[privacy] Blocked China Web users rage against Great Firewall

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSPEK21813920070619?feedType=RS
S&rpc=22&sp=true

Blocked China Web users rage against Great Firewall

Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:24AM EDT
 
BEIJING (Reuters) - Yang Zhou is no cyberdissident, but recent curbs on his
Web surfing habits by China's censors have him fomenting discontent about
China's "Great Firewall".
Yang's fury erupted a few days ago when he found he could not browse his
friend's holiday snaps on Flickr.com, due to access restrictions by censors
after images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were posted on the
photo-sharing Web site."

"Once you've complained all you can to your friends, what more can you do?
What else is there but anger and disillusionment?" Yang said after venting
his anger with friends at a hot-pot restaurant in Beijing.

The blocking of Flickr is the latest casualty of China's ongoing battle to
control its sprawling Internet. Wikipedia, and a raft of other popular Web
sites, discussion boards and blogs have already fallen victim to the
country's censors.

China employs a complex system of filters and an army of tens of thousands
of human monitors to survey the country's 140 million Internet users'
surfing habits and surgically clip sensitive content from in front of their
eyes.

Its stability-obsessed government says the surveillance machinery, commonly
known as the "Great Firewall", is necessary to let Internet users enjoy a
"healthy" online environment and build a "harmonious" society.

Yang just thinks it's a pain.

"I just want to look at some photos! What's wrong with that?" said the
24-year-old accountant, typical of millions of young urban-dwelling
professionals who are increasingly aware of and fed up with state intrusions
into their private life.

Privacy, once regarded with suspicion in pre-reform China, has become a
sought-after commodity among China's burgeoning middle class, according to
Nicholas Bequelin from Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch.

...

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