Be glad this isn't Google...

[Xing]

Does it Laowai?
Because when I was in China... that must be 2 years ago though, I could easily access Wikipedia, and I searched tank man just for fun, nothing was blocked.

So unless my aunt somehow managed to bug up her ISP...

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Also...
I don't quite know for you guys, but I know a bunch of Chinese in China, and they didn't seemed bothered really by searching democracy and freedom... unless of course they are students and must do an essay on western democracy or something of the like... *chuckle*

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[Weedalot]

lol, that was scary and funny at the same time

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♠ Because we can ♠

[Laowai]

Does it Laowai?
Because when I was in China... that must be 2 years ago though, I could easily access Wikipedia, and I searched tank man just for fun, nothing was blocked.

So unless my aunt somehow managed to bug up her ISP...

Mate, why would i make that stuff up? I lived in Beijing for three years.

China's internet policy isn't uniform, its done by province and city and not across the whole nation, so its quite common to find something blocked in one part of the country but unblocked in another. My friends in Shanghai could access a lot more material than i could in Beijing - we couldn't figure out why other than the fact that perhaps Shanghai is a little more international and thus the censors there aren't as rigid, their net tended to be faster as well.
Wikipedia was almost always blocked in Beijing, except for occasional periods where it would be mysteriously unblocked, then it would get blocked again. BBC news was blocked for nearly the entire 3 years i was in Beijing, probably because they ran a news story about Taiwan, Tibet or 1989 that the central government didn't like, Porn was blocked as well... though sometimes... very late at night we did notice that it became unblocked.... for a brief window of time;)perhaps someone at the local Golden Shield office was bored or lonely working back late:)- haha dunno. It was all very random at times.

It all became suddenly unblocked during the Olympics - where only the students for free tibet or whatever its called was blocked, but everything else was open... until right at the end of the paralympics... literally the day after it ended, it all got blocked again.

Hong Kong was different again:)i liked Hong Kong, the internet was fast!




The fact that people don't "want" to search for democracy or freedom (which in my experience isn't entirely true in china) isn't the point, its the fact that you can't. What annoys me about censorship, and it drove me up the wall in China... was that people are being treated like Children, "freedom" being that most aspired for human condition is almost universal an idea among humanity; and you cant even Google the word because a government feels threatened by it? Come on... thats 2 things 1(paranoid and 2) extremely Childish.

This is not just a Chinese issue here btw.... this happens in various forms in many countries. One thing i will say about China is that you KNOW they do it... in western countries i think a lot of the times its more devious and underhanded.

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http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3289/...047770.png

[Monk]

Yui Fei, from what I understand the censorship has grown over time as technologies to control visibility have grown. I only have second hand knowledge but I think the censorship has grown significantly...Just recently YouTube was blocked from Chinese internet for some video of Tibetan Monks being beaten by soldiers. Whether the video was real or not doesn't matter, blocking YouTube is some extreme censorship in my eyes.

[Sarawr!?]

This is not just a Chinese issue here btw.... this happens in various forms in many countries. One thing i will say about China is that you KNOW they do it... in western countries i think a lot of the times its more devious and underhanded.

Amen to that, that's very true and it's part of what I don't like about alot of Western Governments, including the US government, they might be censoring stuff on the internet, and you wouldn't even know it, atleast with an up front totalitarian state, or a dictatorship, you -Know- what you're getting.

Not like in the Western Countries, they let you pretend to have freedoms and such while they quietly toil away in the background to take away your rights.

so..Kudos to China for being honest?

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[LN] Recruitment | Rachel Baker Bio