That would be the Great Firewall of China to those of you not in the know.
Curious thing about Hong Kong, although supposedly sovereign Chinese territory, it exists independently with a gloriously uncensored Internet. For a week I enjoyed unfettered access to all that is good and subversive on the Web, access which I promptly ignored in favor of actually enjoying Hong Kong and all the other delights it offers, mainly shopping and food. (More on that this week.)
Now I am back in Linyi, back behind the GFW, desperately wishing I could catch up on all the blogspot and wordpress blogs I love so much. My Google Reader account for reading RSS feeds won’t even work and that was my secret weapon. Oh well, this is life.
Not all is doomsday in the Chinese Internet world, however. I know I harp often on the topic of Internet censorship, it is an important issue to me, but I have to share news of bright spots in Chinese Internet policy. On the flight from Guangzhou to Linyi, I read in the China Daily, China’s English language propaganda newspaper, about a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology who was ordered to shut down his personal website after he wrote criticisms of corporate bribery. His Internet service provider deemed his posts to be “illegal content.” The professor took the case to court and the judge actually ruled in his favor, finding that “writing critically about issues does not constitute ‘illegal’ action.” (Chen Weihua, China Daily 2009/05/30-31 Read the entire article here.) Hallelujah.
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