Porn Filter in China Creates Concerns
June 21, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
China is about to make sure each of the computers sold in their country contains a porn filter. The United States government and other governments and organizations around the world are concerned about the porn filter, according to a recent report on Bloomberg.com.
The concerns about the porn filter, which is called “Green Dam – Youth Escort”, are many. First of all, the software that filters the porn is allegedly poorly developed. Additionally, the filter could unfairly restrict internet access to legitimate websites.
Said the U.S. Embassy in the Chinese city of Beijing according to Bloomberg.com: “The U.S. Government is concerned about Green Dam both in terms of its potential impact on trade and the serious technical issues raised by use of the software.”
The porn filter will reportedly become standard in China within the next month. In addition to pornography, the filter will likely also block access to websites containing information on controversial topics the Chinese government wants to hide — including the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989.
It’ll be interesting to see if international pressure could make China alter or delay their plans of this porn filter. If not, there will be a close eye kept on the porn filter software to see what else it is filtering besides pornography.
Porn in China will soon be filtered (Image: Flickr)
Mr. Kersey, there was never a mandate to force installation of this software. According to the original 5/19 MIIT announement, the software is to bundle on hard drive or CD-ROM.
There may have been confusion over the term “preinstall/bundle”, but both MIIT and the software maker have clarified this point as early as 6/10, that what is distributed is the setup file, and users are not required to install or run Green Dam (IMHO unfortunately ignored by the media at large, who seem to have opted for sensationalism):
a) http://www.taizhou.gov.cn/art/2009/6/10/art_76_36883.html
据新华社电 昨日，工信部有关负责人说
According to Xinhua wire yesterday [6/09], relevant MIIT leader said
…
这位负责人还表示，“绿坝”产品的有效识别率超过90%。考虑到不同层次用户的实际情况，“绿坝”软件运行环境对计算机配置要求低于目前市场主流产品，***并可由用户自行选择安装与否***，同时对用户上网行为不进行任何监控，也不搜集任何用户信息。
The ***end user can freely choose to install or not*** quote from MIIT offical is emphasized.
b) http://www.hngybz.gov.cn/news2.aspx?hyid=82644
绿坝预装只提供安装文件 用户可决定是否安装 – Green Dam “bundle/preinstall” only provide installation articles, end users decide install or not
工信部要求预装进电脑的只是一个软件安装文件，所以用户可以选择是否把它装进自己的电脑里让他运行 – MIIT asks “bundle/preinstall” on computer is only the installation, so end users can choose wheither to execute it to install on their own computer
c) http://news.qq.com/a/20090610/000087.htm
“工信部：上网过滤软件不监控网民 不强制安装”
MIIT: Online Filtering Sowftware Will Not Monitor Citizen, Will Not Force Installation (quote from software maker on MIIT mandate)