Comments on: The dilemma presented by China’s content filtering of my current handouts website http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/ Weblog of Wesley Fryer Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:55:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Will http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/comment-page-1/#comment-102528 Will Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:40:05 +0000 http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?p=3874#comment-102528 Very interesting thoughts Jeff. The most interesting part of China and the Internet is that I think as the society and dynamic evolves and changes, naturally I believe it will get more open. Part of it is simply the dynamics of Chinese history/thinking of authoritarianism due to in part of what happened in the mid turn of the 20th century. (Wars, riots, lack of stability, etc...). The good part is that the traditional "static-memorization-testing" model is starting to get questioned as the society gets more free and open. Lots of things, some dramatic have changed since the start of reforms by Deng Xiaoping. I will have to say that as someone who has experienced both mindsets, there are both advantages and disadvantages to both. (Western and Eastern). Remember China still has a large rural population and the ruling party wants stability above all else. From a Western mindset it definitely is different and I can see both points of view. BTW, I will have to check out your book and podcast. ;-) --Will Very interesting thoughts Jeff. The most interesting part of China and the Internet is that I think as the society and dynamic evolves and changes, naturally I believe it will get more open. Part of it is simply the dynamics of Chinese history/thinking of authoritarianism due to in part of what happened in the mid turn of the 20th century. (Wars, riots, lack of stability, etc…). The good part is that the traditional “static-memorization-testing” model is starting to get questioned as the society gets more free and open. Lots of things, some dramatic have changed since the start of reforms by Deng Xiaoping. I will have to say that as someone who has experienced both mindsets, there are both advantages and disadvantages to both. (Western and Eastern). Remember China still has a large rural population and the ruling party wants stability above all else. From a Western mindset it definitely is different and I can see both points of view.

BTW, I will have to check out your book and podcast. ;-)

–Will

]]> By: Jeff Utecht http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/comment-page-1/#comment-102455 Jeff Utecht Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:12:59 +0000 http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?p=3874#comment-102455 Ah yes....the days I don't miss. :) Now....you know how frustrated you where...try living there....no try teaching there for a whole school year. I truly believe those that teach in China are some of the most innovative teachers around. Teachers that want to use tools, get excited to use tools and find out they're blocked weeks later. Visiting is difficult....living there even harder. It's only going to get worse I predict as the Chinese web space continues to grow at a rapped pace. As soon as they're are enough sites internally in China I can see them all but cutting off the access to the outside world. I mean if all your websites are in Chinese and everyone in your counties....all 1.??? Billion of them you've got years of grown ahead of you. Ah....the things I don't miss about China. :) Glad you had a great time! Ah yes….the days I don’t miss. :)

Now….you know how frustrated you where…try living there….no try teaching there for a whole school year. I truly believe those that teach in China are some of the most innovative teachers around. Teachers that want to use tools, get excited to use tools and find out they’re blocked weeks later.

Visiting is difficult….living there even harder.

It’s only going to get worse I predict as the Chinese web space continues to grow at a rapped pace. As soon as they’re are enough sites internally in China I can see them all but cutting off the access to the outside world. I mean if all your websites are in Chinese and everyone in your counties….all 1.??? Billion of them you’ve got years of grown ahead of you.

Ah….the things I don’t miss about China. :)

Glad you had a great time!

]]> By: Brian Crosby http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/comment-page-1/#comment-102208 Brian Crosby Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:20:49 +0000 http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?p=3874#comment-102208 Hi Wes - When I was in China last year my own blog (learningismessy.com/blog) was blocked ... again it was explained to me that the specific server my blog is hosted on at SiteGround is probably blocked due to a site on it that China chooses to block. I was able to get around it by using the blogging feature on Flickr to write to my blog. I couldn't see the final result until I got outside of China, but it worked well enough ... you can see that all my blog posts from there have a Flickr photo on them for that reason. Brian Hi Wes – When I was in China last year my own blog (learningismessy.com/blog) was blocked … again it was explained to me that the specific server my blog is hosted on at SiteGround is probably blocked due to a site on it that China chooses to block. I was able to get around it by using the blogging feature on Flickr to write to my blog. I couldn’t see the final result until I got outside of China, but it worked well enough … you can see that all my blog posts from there have a Flickr photo on them for that reason.
Brian

]]> By: Wesley Fryer http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/comment-page-1/#comment-102159 Wesley Fryer Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:27:51 +0000 http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?p=3874#comment-102159 Will: Thanks so much for your reply and suggestions. My blog is now hosted on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_server" rel="nofollow">VPS</a> and I think that means I have a dedicated IP, rather than a shared IP like I did when I was on a shared hosting account. As Chris confirmed above, however, the issue is with some content hosted by PBworks in this case. Yes, Hangzhou is absolutely beautiful! We're looking forward to seeing more tomorrow. Will: Thanks so much for your reply and suggestions. My blog is now hosted on a VPS and I think that means I have a dedicated IP, rather than a shared IP like I did when I was on a shared hosting account. As Chris confirmed above, however, the issue is with some content hosted by PBworks in this case.

Yes, Hangzhou is absolutely beautiful! We’re looking forward to seeing more tomorrow.

