China
From Wiki4dev
Wikipedia and China: "The Chinese have recently been allowed to enjoy the <a href="http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%96%E9%A1%B5">Chinese version of Wikipedia</a> now that the ban has been lifted. And the result is an <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116355788891123450-tqM_m9_qDsL5EWEFgW4o6zHBSIQ_20061214.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top">explosion in use</a> after being banned for a year. From the article, "Activity on nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation's Chinese Wikipedia site has skyrocketed since its release, which Internet users in China first started reporting on Nov. 10. Since then, the number of new users registering to contribute to the site has exceeded 1,200 a day, up from an average of 300 to 400 prior to the unblocking. The number of new articles posted daily has increased 75% from the week before, with the total now surpassing 100,000, according to the foundation." No one's sure how long this will be available to the People's Republic of China but hopefully the government will recognize that at least a significant part of the populace enjoys a Wikipedia community."
- This report documents how extensive corporate and private sector cooperation � including by some of the world�s major Internet companies � enables a system of internet censorship in China, popularly known as the Great Firewall. The report illustrates how various companies, including Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, and Skype block terms they believe the Chinese government will want them to censor. Yahoo! has handed over user information on four Chinese government critics to the Chinese authorities, resulting in their trial and conviction. Yahoo!�s Chinese search engine is heavily censored. Yahoo! censors its Chinese-language search engine to a very similar degree as domestic Chinese Internet companies and much more heavily than MSN and Google. Only in late July 2006 Yahoo! China added a notice at the bottom of its search engine informing users of censorship. Microsoft: Microsoft came under criticism from the press and bloggers around the world for censoring words such as �democracy� and �freedom� in the titles of its Chinese blogs, at the request of the Chinese government. Microsoft has made efforts in recent months to revise its practices and minimise censorship of Chinese bloggers, although the extent to which censorship has been lessened across the board remains unclear. Google : Google.cn does provide notice to users when search results have been censored but provides no further details. The company announced that it would not provide email or blog-hosting services in China, at least for now, in order to avoid being pressured to cooperate with Chinese police in handing over user data as in the case of Yahoo!, and to avoid having to directly censor user-created content as in the case of MSN Spaces. Skype censors sensitive words in text chats, and has justified this as in keeping with local �best practices� and Chinese law. However Skype does not inform Chinese users of the specific details of its censorship policies, and does not inform them that their software contains censorship capabilities. The report does not agree that the choice for companies is to either continue current practices or to leave China. Rather, companies can and should make ethical choices about what specific products and services they will provide to the Chinese people��and the manner in which they are provided��without playing a pro-active role in censorship or collaborating in repression.
