Friday, January 11, 2013

Global Reach of Chinese Censorship

Tech in Asia reported that 'sensitive phrases' such as the name of the newspaper having an issue with the Guangdong Provincial Propaganda Department Southern Weekend were being filtered on global scale by WeChat, aka. Weixin, the No. 1 popular messaging app in the world. Weixin is a cross-platform product by Chinese company Tensent (HKG: 0700).

According to Tech in Asia's tests, messages containing the phrase were blocked not only inside China, but also when both ends of communications were outside China.

A couple of days back in the height of the New Capital Daily incident, it was reported that Internet cops work in the operation room of Sina Weibo (Twitter like micro-blog). Major Internet service providers have permanent offices for Internet cops. However, it's rare for them to directly work at terminals in the operation rooms.

Taiwan's Ma Ying-Jeou administration suffered collateral damage when the opposition Party questioned his policy to boost ties to the regime on mainland.

Although the idea of a unified China roots deeply in culture, tradition and people's hearts, the former Chairwoman of the pro-independent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Ms. Tsai Ing-wen enjoys great popularity among Chinese online communities. Chinese people on mainland were amazed when they watched Ms. Tsai gave a graceful conceding speech after she lost to incumbent pro-mainland President Mr. Ma. This time, Chinese were pleased to hear Ms. Tsai stated unwavering support to the demand of a free press. Many said the mainland should not destroy the great political system that Taiwanese people were lucky to live in.

Hong Kong's leadership, Mr. CY Leung who is hand-picked by the central government, is also facing a set back as pro-democracy groups in the legislature launched a symbolic impeach process.

China built mega data warehouses, aimed to win global cloud service contracts. It's unclear how western companies and individuals feel if they know their documents were stored and processed inside China boundary.

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