the full notice, he knows that he will find it in the principal article. BTW, Buster, kindly stop the disruption. I have left a WP:3RR warning on your talk page. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

A warning instead of an apology. How thoughtful. Disruption is in the eye of the beholder. Your tactics fit the subject of the article. I see that my gratious gesture has fallen on deaf ears. There is a conversation in the real world... "Don't trust what you read on the Internet---especially Wikipedia." Your cover-up of a truthful, topical, factual notice by the Chinese Minister of Censorship is an example of that comment. You and your partner, John Smith, can hide the truth, at least for now. But, your actions provide a lesson in the subversive and evasive nature of censorship. I'm not the only one that can see it.--Buster7 (talk) 00:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

From WP:ANI which is a directive of policy at Wikipedia... When you find a passage in an article that you find is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can. If that is not easily possible, and you disagree with a point of view expressed in an article, don't just delete it. Rather, balance it with what you think is neutral. --Buster7 (talk) 00:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Buster, I would remind you that nothing has been censored. NOTHING. It's all there, but just presented in a slightly different form which I happen to believe neatly encapsulates and summarises the censorship issues of the program. Having the notice by the "ministry of censorship" does not help in producing a concise summary. What is more, John Smith's is not my partner, so it would be wise to stop going down the route of conspiracy theory just because you are not getting your way. If an apology is all you're looking for, then I'll gladly say I'm sorry if I said anything to upset you, because that was not the intention. Beyond that, I'm not quite sure what else I should apologise for. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

OMG! chow young ling died!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.63.48.21 (talk) 01:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Public Opinion on Censorship

I think a section on how regular Chinese citizens react to the extensive firewall would be welcome. Is it accepted and do people not care too much about it, or do they put up with it because they have no choice and would bypass it willingly if they could? An age related statistic would also help IMHO —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.59.226.110 (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Law actions by China Citizen

This paragraph could do with being translated into standard english :)

intro

Let's talk about Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

State-owned Internet Service Providers

I think this artile only discussed the censorship of state-owned Internet Service Providers. Other ISPs, companies and orgnizations have their own firewall and censorship systems. An example of this is the Education Network maintained by universities in mainland China. It is also known that different branch of state-owned ISPs have different censorship standards, Wikimedia was still accessible from some state-owned internet services when it is reported blocked.

Picture on the right-hand side

...needs to be redone by someone with Chinese fonts installed.

presentation of the efectiveness of Tor

[quote] Neither the Tor website or network are blocked, making Tor (in conjunction with Privoxy) an easily acquired and effective tool for circumvention of the censorship controls. Tor maintains a public list of entry nodes, so the authorities could easily block it if they had the inclination. According to the Tor FAQ sections 6.4 and 7.9, Tor is vulnerable to timing analysis by Chinese authorities, so it allows a breach of anonymity. Thus for the moment, Tor allows uncensored downloads and uploads, although no guarantee can be made with regard to freedom from repercussions. [/quote]

Well, first, even if Tor's website was blocked, it would still be easy to get it, though any other site or p2p network. And if the entry nodes in the public list were blocked, one could still access that network, if one knew, or found somwhere else the IP of an (entry) node. All p2p networks have these elements, but are still much harder to completely block than any other architecture - cuz theyre p2p. But my main problem is about the traffic analysis attacks; it is of course true that using traffic analysis techniques, one could find out which Tor nodes communicate to one another. But the whole point of its technology, onion routing, is designed precisely to make such determination difficult; there is no other technology obscuring identity of nodes better! And its allmost impossible to create a network that would be totaly resistent to traffic analysis (though quite high and reasnoble ressistance is possible, and Tor is pretty good in that relative regard), outside of making all nodes use all bandwith all the time! So its really unfair to state this as Tor's minus, its actually its most positive side!

-aryah

another tool to circumvent censorship

Infranet, developed by folks at MIT, uses Steganography to embed information in innocuous-looking http traffic

Liberalization of Sexually Orientated Material

This section could use some references. BeckyD 18:50, 14 Febuary 2008

Google don't like censorship...

