Blogging in China
Friday, August 24, 2007
The evolution of Web 2.0 is interesting to track in the West, but it is sometimes even more fascinating to learn about how countries like China, which does not support free speech, fine-tune advancements to align with their censorship. During the past couple of days, stories have surfaced on blogging in China. Obviously, the anonymity available to bloggers is a threat to communist societies and so the Chinese government has "recommended" that bloggers not only refrain from posting "bad" material, but also register under their legal names with providers of blogging technology. Among these providers are companies like Yahoo and Microsoft, who have agreed to the stipulations. Of course, these "recommendations" are nothing short of laws, and are probably enough to deter most bloggers from posting ill thoughts on their government. But this censorship is nothing new. The information exchange on the Internet in China is not only limited through blog content, but also through blocking specific sites. For example, if you type "Tiananmen Square" into Google in China, you will not see any links associated with the 1989 protests. Instead, you will find tourist information and neutral historical references. Though this is outrageous from our American perspective, this technological feat is impressive. After all, in terms of population, China is the largest country in the world and the second largest, after the U.S., for Internet users. Some condemn Google and the like for cooperating with Chinese officials to accomplish this task. However, one has to consider what it would mean if Google would refuse. Would it lead the Chinese government to reconsider its policies? Perhaps. But most likely, it would lead them to find other companies willing to perform the task, making for poorer access to all the unrestricted information online. Labels: blog, Google, Internet, Web 2.0
posted by Gina Bolotinsky
0 comments
Post a Comment
0 Comments:
Home
 |
