Comments on: WTF?! Why Is Our Website Censored in China?

By: niels a

niels a — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:24:32 +0000

An interesting read on this topic:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10608655

By: Hervé Maas

Hervé Maas — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:39:36 +0000

http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org, 403: Forbidden hahahahah
Thats just awsome!

By: Daan Jansonius

Daan Jansonius — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:38:11 +0000

Thanks for the explanation Marc, interesting insight!

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:31:57 +0000

@Igor
Correct, more and more people are learning English, and this will certainly lead to more usage of foreign sites. But never as much as Europeans use US sites. The Chinese have their own sites for everything, so there is no real need to go to US sites.

The censoring will likely get less over time anyway. It is used as a tool to keep a ‘harmonious society’, but I wonder if anything would change if they would just give access to all sites. Young people here don’t really care about politics, they are happy with their lives, and don’t feel like they are missing out on anything.

By: Igor Beuker

Igor Beuker — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:44:04 +0000

@ Marc & Daan

Isn’t the Chinese government sponsoring/investing in teens to help them learn English? Will that drive more chinese teens towards foreign websites coming years more often?

It seems in South Korea/China/Russia that Internet has brought an opening to get out of the censoring every now and then?

Cheers

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:38:28 +0000

Sure it’s ridiculous, but that does not mean that many people care about it. All the information they want to have is available to them, it’s not that they don’t know what’s happening outside China (which is what the foreign media are still trying to tell, but that changed 10-20 yrs ago). Therefore the comparison with airplanes etc. is not right. China basically has its own internet that not many people from abroad visit (because it’s all in Chinese), and therefore most people in China do not visit sites outside China. This has nothing to do with censorship, as the foreign media try to let us believe, but it’s because they prefer their own sites. Just like the Dutch mainly read Dutch newspaper sites and nu.nl, instead of the NYTimes.

By: Daan Jansonius

Daan Jansonius — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:28:29 +0000

But it is completely ridiculous you should have to get used to that!

People didn’t miss airplanes when they didn’t exist either, or cars, or electricity….

By: Marc

Marc — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 04:31:28 +0000

Don’t believe everything your read Igor. I am reading your website from China (without a proxy), and there is no problem whatsoever. It is true that China regularly blocks access to certain sites, but people outside China actually care more about it than the Chinese themselves. Over 95% of all Chinese never visits foreign sites, and the remaining 5% uses a proxy in case a site is blocked. Once you are used to that it’s no big deal.

By the way, the news about LiveJournal that you are referring to was from March last year already, not from last Friday.