The Great Firewall Of China

May 2008
China has the most sophisticated censorship and internet surveillance in the world. But despite this autocratic control some guerrilla bloggers are still managing to get their message through.
"The Government always wants to try to act as the cat to control people's access to information but I think the mouse is running faster." This is the voice of Isaac Mao, he was one of China's earliest bloggers, and has learnt how to work the system. "The Chinese government's goal is not to control one hundred percent of what people are doing one hundred percent of the time," if they are too authoritarian, they will be faced with civil unrest. As CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon points out, "to remain in power they want to prevent certain uses of the internet that might lead to overthrow." Journalists like Zhang Shihe work the gaps in the censorship to broadcast their message, " I rely on my instinct. Am I telling the truth or lies? Am I trying to help improve the situation? I know if I can control this, I'll be fine." He regularly films and comments on rural working conditions, and has as yet avoided jail. But his story is not typical. With about 30 known journalists and 50 internet users known to be behind bars, the Committee to Protect Journalists has branded China "the world's leading jailer of journalists."

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• China
• Internet
• Firewall
• Government
• Blog
• Yahoo
• Prison
• Censorship
• Journeyman
• Pictures
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman
• journeyman pictures

[theyeti101101]

In Communist China, internet searches you!

[forgottenmemories63]

[Comment removed by the Chinese Government]

[FashionistoIRE]

Looks like with SOPA America isn't far off.

[derek19062]

I am Hong Kongnese!

[PositivelyCurious]

Thanks for posting this video. I found it very informative, It helps me begin looking into the censorship issues further. Very curious about the olympics and environment now

[klm4298]

@dogycover Proxy sites.

[klm4298]

@nbm34 Haha you clicked on the site.

[nbm34]

@klm4298 YOU WANT TO SUCK JESUS's cock if your site is anything to go by you fucking retard. ADAM if thats your name. THE FIRST DICKHEAD of MANKIND an appropriate name for you, YOU SCUMBAG.

[shadowspsp]

@dogycover of course it's not working. proxy servers, VPN ... etc. work perfectly 

[forinner]

@MrSieish yahoo is founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo, both stanford university grads back in 1994. Yang is chinese and the proto-Yahoo! was started in a Stanford University campus trailer in the US. you're way off mark. it's like you're dropping the atomic bomb in the wrong country.

[giriisindahouse]

@cexpistol2 well let's look at the world in 30 years and see what happens to US and Europe.

[cexpistol2]

@giriisindahouse that is horseshit. Human rights isn't about getting in the way of hard work it's about the people of a country actually being able to regulate what the government does (which in some cases prevents corruption which is apparently rife in china) Furthermore countries with good human rights records like Sweden or a variety of other countries often also have good economic records. So I'm saying you're wrong basically