My girlfriend is in Shanghai working right now and in every attempt to access our blog (because it is her favorite and she cannot live without it) she is blocked or prevented from seeing it. I was well aware of the Chinese government's strongarm attempts at censoring the internet, especially from all the news coverage that it recieved around the time of the Bejing Olympic Games. It was in fact my professor ,Ron Diebert and his research students at The Citizen's Lab at U of T, that really uncovered the cyber espionage network based out of China, or "The Great Firewall of China." Sounds like something straight out of a Bond film eh? To spare my fingers the pontential arthretic pain that might associate itself with the amount of typing required to give this subject its due respect, I'll just copy-and-paste a few links to people who actually did the work.
Dangerous terms like Human Rights (gasp!), Tibet (Eeeek!), Tiananmen Square (Uh Oh!), Falun Gong (Geez, now ya did it!) and others, set off alarms to the covert Chinese watch dogs who block any attempts at further discussing or reading about such subjects. Even free speech community sites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are blocked and cannot be accessed in China. AND neither can internet porn! Thats where I just draw the line! What good is the internet - what purpose does it serve in society- if one can't get off on something that tickles their fancy, like the Disclosure Project, FEMA Camps, 9/11 conspiracies, Codex Alimentarius and 18 year old's getting naked for the first time on camera! How dare they take that away from us - or the Chinese people, but I say us because we are all in this together right? BUT.....DONT WORRY, because, as in most Communist states, the black market thrives! So now, one can easily acquire illegal software programs for your computer that can hack through these firewalls so you can still access the almighty Book of Faces! (and Kate's Playground) Thank God! Take THAT you Commie Bastards!
Anyways, apparently our blog, or perhaps any blogs attached to the blogger.com network are NO NO's for Chinese internet surfers, which makes this issue personal for me! I am exercising my freedom by posting on my blog, but apparently my freedom to do so is a matter of sheer circumstance which until now I took for granted. But no more, in fact, my new goal for this blog is to help entice the Chinese people to liberate themselves from this Communist firewall and experience the pleasures of freedom. And I'll start with this little diddy right here:
Come and get it!
Surf's Up Dudes!
Hah babe, nice pic.
ReplyDeleteI know this chick, she is a real sweetheart.
Showing me around Shanghai all the interesting places where supression and communism ends and freedom, liberation and individualism begins!!!