C is for Censorship
C could also be for China, the greatest censor of the Internet in the world, after Australia.[1]
The Internet is censored. You don’t have to live in China or Australia to know that there are parts of the Internet you can’t reach. Ask anyone who deals in dodgy sites.[2]
Most sites are blocked in one of two ways, either by taking them off the Net, in which case they’ll just re-locate to another server, or by blocking them at the ISP level, which just requires a proxy server to route around.
A third way, more insidious way is to remove them from the listings at the major search engines – Google, Yahoo, Windows Live etc. – if you can’t find the sites in the first place, how can you can visit them?
And this is the dirty little secret that Google and Yahoo try to hide. In order to be allowed entry to the Chinese market they agreed to restrict their listings to government approved sites. They imposed their own form of censorship.
- North Korea doesn’t count, because the majority of the population can’t afford electricity, let alone a computer to access the Internet. It truly is an Internet Dark Spot. [↩]
- After you beat him over the head with a large stick, cut off his testicles, pull off his ears, tear out his eyes, rip out his tongue, and shove the whole lot back his throat – yes, when it comes to these bastards, I have a very graphic imagination. [↩]
Tags: censorship, lotd