]]> By: Wesley Fryer http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/comment-page-1/#comment-102154 Wesley Fryer Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:26:19 +0000 http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?p=3874#comment-102154 Thanks Chris, I figured the reason must have something to do with groups that have protested against the Chinese government, involve Taiwan, etc. Not surprisingly, although the English WikiPedia overall is accessible/not blocked by the Chinese censors, the wiki page for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong" rel="nofollow">Falun Gong</a> IS blocked here too. I appreciate your stand for free speech, and hope the censors here will change their minds at some point. I'm not going to hold my breath, however. Thanks Chris, I figured the reason must have something to do with groups that have protested against the Chinese government, involve Taiwan, etc. Not surprisingly, although the English WikiPedia overall is accessible/not blocked by the Chinese censors, the wiki page for Falun Gong IS blocked here too.

I appreciate your stand for free speech, and hope the censors here will change their minds at some point. I’m not going to hold my breath, however.

]]> By: Will http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/comment-page-1/#comment-102153 Will Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:25:31 +0000 http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?p=3874#comment-102153 The main reason most sites get blocked in China is not due to their content but accidentally. From what I understand the Chinese gov't filters by IP address and/or domain names (DNS). A lot of the politically "sensitive" content is hosted on shared hosting servers outside of China (mostly in North America/Europe) and as anyone with technical expertise in virtual hosting/shared hosting knows, the IP addresses can be the same but the domain can be different via virtual hosting/virtual directories (a la Apache/lighttpd/IIS/etc). This is how cheap shared hosting services operate as a business model. I'm not going to get into Chinese politics but the system more or less is a reactive system encouraging self censorship. A quick definition of "politically sensitive" is anything that is critical of the Chinese government for example or anything that challenges the "stability" of the govt. Anyone with the knowledge can easily get around it. It can easily be bypassed using VPNs/proxies. VPNs are more effective since they have a legitimate use in multinational corporations operating in China. The most effective way to bypass it is to use a VPN to somewhere where there isn't censorship. (North America, HK, Japan, SK, SG, MY, TW, etc...) This is NOT a practical solution to the end user though. As to online content of your users in China, I recommend setting up/moving the content to a server that hopefully has a dedicated IP address that isn't shared by thousands of other virtual hosts. The wiki hosting service you use probably on the same IP address had something "sensitive" as mentioned above. If you have access to a server or IP used by a .edu hostname it's MUCH less likely to get filtered than one with commercial attributes (like the free/paid wiki hosting companies you mentioned). BTW, glad you're enjoying Hangzhou, the place where I originally am from! Those water fountains weren't there a few years ago when I visited by homeland so I definitely have to check it out when I go back to visit. ;-) --A Chinese-American (Will) The main reason most sites get blocked in China is not due to their content but accidentally. From what I understand the Chinese gov’t filters by IP address and/or domain names (DNS). A lot of the politically “sensitive” content is hosted on shared hosting servers outside of China (mostly in North America/Europe) and as anyone with technical expertise in virtual hosting/shared hosting knows, the IP addresses can be the same but the domain can be different via virtual hosting/virtual directories (a la Apache/lighttpd/IIS/etc). This is how cheap shared hosting services operate as a business model. I’m not going to get into Chinese politics but the system more or less is a reactive system encouraging self censorship. A quick definition of “politically sensitive” is anything that is critical of the Chinese government for example or anything that challenges the “stability” of the govt. Anyone with the knowledge can easily get around it. It can easily be bypassed using VPNs/proxies. VPNs are more effective since they have a legitimate use in multinational corporations operating in China. The most effective way to bypass it is to use a VPN to somewhere where there isn’t censorship. (North America, HK, Japan, SK, SG, MY, TW, etc…) This is NOT a practical solution to the end user though.

As to online content of your users in China, I recommend setting up/moving the content to a server that hopefully has a dedicated IP address that isn’t shared by thousands of other virtual hosts. The wiki hosting service you use probably on the same IP address had something “sensitive” as mentioned above. If you have access to a server or IP used by a .edu hostname it’s MUCH less likely to get filtered than one with commercial attributes (like the free/paid wiki hosting companies you mentioned).

BTW, glad you’re enjoying Hangzhou, the place where I originally am from! Those water fountains weren’t there a few years ago when I visited by homeland so I definitely have to check it out when I go back to visit. ;-)

–A Chinese-American (Will)

]]> By: Chris Yeh http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/01/the-dilemma-presented-by-chinas-content-filtering-of-my-current-handouts-website/comment-page-1/#comment-102149 Chris Yeh Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:10:06 +0000 http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?p=3874#comment-102149 Wesley, To answer your question, since PBworks is an open platform, there are certain public wikis that the Chinese government objects to, largely protest/Falun Gong wikis. Since we don't censor our users, the result is that for several years, PBworks has been blocked behind the Great Firewall of China. While we'd love for the situation to change, we're committed to free speech, and won't terminate our users for exercising that right. Hopefully, the government censors will change their mind in the future. Wesley,

To answer your question, since PBworks is an open platform, there are certain public wikis that the Chinese government objects to, largely protest/Falun Gong wikis.

Since we don’t censor our users, the result is that for several years, PBworks has been blocked behind the Great Firewall of China.

While we’d love for the situation to change, we’re committed to free speech, and won’t terminate our users for exercising that right. Hopefully, the government censors will change their mind in the future.

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