Cracks in the Great Firewall of China

In a victory over censorship, China has relaxed requirements on the use of an Internet filtering software called “Green Dam Youth Escort,” now making the use of the “parental control” software optional in new computers.

Chinese attempts to control online content, earning the nickname “The Great Firewall of China,” are getting a lot harder in a country that now has 298 million users, the world’s most. Lawsuits challenging censorship from Chinese citizens have also been on the rise. Even with this latest decision, China continues to have in place some of the world’s strictest laws governing Internet content. Website operators, for example, are required to delete any content that could be deemed subversive and several search engines and websites, including an array of foreign media, are completely unreachable for most Chinese Internet users.

Chinese officials assert that the Green Dam software only blocks sites with violence and pornography, but critics say it also blocks assorted other content, even infiltrating hard drives and text editors to block the use of politically charged words, such as “Falun Gong,” a spiritual group banned in China. Among other content it blocks, critics say, are images of cartoon characters, and even images of pigs because the software is said to not discern the difference between the animals and naked people.