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  • In 2000, President Bill Clinton said China’s attempts at internet censorship werelike

  • trying to nail Jell-O to the wall”. But actually, China’s authoritarian government

  • has proven very adept at censoring the internet and other media. So what do they restrict?

  • Well, anything that questions or threatens the ruling Communist Party of China, including

  • any political, religious, and cultural information. This applies to free speech, state and foreign

  • media, in print and online. Internet search results for terms likedemocracy”, “revolt”,

  • orstudent strikeare allegedly blocked. Even information about politically-charged

  • events likeTiananmen Squareis restricted because it shows a side of history that the

  • government wants to suppress.

  • Chinese internet doesn’t look like the rest of the world’s internet. It’s more like

  • a closed-off bubble where only state-run websites and a few heavily-censored foreign sites are

  • allowed to operate. Facebook and Twitter aren’t allowed in China, because of their alleged

  • ability tospread rumors”. Western news websites like the New York Times and the Wall

  • Street Journal have also been blocked for their reports mentioning Chinese officials.

  • Even Google search is currently blocked in China, after struggling with their censorship

  • rules for years. Additionally, all pornography has been illegal since 1949, including online.

  • China has nine government censorship agencies, employing a reported 2 Million people as of

  • 2013. Programs which block IP addresses, reset connections, and filter web addresses are

  • part of an overarching blockade referred to as theGolden Shield”, or, “the great

  • firewall of China”. The system works so well because, unlike American websites with

  • Internet providers all over the country, Chinese websites have a few majorbottleneck

  • points, which the government can switch on and off at will.

  • News agencies are required to report only state-approved news. And any reporter who

  • covers a breaking story WITHOUT getting that approval, can lose their journalist license,

  • and even go to prison. International books and movies are also edited before being released

  • to the public. In a recent James Bond movie, violence towards Chinese people and suggestions

  • of government corruption were removed.

  • Although censorship in China has largely prevailed, there are some signs that this will change

  • as opposition grows. A prominent Chinese dissident and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner denounced

  • China’s censorship policies on a global stage. Recent student protests in Hong Kong

  • also illustrate some of the youth’s disillusionment with their government. Microblogs, which are

  • a cross between twitter and blogs, have become popular places for them to voice covert discontent.

  • And with the number of China’s online users ballooning from around 20 million in the 2000,

  • to more than 600 million in 2013, China’s “net of censorshipis reportedly feeling

  • the strain.

  • Freedom of the press in the United States isn’t really as free as you might think

  • either. You can learn all about it in our video hereor if you want to learn about

  • what free speech really means in the country, take a look at the video from AJ+ below. Thank

  • you for watching TestTube! You should be sure you subscribe to get all of our latest!

In 2000, President Bill Clinton said China’s attempts at internet censorship werelike

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