China Net–No News, Just Porn

The Chinese block news and soft-core sex internet sites, but let porno sites through. They also block desperately needed AIDS information. A team from Harvard Law School spent 8 months testing more than 200,000 Chinese websites and discovered that nearly 20,000 sites are inaccessible there. They tested Saudi sites last year and found almost all women’s sites were blocked, including those advertising bathing suits.

Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman found that the Chinese government blocks some general-interest sites and softer sex sites, if they have content that changes frequently, but they block only 13.4% of the most explicit porn sites. “Blocking of such sites as Playboy and Penthouse suggests a purposeful decision to restrict sexually explicit material,” they say. “Yet the well-known sites of Hustler Magazine and whitehouse.com were consistently accessible.” CNN, Time Magazine, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer and BBC News were also unavailable.

In blocking sexual material from the net, the Chinese also restrict access to sites with AIDS information, which is a real problem, since China is on the brink of an “explosive” HIV epidemic, with 10 million people who will become infected by the end of the decade, according to a recent U.N. report, click here.Read more about the Harvard team?s internet research from our August 20 story ?Saudis Censor Western Websites,click here.

One of the things we value most about the West is our access to news, and we get angry whenever it’s censored. Find out what?s really going on from reporter Linda Howe, who will be on Dreamland for 4 full hours on Saturday, Dec. 7! The show will also be available for internet listeners. She has a new edition of her important book, Mysterious Lights & Crop Circles.

NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.