Censorship – Changing patterns

 

Over the past few weeks the way how the internet is being filtered has changed greatly. I have not yet a sensible explanation for it, so for the time being, I would limit myself to share with you my observations. Logic has never been a strong point in the way how these systems work, but the changing patterns are of course reason to pay a bit more attention to those systems.

I do differ greatly with in my assessment of those filters with others who see China as the empire of evil. The internet has contributed greatly to both prosperity and the freedom of speech in this country. There is a lot of room for improvement, too many things go not like they should, but we also should not be overdoing the importance of those internet barriers. I think they are a nuisance, not really effective, although they do have an effect. I see them more as a political signal of what is happening, than really as a barrier, since it is fairly easy to go around them. Not everybody does agree with this assessment.

What I noticed is that the problems with blocks seems to be must more a problem at night and in the weekend. In the past you were blocked or not blocked, without those differences in the time when problems would occur. Traffic being stopped like this weekend include the blogger interface, the famous online encyclopedia wikipedia, and some of the international chat programs like ICQ and Yahoo. But at the same time, I would have similar problems in getting access to the online editions of Dutch newspapers and a site like www.weather.com or other perfectly innocent sites. Other chat programs have no problem at all, it is only a nuisance my online friends have to use different programs at the same time.

Again: this is what I see is happening; it does not yet make sense to me.