Blocked websites in China

[Tigryto]

China has developed sophisticated systems to control internet access. A group of almost 30,000 people have been trained to identify "dangerous" websites to block them. They are known as the Great Firewall of China. This website from the Netherlands allows to know if a website has been blocked. An example:

No. Our JUB has not been blocked

 

[Boogerqueesha]

Yeah, it sounds pretty bad, but all the college students in China just use proxy servers, and sites like firewalldown.com, to get to whatever page they want. I'd imagine the firewall is only effective for poorer people, who get all their internet in little chunks, from internet bars.

They censor text messages, too. If you send a message with 'falun gong' in it, it wont reach the recipient, lol. You also get kicked off the internet if you type it in, even in instant messenger.

I'm getting tired of all this anti-China press. They're painted as some evil, rights-smashing giant, but if you go there yourself, you'll see that it's a miracle that they can handle so many fucking people. Theres such a huge population, at such huge rates of change, that every action (or lack thereof) taken by the government could have catastrophic results- believe me, you don't want that. The world's economy would take a huge hit.

 

[luminum]

China still has a huge ways to go. I always hope, but...

 

[shea]

Take a look at what they are doing to Tibet. A beautiful
religious country that all but dissappeared from the earth.
The world has allowed this the USA has let this happen .
Poor China my ****. Pick a real hero
Shea

 

[slobone]

Yeah, it sounds pretty bad, but all the college students in China just use proxy servers, and sites like firewalldown.com, to get to whatever page they want. I'd imagine the firewall is only effective for poorer people, who get all their internet in little chunks, from internet bars.

They censor text messages, too. If you send a message with 'falun gong' in it, it wont reach the recipient, lol. You also get kicked off the internet if you type it in, even in instant messenger.

I'm getting tired of all this anti-China press. They're painted as some evil, rights-smashing giant, but if you go there yourself, you'll see that it's a miracle that they can handle so many fucking people. Theres such a huge population, at such huge rates of change, that every action (or lack thereof) taken by the government could have catastrophic results- believe me, you don't want that. The world's economy would take a huge hit.

Gimme a break dept. What the hell does falun gong have to do with the world economy?

I think you've bought into the official Chinese line that they need an authoritarian system to prevent chaos.

The reality is that they're in a period of (very prolonged) transition from a totalitarian dictatorship to (hopefully) a system with the same amount of economic and political freedom as the West. In the meantime, they've got a little bit of each, with a lot of corruption thrown in, of course.

Which in practice means they've abandoned state-guaranteed health care for the rural poor (a few hundred million people) while the top government officials line their pockets with the takings from global trade.

Yes, they've come a long way, and I applaud them for that, but I don't see any reason to whitewash their continued suppression of free speech and a free press.

 

[belamy]

Take a look at what they are doing to Tibet. A beautiful
religious country that all but dissappeared from the earth.(...)

Yeah, like the Spain of Franco I´m aware it´s not comparable, but there are also A FEW STUPID sites that are not accesible from China because it´s the target country, for example the US, that blocks your access to them from their side: I know that because it happened to me while in China... of course, things may have changed in three years POOR TIBET MY ASS!!!!! I´m not crying for the Lama because he got an even more ruthlessly despotic power than the Lamaist regime kicking his own ass.

 

[cellular]

I dont think what china is doing is right at all. There is no way to justify a restriction of free webspace and information. Its not right for a goverment to determine what information their population can be exposed to or not.

 

[belamy]

I dont think what china is doing is right at all. There is no way to justify a restriction of free webspace and information. Its not right for a goverment to determine what information their population can be exposed to or not.

Please, every government has that power. In the Western world we don´t have anything similar to the situation in which Da KKKommunist Party is placed endangering its own survival, but we may feel the need to do so, only in a less obvious way: the Western world doesn´t formally block, it´s enough to use labels like traitor, conspirationist, wacko, pervert, liar... Chinese people expose their bodies and lives, we expose our credibilities and reputations... call it evolutionary sophistication if you want.

 

[secondmonkey]

I'm getting tired of all this anti-China press. They're painted as some evil, rights-smashing giant

That's because they are.

 

[star-warrior]

Anyway.... So they block sites that they deem unsuitable. Think of it China's form of NetNanny, CyberPatrol, Cybersitter, SurfControl or Safesurf.

The difference is, once you've passed 18 in your own home countries, you can access porn, violence, bomb making recipes, terrorist enabling and training information etc, whilst in China, they don't allow anyone to view any of the stuff which has 'free' in the title, webpage, or whatever. I'm sure there's plenty of other crap available to read and watch though. I don't know why you folks are so het up about something that doesn't affect you.

As for freedoms, yeah, any big country is gonna have a section of society which is anti-social, like the killers, the gun toting youths, the drug taking teens, the gangs, the school shootings. Whilst you won't hear much about it in China, as its mostly hushed up, people talk, and news gets around. It might not be on the state sponsored tv networks, but things do get around, internet or no.

