Internet Censorship in China

In an effort to make new friends and increase traffic to her movie reviews website, my wife spent the weekend visiting similar blogs by mainland Chinese citizens. Some of the reviews sites are of surprisingly high quality, and it’s good to see that some Chinese at least have access to an impressively diverse selection of films, much more so than is available in Malaysia I think.

However, when some of the Chinese expressed an interest in reading more of my wife’s reviews, we discovered that they couldn’t. At first we thought that it was because internet connections to sites outside China were restricted by the schools of some of the Chinese, but we later discovered that it was a more general problem. Apparently, none of the Chinese who wanted to visit my wife’s blog could do so.

After some googling, I discovered this list of notable websites blocked in China on Wikipedia. This confirms that the hosting company I use, BlueHost, is banned. More shockingly, just about every free blog website seems to be banned too, including Blogspot, WordPress.com, LiveJournal and Xanga. Even Wikipedia, which is about as neutral a source of information as you can get since anyone can edit anything on it, is banned, as is the Project Gutenberg, which is simply a website to make available for free books that have passed out of copyright.

Most of us know of what is colloquially known as the Great Firewall of China, but this is the first time that I’ve run into it personally, and for me, this rams home the vast scale of the censorship being carried out. As a libertarian, I believe in high levels of personal freedom for everyone everywhere but many Malaysians that I know tend to excuse such dictatorial practices in China as an acceptable price to pay for social stability and prosperity, or at least turn a blind eye to it.

But the truth is that no society can ever really be stable and peaceful until its leaders are enlightened enough and mature enough to allow criticism against them, even if they disagree with the criticisms. This is true for China and it is true for Malaysia as well.

6 thoughts on “Internet Censorship in China”

  1. Ow. Okay.
    I did not know much about this.
    Now I know.

    Anyway, regarding our big brother China’s rigid Internet censorship thingie, I believe it is a required evildoing?

    It is there to stay, unless there is a change of governing power in mainland China.

    The truth is, most mofos are idiots thus very likely to be influenced by what they read and see, especially the various readable, viewable thingies in Cyberspace.

    Hmm… Just WTP am I saying anyway?

  2. This amounts to the paternalism argument that people essentially need to be protected from themselves, which is true only for children. It is, and has always been, only an excuse for an elite minority to wield power over the majority.

  3. Deimos,
    What makes you think that Chinese are stupid?
    They are just the same as you & me.

    And who got the right to say people aren’t smart enough to judge for themself for what they read?
    Chinese government is just afraid to let Chinese get information of what the government is lying.

    Frankly speaking, will you feel angry if Malaysia government thinks that you are not smart enough, & will be influenced by the violence elements in PC games(for example Gears of World), & decided to ban PC games?
    We are adults, not children who need protection.
    We can be responsible for what we choose to do & what to believe in.

  4. Eh, shan, chill, I never ever mentioned that “Chinese are stupid?” all right? 😉

    Well, if something that happens, I will choose not be angry, for “Anger is punishing oneself for the fault of others” so why get angry? 🙂

    To be honest, I don’t feel comfy with the idea of a 6 years old child playing violent video games, unless that particular 6 years old child has a developed and matured mind of a truly matured adult.

    Aiya, why “attack” me lar? :p
    What did I say earlier? -_-

    Cheers! 😀

  5. Deimos,
    That’s exactly what I meant: children should be protected, but not adult.

    And sorry if you think I’m too harsh.
    I just said what I want to say.
    Your opinion is very common among Malaysians, it should not be encouraged.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *