The other day an article from the popular humor sight “The Onion” popped into my news feed on Facebook. While I constantly see articles from this website the title of this one made me click in it instantly, it is called “Chinese Citizens Kind of Grateful to Not Have Access to All of Internet”. The article humorously states that they enjoy not seeing “sound-producing banner ads”,  “log[ing] into their online account to find numerous invitations to play Bubble Witch Saga”, or ” crowdfunding campaigns for friends’ indie long-form documentary projects”. Additionally, the article jokes that “Chinese authorities systematically prevent them from accessing Western news websites, noting that the same media outlets that might reference the Tienanmen Square massacre or the recent protests in Hong Kong would likely also include in-depth coverage of the latest viral wedding proposal video and mid-level celebrities’ recent style makeovers”. The quotes from above come from the link below and are not my work.

My contribution to this post comes from what I know about the actual Chinese Firewall. As referenced above and in class. the Chinese government doesn’t allow many articles which might spread the anti-regime ideals across the web. Tienanmen Square and the Umbrella riots are not found; however the use of codes that sound similar lead people to spreading the word. This has led to a balance between these code words and the government’s persistence to continue to filter the internet. A result of this as according to ABC news is that the term “oriental red space time” results in the page not found error code. This is because it used to be the code name for an online anti-censorship video that circulated across the web. The Chinese government is so persistent that one Chinese “hacktivist” who lives out of Atlanta, Georgia was attacked by Chinese men who bound him and stole his computer. No additional information has been found by the Georgia State Police or the FBI. He claims it was the Chinese, whether this is true is doubtful but possible. What we do know is that the Chinese “bottleneck” and slow the internet from these sources by limiting how fast they go through several computers. This would explain why the Whatsapp took significantly longer to reach Western servers. Additionally, citizens withing China have been jailed for noncompliance with these internet rules. Ultimately, this is a form of repression that is being fought by by both sides, and a very interesting case of a closed regime trying to maintain control. The information above inlcuding the quotes comes from ABCnews.com, written by Paul Wiseman. The article has been attatched below as well.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/chinese-citizens-kind-of-grateful-to-not-have-acce,38138/

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4707107&page=1

 

The picture comes from the Huffington post:

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/26/google-search-results-for_n_371526.html

Difference between the Western and Chinese Google search of Tienanmen Square