This is an article I find disturbing.
The Chinese government is moving to control what can be seen on the internet by installing all new computers with filters. The ministry of Industry and Information Technology is asking computer manufacturers to install blocking software that comes from a military based company. The program Green Dam is designed to filter out pornography and anti-revolutionary materials. The additional program Youth Escort filters out rude words ( I wonder what they consider rude?). Starting July 1 all PC's will be sold with the software included. Lenovo a company that bought IBM and encompasses 26% of the market will be using the software. The chinese market is the second largest behind the US.
After reading this I was immediately concerned with how this will effect the US, will China influence the US? What about the computers that are made by China to ship to the US? The software is made by the military, do the people of China see this as a problem?
The article goes on to say the millions of Chinese want the software and have requested the purchase of the CD's. It is troubling to see a country take such extreme measures measures. China has already blocked hotmail, twitter and many more, because it fears that there could be a protest. This whole situation is scary, they control what you can view and then they take away the rights of voicing your opinions. How do their libraries handle this? How does this effect their researching? The government is determining what "they" feel should be filtered out. How can they monitor this?
Well...isn't China a communist country? This is communism at its best. They can do whatever they want I guess. I would hate to live in a country that suppresses us anymore than they do now. I did some research on a man named David Irving, who is now in prison in Austria for writing a book about denying the holocaust. He is in jail! That does not happen in the US and I would be upset if it did. Most countries do not have intellectual freedom or freedom of speech. I love when I hear people bash America.. Go to Europe and see where your opinions get you.
ReplyDeleteI hope the US does not dare try to do that to us. I will lose it and the company would lose some money. Our government is not suppose to work that way. I think it can influence the US just because we have a lot of trade with China. It is definitely horrible.
Hi Sue,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some great points like how is this going to affect the computers that are sold here. Will this hurt our economy even more ? I definitely makes me happy that our government would not support this and it makes me grateful to be an American !
Thanks,
Jennifer
Will all Chinese be required at some point to have this filtering? Can they still use a computer without it?
ReplyDelete