Censorship

What is Censorship? Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons -- individuals, groups or government officials -- find objectionable or dangerous. Censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove from public access information they judge inappropriate or dangerous, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it. The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.

In China, many people have never heard of Facebook, even though people use the Internet every day. Although the overseas student knows the Facebook but we cannot access it in China because the Facebook is censored. Not only the Facebook but there are kinds of information or software was censored by the Chinese government.

The Internet penetration in China is not as great as it is in Europe or North America. China's Internet penetration was at 31 percent compared to 77 percent of the U.S., according to Internet World Stats. Still, there are a lot of people in China has no chance the touch the computer. The high Internet penetration rate is just in big cities; some residents rarely visit the Web and were not familiar with its censorship.

Although China has the world's largest Internet population, at 457 million users, the country also strictly censors the Web. The government blocks websites that have content deemed inappropriate or too politically sensitive. Popular U.S. sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have all been targeted by censors and are currently inaccessible from within the country.

There's a lot of information we have no way of gaining access to. We don't really know what's going on. Web censorship is part of China's control over information flow, including the news and television.

Some people in China may say they support China's Internet censorship because it helps maintain a stable society. Someone think that if uneducated people or people with extreme views may abuse the information on the Web to try and influence others.

I think a lot of people don't know about the censorship. I think they just feel this is the reality. If you've never gone abroad, you might not know what the world is really like.