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Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China is conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations. In accordance with these laws, more than sixty Internet regulations have been made by the People's Republic Of China (PRC) government, and censorship systems are vigorously implemented by provincial branches of state-owned ISP s, business companies, and organizations.1 Chinese Laws and Regulations Regarding Internet The Special Administrative Region s of Hong Kong and Macau have their own Legal systems, so censorship does not apply there. The escalation of the government's effort to neutralise critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution and anti-corruption protests, many of which were organised or publicised using instant messaging services, chatrooms and text messages. Although the existence of an , Bulletin Boards , Blogs , Vlogs or any major portals such as Sohu and Sina are usually erased within minutes. ENFORCEMENT The banning appears to be mostly uncoordinated and ad-hoc, with some sites being blocked and similar sites being allowed or even blocked in one city and allowed in another.for an example, see Blocking Of Wikipedia In Mainland China The blocks have been often lifted for special occasions. One example was the '' New York Times '' which was unblocked when reporters in a private interview with Jiang Zemin specifically asked about the block and he replied that he would look into the matter. During the APEC summit in Shanghai during 2001, normally-blocked media sources such as CNN , NBC , and the '' Washington Post '' suddenly became accessible. Since 2001, the content controls have been further relaxed on a permanent basis, and all three of the sites previously mentioned are now accessible from mainland China. In fact, most foreign news organizations' web sites are accessible, though a small number (including BBC News ) continue to be blocked. Mainland China agencies frequently issue regulations about the Internet, but these are often not enforced or are ignored. One major problem in enforcement is determining who has jurisdiction over the Internet, causing many bureaucratic turf battles within the PRC government among various ministries and between central and local officials. The State Council Information Office has the mandate to regulate the Internet, but other security agencies in mainland China have a say as well. Some legal scholars have pointed out that the frequency at which the PRC government issues new regulations on the Internet is a symptom of their ineffectiveness because the new regulations never make reference to the previous set of regulations, which appear to have been forgotten. GOLDEN SHIELD PROJECT See Also: Golden Shield Project The Golden Shield Project (; ) is owned by Ministry Of Public Security Of The People's Republic Of China (MPS). It started in 1998, began the process in November of 2003, and the first part of the project passed the national inspection on November 16, 2006 in Beijing . According to MPS, it is to construct a communication network and computer information system for police to improve their capability and efficiency. According to China Central Television (CCTV), up to 2002, the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project cost US$800 million (equivalent to RMB 6,400 million or €640 million). 金盾工程前期耗8亿美元 建全国性监视系统 It may be known outside Mainland China as the Great Firewall of China (in reference both to its role as a Network Firewall and to the ancient Great Wall Of China ). The system blocks content by preventing IP Address es from being routed through and consists of standard firewall and Proxy Server s at the Internet Gateway s. The system also selectively engages in DNS Poisoning when particular sites are requested. The government does not appear to be systematically examining Internet content, as this appears to be technically impractical.3 Technical information Some commonly used methods for censoring content are: Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China .
Censored content Research into mainland Chinese Internet Censorship has shown that censored websites include:
Blocked websites are indexed to a lesser degree, if at all, by some Chinese Search Engines , such as Baidu and Google China . This sometimes has considerable impact on search results.5 According to a Harvard study, at least 18,000 websites are blocked from within mainland China.6 |
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