Asiana21

GOOGLE CHINA: INSIDE THE FIREWALL, INFORMATION IS IN SHORT SUPPLY
Internet giant's move likely to put spotlight on methods Beijing uses to block content that is hosted overseas

Tania Branigan

The Guardian, March 23, 2010

Google's announcement in January that it was no longer willing to remove sensitive material from search results highlighted the issue of China's domestic internet controls.

But its decision last night to shift its Chinese-language service to servers in Hong Kong looks likely to put the spotlight on the methods Beijing uses to block content that is hosted overseas.

The censorship system works because it is twofold: it consists of controls on the content posted inside the country, and the "great firewall", which prevents mainland users from reading material hosted overseas.

While Google may have stopped censoring its results thanks to its move to Hong Kong, the Chinese government has not.

That is why, using google.com.hk from the mainland last night, searches for "Tiananmen student movement" in Chinese and "89 student movement" in English brought no results – just a message that is all too familiar to internet users in China: "The connection was reset."

In the last year, censors in Beijing have shut down thousands of domestic sites and blocked more of those hosted abroad. Social media appear to have been a particular target – YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and various blog platforms have fallen foul of the censors.

The great firewall is implemented by internet police in three ways. The first two are common tactics: blacklisting domain names and IP addresses, for example those belonging to groups such as Amnesty International. These methods are used by many countries around the world.

(...) [artículo aquí]