... and Google will not censor its search engine. Even Google is considering pulling out of China: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html --201.223.80.197 (talk) 03:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

There is also the USA Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing on this: http://cecc.gov/pages/hearings/2010/20100324/ --—Zujine|talk 15:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Archiving

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 17:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Done--Oneiros (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

the first regulation was issued on 1996, not 1993

Qiu's paper made a mistake that the first internet regulation, known as Interim Provisions Governing Management of Computer Information Networks in The People’s Republic of China Connecting to The International Network, was passed by the 42nd Standing Convention of the State Council on January 23rd, 1996. In 1993, there was no internet access in China. The first line was established by Sprint and China Telecom in 1994 and the internet public service was open to society on January, 1995. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.182.237.115 (talk) 07:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

too long

I find this page too long, I was looking for some information about chinese economy and i surprisingly find out that this page on "censorship in China" is quite as long as the page on its economic information or military information...it's quite sad that so many people put their interest in adding info on this page about politics and controversal facts than other pages... CHN710 (talk) 09:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

oh, the irony

http://www.greatfirewall.biz/url/55335

well, thats not ironic really, but just funny. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DJLO (talk • contribs) 06:44, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

More background material

Now many of the sources are second-hand sources, and often not at all available on-line. It would be better to supply URLs of actual documents (even Chinese is ok) or at least credible expert sources, i.e. law firms, academic publications, or official organs instead of magazines

--Sigmundur (talk) 12:44, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

No consensus for page move

As far as I am aware, there was a consensus reached to rename the page on China to be about the PRC, rather than China as a historical or cultural entity or whatever. I am not aware of a "consensus" that says that every instance were "People's Republic of China" appears in a title it should be changed to China. Consensus is reached, as far as I know, on the pages in which things are discussed. I have not heard of a process by which consensus by a group of editors discussing one matter on one page is then automatically extended to a number of other related pages in terms of what they are to be titled. I strongly suspect this would call for individual consensus on the various pages which moves were desired for. If I am mistaken, please correct me. In any case, I suggest first beginning with a proposal, explanation, and an attempt to form consensus about the move. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

A 2012 study of social media sites by other Harvard researchers found ...

I am about to revert a change made at 04:48, 22 March 2013 by IP 70.167.209.181 and go back to the version from 14:43, 20 March 2013 by JayJasper.

Before (version by JayJasper):

A 2012 study of social media sites by other Harvard researchers found that 13% of internet posts were blocked, focusing mainly on any form of collective action (anything from false rumors driving riots to protest organizers to large parties for fun), pornography, and criticism of the censors; significant criticisms of the government were allowed.^[2]

After (version by IP 70.167.209.181):

A 2012 study of social media sites by other Harvard researchers found that 13% of internet posts were blocked, focusing mainly on any form of collective action (anything from information driving riots to protest organizers to large parties for fun), criticism of the censors, and criticism of corruption; criticisms of the government were not allowed.^[3]

References

^ Decision of the Standing Committee of NPC Regarding the Safeguarding of Internet Security , Adopted on December 28, 2000 by the 19 Session of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress
^ "China's 'Internet Police' Targets Collective Action". NPR. 8 August 2012.
^ http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-26/opinions/35498777_1_chinese-officials-fight-corruption-bo-xilai

The after version changes the information conveyed entirely by adding the word not and changing the source of the reference to one that does not talk about the "2012 study of social media sites by other Harvard researchers". The change seems misleading to me. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 13:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Done. Earlier this afternoon I did revert to the prior version by JayJasper. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 02:28, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Packet filtering affects all protocols?

Terminate TCP packet transmissions when a certain number of controversial keywords are detected. This affects all TCP protocols...

It's obviously not true. It may only affect those protocols which contain any words, i.e. are unencrypted, uncompressed and carry any text. Even the article goes on to say that SSL and VPNs can act as a workaround, and what are they based on if not TCP/IP? Ustt (talk) 10:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. That section now reads:

Terminate TCP packet transmissions when a certain number of controversial keywords are detected. This can be effective with many TCP protocols.... --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 02:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to help craft a proposal

Surveillance awareness day is a proposal for the English Wikipedia to take special steps to promote awareness of global surveillance on February 11, 2014. That date is chosen to coincide with similar actions being taken by organizations such as Mozilla, Reddit, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Feedback from editors of this article would be greatly appreciated. Please come join us as we brainstorm, polish, and present this proposal to the Wikipedia Community. --HectorMoffet (talk) 12:56, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Why does China care if websites are anti Japan? Do they?

Hello originally the lead of the article said " The escalation of the government's effort to neutralize critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution, anti-corruption protests, "

I took out the part about anti-Japanese because the source didn't say that, it isn't mentioned anywhere else in the article and it didn't make sense, I think someone meant to say anti-Chinese protests? The article does say that all thru out, that china is censoring anti-china websites and posts. Popish Plot (talk) 20:59, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

The section "technical implementation" shouldn't have "Main article: Golden Shield Project". It should be "Main article: Great Firewall of China"

Golden Shield Project (GSP) and Great Firewall of China (GFW) are completely different. GFW is only about internet censorship in China, but GSP includes security management information system, criminal information system, exit and entry administration information system, supervisor information system and traffic management information system. GSP also includes Bureau of Public Information and Network Security Supervision (公共信息网络安全监察局, or 网监局 for short) , which may possibly be GFW. As a result, GFW may possibly be one of the sub-projects of GSP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.38.6.56 (talk) 03:14, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Tool for checking which websites are blocked

You can use http://www.greatfirewall.biz to verify whether a certain website is currently blocked in mainland China.

