China denies web controls

THEE CHINESE government has attacked statements by Reporters Without Borders that it is one of the 13 worst internet censors.

China was named by the pressure group alongside Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam as the world worst censors of the web.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesperson said that the censorship claims were groundless. Apparently the Chinese enjoy free access to the Internet and have all the information they can eat. This means that the Chinese get far more information than before the introduction of the Internet, the spokesperson said.

This would be news to most Internet punters in China. The web in that country has an extensive surveillance and filtering system to prevent Chinese from accessing material considered obscene or politically subversive.

But China's excuse is that like other countries it is simply monitoring the web to prevent criminal activities. This is exactly what happens in all other countries including the US and Blighty.

Perhaps at issue are differences in what other countries deem illegal. It is a crime to disagree with the government in China, which makes a bit of a difference.

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