China to Censor Online Porn, Possibly Basketball

Posted on Jun 8, 2009

Keith Allison

Starting July 1, every computer sold in China will come bundled with software designed to block access to pornographic sites and whatever else parents—and, critics fear, the government—want to keep at bay. As one of the software’s developers explains, “If a father doesn’t want his son to be exposed to content related to basketball or drugs, he can block all Web sites related to those things.”

AP via Google:

China is requiring personal computers sold in the country to carry software that blocks online pornography and other Web sites, potentially giving one of the world’s most sophisticated censorship regimes even more control over the Internet.

The software’s developer said Monday the tool would give parents more oversight by preventing computers from accessing sites with pornographic pictures or language. Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co., which won a government contract to develop the “Green Dam-Youth Escort” filtering software, was compiling a database of sites to block.

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