 

[star-warrior]

Please, every government has that power. In the Western world we don´t have anything similar to the situation in which Da KKKommunist Party is placed endangering its own survival, but we may feel the need to do so, only in a less obvious way: the Western world doesn´t formally block, it´s enough to use labels like traitor, conspirationist, wacko, pervert, liar... Chinese people expose their bodies and lives, we expose our credibilities and reputations... call it evolutionary sophistication if you want.

Americans should not forget their age of Macarthyism too. What was once 'commies' is now being replaced by 'terrorists'. It's too bad you can't see the same old policies trotted out, soon, they'll be asking you all to turn snitch on your neighbours like the former East Germany.

 

[belamy]

That's because they are.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/oliphant/oa048.jpg

 

[belamy]

Anyway.... So they block sites that they deem unsuitable. Think of it China's form of NetNanny, CyberPatrol, Cybersitter, SurfControl or Safesurf.

The difference is, once you've passed 18 in your own home countries, you can access porn, violence, bomb making recipes, terrorist enabling and training information etc, whilst in China, they don't allow anyone to view any of the stuff which has 'free' in the title, webpage, or whatever. I'm sure there's plenty of other crap available to read and watch though. I don't know why you folks are so het up about something that doesn't affect you.

As for freedoms, yeah, any big country is gonna have a section of society which is anti-social, like the killers, the gun toting youths, the drug taking teens, the gangs, the school shootings. Whilst you won't hear much about it in China, as its mostly hushed up, people talk, and news gets around. It might not be on the state sponsored tv networks, but things do get around, internet or no.

That´s right, there is a huge "free" China fighting its way every day that all those Western freedom prudes don´t know of, maybe because it´s not as exciting to watch on the news as a live car chase... or maybe it´s that they don´t want to know about it because it´s more comfortable to believe that if you are not a citizen of the USA you must be wrong or evil in some way.

They will say to you: "Oh, but at least, here you are allowed to speak: that would not happen in China!!"; like I said in my previous post, freedom of speech gets from sacred to folkloric when it is not allowed to be challenging: freedom of speech is not just about being able to speak but about there being people to be actually willing to listen to you... it´s not an individual right, it only makes sense applied to the individual related to, inside a whole community.

 

[star-warrior]

That's because they are.

Well, you really ought to visit China, and see the place back packing. My sister did, and she found it enlightening. At the local level, with real people, you find they're all living their lives eeking out a living much the same way as you folks where you are. The government is now less repressive than it used to be in the early days of Mao's regime. We can be thankful for that at least.

 

[star-warrior]

That´s right, there is a huge "free" China fighting its way every day that all those freedom prudes don´t know of... or don´t want to know

As someone else has said, people can overcome the firewall if they understand the right technological approach. Why not questions what rights you've lost since this war on terror or in the last 10 years?

 

[shea]

Yeah, like the Spain of Franco I´m aware it´s not comparable, but there are also A FEW STUPID sites that are not accesible from China because it´s the target country, for example the US, that blocks your access to them from their side: I know that because it happened to me while in China... of course, things may have changed in three years POOR TIBET MY ASS!!!!! I´m not crying for the Lama because he got an even more ruthlessly despotic power than the Lamaist regime kicking his own ass.

^^^ What planet are you from ??
Do you have any human traits at all.? Millions of people have died in
Tibet since 1959 and you find that laughable.

 

[ronboy]

I just checked JUB, and it is available in China!

Cool!

 

[belamy]

^^^ What planet are you from ??
Do you have any human traits at all.? Millions of people have died in
Tibet since 1959 and you find that laughable.

Millions (more than the whole actual population at the time)!!! butchered (not just repressed, beaten... they must have been killed to be proper martyrs)!!! I know from what planet are the humanoids of your kind... and I knew where I was entering when I decided to post in this thread... It´s YOU and your kind that I find laughable.

It´s easy to imagine bullying and despotic attitudes as restricted to a invader or an ideologically wrong entity, but how many people in the USA think of the black people killed in their country after the civil war for being just black as casualties of a conflict inside their country? Of the homosexual, of women for not pissing through a penis? Of so many other people?

 

[belamy]

That typical Western attitude of preaching about democracy from their privileged acquired position: what would they know about fighting for democracy when they are not part of the minorities oppressed in a democracy, or about those who are nominally devils of an evil country even when many of those devils live more according to the values those tartuffes preach from the highness of their holy Western convictions.
Freedom and decency are not given with the right to a particular passport.

 

[Rule-Of-Thirds]

China is not nearly as stringent on blocking websites as everyone thinks. When I was working over there a few months ago I'd check JUB and plenty of other gay sites each morning before I went to work. I had no problems for the most part. Sometimes certain pages wouldn't load but it wasn't a constant thing.