China puts Green Dam Internet filter on hold: Delay or climbdown?
Officially China has indefinitely postponed the launch of the much-maligned Green Dam Youth Escort Internet filter. But the decision appears to be motivated by practical needs rather than principles.
The state news agency Xinhua broke the news in abrupt fashion, simply noting, “China will delay the mandatory installation of the ‘Green Dam-Youth Escort’ filtering software on new computers.” It didn’t give any reasons for the delay. However, there are plenty of possible explanations.
For example, the delay may well be seen as a victory among members of Anonymous, the group best known for cyberattacks against Scientology Web sites. The group had threatened a “full-scale global attack on all censorship systems” controlled by the Chinese government, starting from today. Given that the attacks which led to a jail sentence for once Anonymous member in the Scientology case were described as “in the middle of attack sizes”, it’s questionable how substantial an attack on the Chinese government actually would have been, or how seriously officials would have taken the threat.
The move also followed substantial diplomatic pressure from governments including that of the United States. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke had said China put U.S. manufacturers in an “untenable” position.
There had also been some mocking of the automated porn filter feature of the software, which appears to work by attempting to detect extensive areas of exposed flesh. Independent tests showed the technology to be remarkably flawed including blocking an image of cartoon cat Garfield.
Overseas manufacturers had also objected to the plans, with both Dell and Hewlett Packard reported to be planning protests through the World Trade Organization. As well as the moral objections, firms were also said to be concerned at being linked to the potential security risk of the software.
However, while critics of the plan will be hoping the Chinese government has had a change of ideology, there’s a good chance the original launch date was simply untenable. CNN notes that several Chinese electronics retailers had not yet added the software to their ranges, either because they hadn’t had time, or simply didn’t know about the scheme.
Whether that’s the cause of a necessary delay to bringing in the filter, or simply a face-saving excuse to drop the whole idea, remains to be seen.
Related Posts:
July 2nd, 2009
You’ve got most of the details right except for one: This isn’t the works of the Western based Anonymous that was responsible to the Scientology protests, but an Eastern one that was apparently inspired by the Western’s method of operation. You may want to investigate further.
July 2nd, 2009
All news reports on this came with a Western bias and were, in the main, from the spin doctors in computer companies. So either there was a complete misunderstanding or, just possibly, the United States computer makers had a hidden agenda.
In China the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at the very beginning said: ‘The notice to PC makers and sellers does not mean that the software’s installation as part of users’ operating systems is mandatory. Instead, the software package should be installed on either the hard drives or a compact disc with the computers.’
MIIT spokesman Liu Lihua reaffirmed this and said the software could be switched off and uninstalled by computer users.
If this is correct, and it has been said several times, it is possible much of the fuss, which originated in the United States, may have been caused for reasons other than freedom of speech.