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Ear to the Ground

Chinese Software Censors More Than Just Porn

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Posted on Jun 12, 2009
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Flickr/NotionsCapital.com

Investigations into China’s new anti-pornography software “Green Dam-Youth Escort,” which is to be bundled with all personal computers sold in the country, reveal that it blocks more than just porn. The new software also censors Web sites with controversial political keywords related to the Tiananmen Square military crackdown and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong.

It also makes computers vulnerable to attack and parts of its code appear to have been stolen, researchers found.

New York Times:

“Their goal is to limit the access of information, not just pornography,” said Li Fangping, a rights lawyer in Beijing who is challenging the government directive. “I feel like as a citizen, my right to know has been violated.”

Software engineers who have examined Green Dam in recent days say it is designed to do more than filter out adult content. Deep inside the program, they say, are data files with the sorts of search terms and key words the authorities use to block certain topics, including Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement, and the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

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By Sepharad, June 19 at 1:54 am #

WykydRed, was about to post when I read yours, which is what I intended to say. Also: China has a lot going for it despite its tendency to suppress dissent wherever they find it, but it’s really too populous to keep all the people in line all of the time. In fact its biggest problem is financial corruption at all levels of government as well as the government/private sector, including such basics as medical research facilities. Once enough people tumble to that, there will be great pressure for changes in the oligarch class that pretty much dominates the so-called communist government.

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By boggs, June 18 at 10:18 am #

Capitalists love China for their ideology, however China is proving to be the smarter of the Capitalists, because they have all the money and the US has none. Don’t forget that the american propaganda machine is oiled even for the people we love, like China!

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By Virginia777, June 15 at 12:37 pm #

so true, beer doctor.

I would add here, keeping today’s Chris Hedges column in mind, the propaganda war that our MSM has declared on China,

will be and is, well-remembered by the Chinese, much to our country’s detriment.

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By thebeerdoctor, June 14 at 8:00 am #

Before all this evolves into some strange Sino-American hissy fit, I would like to point out something the writer Joe Bageant noted, that China much like America is caught in its own corporate consumerist trap, complete with McDonald’s and obese “one child” per family children. Even their own management scandals, such as holding back the news on melamine contamination, so as to not disturb its positive branding, during the hosting of the Olympics. But being an overtly authoritarian corporate state, the exposed iron fist makes for a convenient propaganda background, to advocate how much better things are in the USA. At the same time, our corporate task masters simply love China, for what they see as an inexhaustible source for cheap labor, which enables them to reap huge profits from goods that cost next to nothing to produce.
China, with its huge workforce earning meager wages, also is often portrayed in American right wing media as the red pajama nightmare of John Birch Society fame. This retro-cold-war language that never goes completely out of style.
It would be better to acknowledge that China’s government, like the United States government, is chiefly concerned with population control on all levels. Ironic too that Americans of any stripe, who now feign such concern for human rights over in there in the mainland, seem to forget our own yellow peril past.

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By Virginia777, June 14 at 1:36 am #

this is no “ear to the ground” by the way, this should be in a section called: “Ear to the NED”

come on Truthdig, enough already!!

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By Virginia777, June 14 at 1:35 am #

Surprise, surprise, the New York Times publishes yet another piece bashing China - they even pull out the tired Falun Gong card, again.

see here for the truth behind their motives:

Waging Democracy On China
Human Rights and an Endowment for Democracy
Michael Barker
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker03.html

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By Sovereign_Truth, June 14 at 12:26 am #

China is a communist country.  It’s a sad day if this is the first thing that enrages Americans about the Chinese government.  Censorship and communism just go hand in hand.  Look at Stalin.  Sad, but true.

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By WykydRed, June 13 at 7:59 pm #

Well duuuuh. This is a surprise?

And before Americans get all uppity and start “demanding” freedom in China for computer users, remember when you dolts demanded the American Government go postal and remove ALL “pornography” from the internet to protect ... “The Chillllldren!” A court had to remind you dolts that you cannot remove the rights of adults with cries of protecting children because that’s a PARENT’S JOB.

Clean up your own act before demanding China and Australia remove their moralistic bullshit.

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By thebeerdoctor, June 13 at 6:38 am #

You knew this was coming. As the late Frank Zappa said: “Who are the brain police?”

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