No longer works, try http://www.blockedinchina.net instead. CouldThatBe (talk) 21:56, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 external links on Internet censorship in China. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 02:09, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Allegations against Cisco

Reuters reported this week that a lawsuit has been filed in a California federal court alleging that "Cisco and its executives designed and implemented [the Golden Shield] surveillance system for the Chinese Communist Party, knowing it would be used to root out members of the Falun Gong religion and subject them to detention, forced labor and torture." Apparently the suit further alleges that some 5,000 Falun Gong followers have been wrongfully imprisoned, tortured, or killed with the help of technology provided by Cisco. This seems quite notable, but I'm wondering where it might best belong on this page. Thoughts? Homunculus (duihua) 04:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Partly done. Cisco's involvement in the sale of equipment and technology to China is mentioned in the Enforcement section of this article and also in the Censorship in China section of the Cisco Systems article. But neither article mentions the lawsuit. I think the Cisco Systems article is the better place to mention this. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 03:13, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Before anyone gets all righteous about Falun Gong, let me explain that they were ... not exactly popular, but at least somewhat respected within China.

And then they burned their own children at Tiananmen. That was it. They have *zero* credibility within China now. None, nada, no, zip, zilch. Public opinion did a 180 to back the government at that point. (Been liivng in China for the past twenty years), feel free to geoip me. 210.22.142.82 (talk) 14:15, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia.org blocked 2015

Since four days ago wikipedia.org has been blocked by the great wall. On the 26:th is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/05/22/wikipedia-disturbed-over-fresh-china-censorship/ CouldThatBe (talk) 22:02, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

It was ? I keep reading this stuff, but since I seem to be posting to Wikipedia and use it on a daily basis, it seems odd that I have not noticed this. Strange.

(A lot of the stuff in this article is horse feathers, but oh well, not worth the time to fight with all you guys on the Outside who "know" all about China.)

Oh yeah. I use gmail, too. Three accounts' worth. From behind the gfw. Without a vpn. But don't tell anyone. 210.22.142.82 (talk) 14:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Will somebody please reconcile the second sentence with the first and the third?

"Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. There are no specific laws or regulations which the censorship follows. In accordance with these laws, more than sixty Internet regulations have been made by the People's Republic of China (PRC) government..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.125.49.20 (talk) 03:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. This seems to have been fixed a long time ago (not by me). --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 02:42, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Probably should have left it the way it was :D

There are no "laws" in China - not as we understand "law", anyhow. It would be more correct to think of them as 'regulations'. Plus these regulations are written so badly that they are essentially meaningless. Contracts commonly say "Everyone should do their best to solve the problem ..." what the heck does that mean ? The words are so imprecise in all this stuff that you can make them mean whatever you want. The result is that the bureau in charge can pretty much do whatever they want and claim it is "according to the regulations."

Before someone beats me up, I don't think this is on purpose. The society is so biased towards "harmonious" appearances that the very concept of a law which is not flexible doesn't exist. So what you end up with is no law, really, just a bunch of regulations that can (and do) change with the wind. It's a cultural thing. 210.22.142.82 (talk) 14:38, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Friday??????

In the Under Enforcement -> Use of service providers section, the article states: "In July 2007, the city of Xiamen announced it would ban anonymous online postings after text messages and online communications were used to rally protests against a proposed chemical plant in the city. Internet users will be required to provide proof of identity when posting messages on the more than 100,000 Web sites registered in Xiamen.[33] The Chinese government issued new rules on Friday requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the authorities." (Boldface added by me.) The ambiguous use of the word Friday confuses me. Does that mean this last Friday (which would be December 16), and so have to be changed on the 23rd; or does it mean the Friday directly following Xiamen's previously mentioned announcement, which is of indeterminate date given the information provided in the article. I don't know what date it was, so I can't fix it except with "soon afterwards" or something to that effect, which I don't want to do because it's very nonspecific. Does anyone know what date this occurred? Thanks! A lad insane Channel 2 17:48, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

It's December 28, 2012. In fact, that's just a regulation until China passed a controversial internet security law on November 7, 2016. --逆襲的天邪鬼 (talk) 19:03, 18 December 2016 (UTC).

Thanks. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 17:50, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Reference 104 may has a error.

Looks like reference 104 has a error. ShadowYC (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

When will it stop?

