What we talk about is that some Chinese individuals are singled out by the Chinese state but for my part all those years I could never verify in China any case of censure. At the same time when in the Western media it was seriously reported that some words are forbidden in China I had on the main pages in the PRC several comments full of exactly the so-called banned list of words. During the month of march 2006 PRC

yes, its bs The Great Chinese Censorship Hoax The Chinese media is laughing and jeering bi-lingually at how the Western media took the bait when two prominent Chinese bloggers staged a censorship hoax, making it look like they had been shut down. It's important to note, however, that Western reporters weren't the only ones who believed that Massage Milk and Milk Pig really had been shut down by their ISP's. Chinese people believed it too. Global Voices contributor Frank Dai, a respected member of the Chinese blogosphere, believed they had really been shut down. As did a number of other Chinese bloggers. One should also note that the first English-language report about the blockage was by long-time Beijing resident Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei... but he and Roland Soong of ESWN were also fastest to report the hoax. The Western mainstream media had only just begun to report the censorship story and took a couple days to correct itself, while the blogosphere due to its flexible nature corrected itself almost immediately. As Massage Milk author Wang Xiaofeng told Interfax: "I just wanted to make fun of Western journalists? [content] doesn't need to be serious on the Internet. I don't like it that Western media take a distorted view of China, though China does have problems," Wang told Interfax in an emailed statement, "I thought that if I closed my blog, it would stir their imagination and then they would begin blah blah. It really is as expected. So let's they have an April Fool's day in advance." Bingfeng, who thinks those of us who think censorship is a problem are all out to lunch, took Danwei's Jeremy to task for taking the bait, saying he should have known better. Jeremy's response: When it comes to China itself, this writer has often commented that the censorship issue is less important than many other problems in China. Nonetheless, I believe that Bingfeng himself would agree that as long as there are significant restrictions on public debate in China, censorship will remain a hot button issue. While most Chinese people may not care about these things, Westerners will generally see such restrictions as evidence of a political and intellectual culture that is still, at some level, driven by fear. Are we wrong Bingfeng? Jeremy has also pointed out recently that some media are going perhaps a bit overboard about the political implications of blogs in China. He points out: "It seems that very, very few people are blogging for revolution or radical change in China." I agree. Blogs are not going to bring down the CCP, and it's absolutely true that Chinese bloggers are frustrated by the focus on censorship to the exclusion of much else that's very exciting about the Chinese blogopshere. As it so happens I've been working on a book chapter about this very subject. I think that the existence of censorship does shape the nature of discourse in the Chinese blogosphere but there are a lot of other things going on that need to be better understood if one is going to understand the nature and long-term impact of the Chinese blogosphere. Here's my conclusion: ...if one combines the growing online space for private civic discourse provided by blogs with a functionally effective system of censorship and filtering, the result appears to be a recipe for very gradual, slow evolution - not democratic revolution. Outside observers of Internet and politics in China would do well to focus on the impact of blogs beyond the narrow scope of overt political protest and obvious political change. Most Western media attention focuses on those instances where bloggers clash with government censors or the web hosting companies who act as proxies for government censors. But to look only at these instances of conflict is to miss a great deal of what is really happening, much more quietly, under the surface. Powerful socio-political change can be expected to emerge as a result of the millions of online conversations taking place daily on the Chinese Internet: conversations that manage to stay comfortably within the confines of censorship. With each passing day, these conversations do their quiet part to move the collective Chinese mind yet another step further from government control. It's part of an edited volume about blogs and politics and the editing process is taking forever - as it does with books. But I think it's time to share my latest draft. Click here to download the PDF. It was last revised a couple of weeks ago so it doesn't include the absolute latest-latest developments, but with academic books you have to cut off the updating at some point or the thing never gets out. With that caveat, I welcome feedback and suggestions. 02:46:00 AM in Censorship, China | Permalink

I think the Chinese Government will have its way in this and Google will have to operate under their terms. It will be a pity if it pulls out entirely because of this. Google still has a vital role to play even if slightly compromised, as they might think now. There are still huge, permissible web areas where much can be done. So they should do it. I guess that many Chinese web users would miss Google if it left.

Also, perhaps most importantly, Google's determined to stay its course in China, even in the face of adversity, or so Google's CEO recently inferred. --------------- Ben,I think you meant "implied" not "inferred.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are subverting freedom of expression by abetting censorship in China, Amnesty...

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are subverting freedom of expression by abetting censorship in China, Amnesty...

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are subverting freedom of expression by abetting censorship in China, Amnesty...

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are subverting freedom of expression by abetting censorship in China, Amnesty...

Google's continuing difficulties in Brazil highlight the difficulties facing the search and advertising giant as its applications are adopted in countries abroad, which enforce differing sets of legal standards.

Google's continuing difficulties in Brazil highlight the difficulties facing the search and advertising giant as its applications are adopted in countries abroad, which enforce differing sets of legal standards.

Google's continuing difficulties in Brazil highlight the difficulties facing the search and advertising giant as its applications are adopted in countries abroad, which enforce differing sets of legal standards.

Google's continuing difficulties in Brazil highlight the difficulties facing the search and advertising giant as its applications are adopted in countries abroad, which enforce differing sets of legal standards.