Tens of thousands of web sites now blocked in China

THE BERKMAN CENTER for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School reports today that it has updated its information on Web sites inaccessible from mainland China.

According to the report, over 200,000 web sites in all were tested. Some are blocked on a regular basis, some intermittently, but the report said over 50,000 of the 204,012 that were tested were inaccessible "from at least one point in China on at least one occasion".

This chart shows the proportion of sites that are blocked, with Tibetan and Taiwanese sites right at the very top of the list, followed closely by equality, democracy china, dissident China, Taiwan, and Revolution.

The sites include government, non-governmental organisations, educational institutes, and sites devoted to health, entertainment and political content, the report said.

The report said that the Internet Society of China, which is connected with the Chinese government, has contacted internet service providers and content creators to sign a pledge. That pledge is on this page, and prohibits "disseminating pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability", in its list of 31 articles.

Sites blocked from mainland China include abc.com, Altavista, Amnesty International USA, the Center for Anti-Communism, the Nando Times, CBS, the little and somewhat harmless town of Chichester here in Blighty, Taiwan's Chiang Kai Shek airport, the Happy Hacker, Interhit Records Online, the Los Angeles Times, The Learning Channel, Sourceforge.net, the Tibetan Incense Company and the Washington Post. Harvard's highlight list is here.

The BBC, the Philadelphia Inquirer and 42 other news sites are regularly blocked. Reuters has been blocked.

The report said: "We conclude that China does indeed block a range of web content beyond that which is sexually explicit. For example, we found blocking of thousands of sites offering information about news, health, education, and entertainment, as well as some 3,284 sites from Taiwan. A look at the list beyond sexually explicit content yields insight into the particular areas the Chinese government appears to find most sensitive."

If you flit through the report, linked below, you'll see it has some data on how Saudi Arabia filters web sites, as well. µ

See Also
Updated Harvard Law School report
Chinese government blocks Web sites like Amnesty, the BBC
Amnesty says two Chinese Internet users were executed