Add a section mentioning experts opinions of when all this blocking of major websites nonsense will stop. Jidanni (talk) 09:41, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Not done. I don't think the "experts" or anyone else really knows if or when the blocking of major websties will end. If anyone knows of a reliable secondary source for that information, let us know. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 02:31, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

You are right. ShadowYC (talk) 04:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Source

SMITH, Craig S. (March 31, 2017), The New York Times vs. the ‘Great Firewall’ of China

Yug (talk) 11:02, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 external links on Internet censorship in China. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:09, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of blacklisted keywords in China

List of blacklisted keywords in China was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of blacklisted keywords in China. Cunard (talk) 04:57, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

scope vs. Great firewall of China

Any objections if I move the technical software details about how the censorship is implemented to the more specific Great firewall of China? Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:49, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Lede statement non encyclopedic: The apparatus of China's Internet control ... more advanced than in any other country in the world

Although cited to CNN which does indeed say "The apparatus of China's Internet control is considered more extensive and more advanced than in any other country in the world.", I would question this on factual accuracy. It should be prefaced by something like "according to CNN" or some such, not just stated as objective encyclopedic truth.

North Korea's censorship is far more restrictive than China. And rather advanced with a custom built browser. And most people don't have access to it at all. Internet in North Korea.

And there are much fewer alternative news sources also than in China. Can't use mobile phones to other countries. Only one TV channel a few hours a day in the evening. Only one newspaper.

On North Korea:

"In 2006, Julien Pain, head of the Internet Desk at Reporters Without Borders, described North Korea as the world's worst Internet black hole,^[1] in its list of the top 13 Internet enemies.^[2]"

It might also be worth mentioning North Korea and doing a comparison.

Censorship in North Korea#Internet

Internet in North Korea

As an immediate quick fix I will edit the lede to add "according to CNN". But it probably needs expanding a little. Any suggestions? Robert Walker (talk) 07:10, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Deleting a sentence in the lead section

The consensus is to keep the sentence but move it from the lead to the body of the article.
Cunard (talk) 01:07, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Since May 2015, Chinese Wikipedia has been blocked in mainland China.[12][13][14][15] This was done after Wikipedia started to use HTTPS encryption which made selective censorship more difficult." I think it is unnecessary to keep and should be deleted because highlight Wikipedia is contrary to the statement that China has censored many websites and contents (Wikipedia already refered enough realiable source to prove this) and the sentence looks like China ONLY censored Wikipedia or ONLY actions to censor Wikipedia is special. Also, we have a page to talk about censorship of Wikipedia. Mariogoods (talk) 10:58, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Move Move the lede sentence to Targeted content subsection.Manabimasu (talk) 14:18, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
Agree with Manabimasu. --NikkeKatski [Elite] (talk) 14:26, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Move - I don't see anything inherently wrong with that sentence within a larger article about Chinese Internet censorship, but agree that it'd probably be better to move it out of the lede, so as to avoid undue weight to a more self-referential aspect. -2003:CA:8734:99D:59C1:F5C4:6A73:61BE (talk) 09:57, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
Move - Agree with above posters, the sentence shouldn't be deleted as much a moved to the main body of the article, where it wouldn't lead to the sort of confusion that you mention. PraiseVivec (talk) 13:21, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
MoveI also agree that it should be moved.--Zhangpeiyao (talk) 08:12, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Move JonRichfield (talk) 08:01, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
Move People who read Wikipedia will probably wonder how Chinas' censorship affects it, so the sentence is probably inevitable. Otherwise, I partially agree with Mariogoods in that it really isn't special enough to put in the lead. (Summoned by bot) I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding {{U|I dream of horses}} to your message (talk to me) (My edits) @ 00:29, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

History Sub-header

I suggest there should be a history sub-header. Reading about the history of the Internet Censorship in China would be pretty interesting and would really contribute to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NomJay007 (talk • contribs) 20:04, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

^ "The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea". The New York Times. October 23, 2006.
^ "List of the 13 Internet enemies". Reporters Without Borders. Archived from the original on January 2, 2008. Retrieved January 9, 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[1] Decision of the Standing Committee of NPC Regarding the Safeguarding of Internet Security , Adopted on December 28, 2000 by the 19 Session of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress

[2] "China's 'Internet Police' Targets Collective Action". NPR. 8 August 2012.

[3] ttp://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-26/opinions/35498777_1_chinese-officials-fight-corruption-bo-xilai

[4] "The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea". The New York Times. October 23, 2006.

[List_of_the_13_Internet_enemies-5] "List of the 13 Internet enemies". Reporters Without Borders. Archived from the original on January 2, 2008. Retrieved January 9, 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

[1]

[2]

[3]

[1]

[2]