Latest Golden Shield Project Stories
Deleted Messages Include Terms Ranging From "Falun Gong" to "Iodized Salt" Researchers in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science analyzed millions of Chinese microblogs, or "weibos," to uncover a set of politically sensitive terms that draw the attention of Chinese censors. Individual messages containing the terms were often deleted at rates that could vary based on current events or geography. The study is the first large-scale analysis of political content censorship...
A Chinese government official was quoted by state media as saying on Monday that the number of Internet users in China hit 477 million at the end of March. The Xinhua news agency reported that the official from the Telecommunications Administration Bureau announced the figure at a meeting in Beijing. The number of people using the Internet in China hit 457 million at the end of 2010, which shows a third of its 1.3 billion population is online. China is already the world's largest...
According to official figures released Thursday, China's Internet population has grown to 420 million. The figure marks an increase of 36 million since the number of users was last tested in 2009. The latest numbers were released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a government-linked industry body, and reflect data gathered through the end of June. The report said that among the factors helping to drive the latest increase was a 31 percent jump in the number of...
Google changed tack in China on Tuesday in order to address government complaints about its attempt to evade censorship, as it vied to get its business license renewed in the country. The Internet search giant said it would stop automatically redirecting mainland Chinese users to an unfiltered site in Hong Kong, which is a process it started in March in response to censorship and cyberattacks it claims derived from China. "It's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government...
On Tuesday, China defended its action taken to censor the Internet, saying it needed to do so in order to ensure state security. China's statement on the matter comes after a very public dispute with Google over web freedoms, which prompted the U.S firm to shut down its Chinese search engines. China "advocates the exertion of technical means" in line with existing laws and international norms "to prevent and curb the harmful effects of illegal information on state security, the...
State media reported Saturday that the number of Internet users in China has surpassed 400 million and accounts for about a third of the country's population. The official Xinhua news agency said, citing the State Council Information Office, that the online population in the world's most populous nation has reached 404 million. That is compared to the 384 million users at the end of 2009. The report said that users who access the Internet with mobile phones was steady at 233 million...
Internet structures facilitate China's surveillance of its citizens, experts sayA study by communication researchers at the University at Buffalo confirms what was made evident by the very public Google-Chinese government dispute over Internet censorship: the fact that China's cyberculture is changing and growing rapidly is no harbinger of political freedom and open speech in that country."Discourse Behind the Forbidden Realm: Internet surveillance and its implications on China's...
Already in the midst of a censorship battle with China, Google now finds itself embroiled in a free speech controversy with Vietnam, according to Thursday media reports.Washington Post staff writer Cecilia Kang is reporting that on March 30, "Internet hackers hit Vietnamese-speaking computer users in an attempt to squelch criticism of a controversial Chinese-backed mining project in Vietnam, according to Google. And foreign journalists covering China and Taiwan reported that their Yahoo...
China has responded to Google's Monday decision to offer uncensored content to more than 300-million Internet users in the country by instituting their own measures to block search results on hot-button issues such as the pro-democracy movement, the Associated Press (AP) is reporting.The search engine giant announced on Monday that they were going to cease filtering content in China and redirect users of their .cn website to their Hong Kong page, where there are no such censorship...
A spokesperson for the Chinese government warned Google to obey the country's laws, even if it should decide to shut down its .cn website, as the Menlo Park, California search engine technology provider gained a new ally in its fight against censorship in the Asian nation."On entering the Chinese market in 2007, it clearly stated that it would respect Chinese law," Ministry of Commerce spokesman Yao Jian told reporters in response to a question regarding the ongoing Google issue....
