Can information be censored in this age and time of information age?
Are blogs spreading unhealthy information? Does the Internet and
moreover search engines need censorship and control? Do we need a
nanny to govern our thoughts, words and deeds?

A “yes” for all the above. “You must be joking” will be your probable
reaction. But that’s true. It’s a “yes” in this age and time from a
country that currently has 37 million Web logs and will soon be 60
million. The Information Office of the world’s second-biggest Internet
user population thinks blogs are unhealthy and it wants to play nanny.

The Land of the Dragon

China is a fascinating country. One of the earliest centers of human
civilization. Now also one of the fastest developing economies of the
world. A country that attracts one of the highest Foreign Direct
Investment from the all over the world. A country that has seen
progress and prosperity over the last few years like never before.

The progressive China, the growing China, the prosperous China also
has its share of pre-reform baggage. In this age and time the Director
of the Information Office of China’s Cabinet is reported to have
quoted “As more and more illegal and unhealthy information spreads
through the blog and search engine, we will take effective measures to
put the BBS, blog and search engine under control.”

So in the information age the Chinese information office wants to
control information.

Bend it like US Corp

The land of freedom and free will, the United States of America and
its wonder corporations aka the Microsofts and Googles of the world
have all bowed down before the Chinese govt. Just last year Google, a
company whose foundations were based on “innovation, creativity and
openness” sold itself to the Chinese diktats. They actually had the
audacity to launch an “eunuch search engine” www.google.cn An
emasculated Chinese version of the popular search engine in keeping
with demands from the Chinese government. The search engines filters
out dissident literature, websites on computer security, anything with
gay and lesbian overtones, teenage pregnancy, sites on dating and
jokes.

Yahoo, Microsoft and tens of other organizations have silently
followed the Chinese govt. orders. According to reports last December
Microsoft shut service of a Chinese customer whose blog was seen
discussing political sensitive issues.

The Great Chinese Market

China is the place of peace and prosperity today. All conflicts have
been put on the backburner and economics today rules in China. From
one of the most backward nations in the world China today is one of
the fastest developing nations in the world. To put the record
straight the Chinese Government does encourage the use of the Internet
for business and education purposes. The problem area is its hyper
sensitivity to flowing of information pertaining to political issues,
human rights and democratic ramblings.

The Chinese web presence is immense. It’s not for nothing that Yahoo,
Microsoft, Google and other companies have forfeited their values of
freedom and silently followed the Chinese government diktats. China
has 37 million Web logs, and a study by Beijing’s Tsinghua University
claims that this is set to double to 60 million this year. Another
study claims this figure is being increased by 100,000 each day.

China currently has 111 million web users. That’s the second largest
Internet user population in the world after the U.S.

Can the blog be censored?

China was one of the earliest centers of human civilization. Chinese
civilization was also one of the few to invent writing independently.
So much was the emphasis on expression in China. Today it’s a super
growing economy but in the information sense in this information age
it is still living in the past tense. Censorship of free speech has
never worked and never will. Keith Henson has advice for information
controllers “Trying to control information in the network age is
about as successful as pissing into the wind.”

Puneet Mehrotra is a web strategist at www.cyberzest.com and edits
www.thebusinessedition.com you can email him on puneet@cyberzest.com