Amnesty International just launched Irrespressible.info

On the website it reads, "Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for simply posting and sharing information. The Internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights." The Irrespressible campaign is a collaboration between Amnesty and The Observer that brings these concerns to the newsstands.

This "campaign [will] show that online or offline the human voice and human rights are impossible to repress."
<http://irrepressible.info/>

But, I wonder if a society that allows Internet communication is necessarily more democratic.

Net communication is harder to control than mass media but China, for example, "sanitizes" its Internet through proxies and its Great Firewall quite efficiently. CNN, human rights organizations, Taiwan or Tibet-related sites, and BBC News are often unavailable to those without technical knowledge.

It'll be interesting to see if Irrepressible¹'s campaigns will have an impact on China and on Google, Yahoo, Skype, and Microsoft who put business over human rights. Or, is a censored Google search engine better than none (as somebody living in China recently told me)?

<http://www.whak.com/off/?218>
<http://www.whak.com/off/?217>

Beyond market calculations it is pertinent to consider how new media can affect civic life. The networked public sphere can empower NGOs and grass roots organizations by connecting them to international activist networks but also by interconnecting geographically dispersed Chinese activists with same topical focus. But, where are these "scenes of empowerment" (Chun)? One thing is clear: these conversations are not merely about technology, or the Internet; the networked public sphere impacts the future of civil society at large.

Most of you are probably familiar with the comparison of image search results for "Tiananmen" between Google China and Google's homebrew.

Google China:
<http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananmen>

Google US:
<http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen>.


China, to be sure, is not alone with its repressive rule. Also Vietnam enforces censorship. In addition, Yochai Benkler reports that Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) has only one Internet Service Provider and the government runs that. It needs to authorize anybody who wants to create a webpage within the country. This, in turn, keeps much business out of the country but apparently the government is willing to pay that price.

<http://thanhniennews.com/society/?catid=3&newsid=7878>

What follows is a list that I compiled over the past few months. It consists of news items, essays, and references (not in chronological order) relating to China and the debate about control.

-Trebor

Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China by Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/>

The Chinese mainland has 111 million netizens.
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/28/content_524792.htm>

A letter on one of China's most popular Internet bulletin boards, from a husband denouncing a student he suspected of carrying on an affair with his wife started a mob.
<http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/31/business/chinet.php>

China has more than 30 million bloggers, a few are political.
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5250144>

Chinese authorities detained filmmaker and blogger Wan Tu.
<http://ethanzuckerman.com/haowu/>

The China Blog List (CBL) is a collection of links to English language weblogs focused on China, many of them are written by foreigners.
<http://www.chinabloglist.org/>

Google's decision to launch a censored version of its search engine in China has drawn opprobrium from many bloggers around the world.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4650158.stm>

PEOPLE in China are now able to verify others¹ ID cards by using short messaging services or through the Internet.
<http://www.shanghaidaily.com/press/2006/02/10/is-your-id-card-genuine/>

The more than 100 million people are online in China and most domestic users are prevented from accessing the main Google.com search engine.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5055170.stm>

In 2005, the number of webpages in China jumped 269 per cent to a total of 2.4bn.
<http://www.digitalmediaasia.com/default.asp?ArticleID=15436>

China's Internet media calls for self-discipline.
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/25/content_524006.htm>

China has now become the second largest exporter of "visual arts," accounting for 19% of world exports...
<http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=167>

China to Regulate Email Servers. It made it illegal to run an email server without a license.
<http://www.whak.com/off/?219>

RFID technology has arrived in China in an unprecedented manner, with over 100 million tags shipped in 2005.
<http://blogs.usatoday.com/maney/2006/03/rfid_a_technolo.html>

Model Worker awards: the best China blogs 2005
<http://www.whak.com/off/?220>

25% of blogs are written in Chinese
<http://collectivate.net/journalisms/2006/5/4/if-you-think-blogs-are-a-
fad-think-again.html>

The 'blog' revolution sweeps across China
<http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6707>