The China Firewall: Banned Keywords

An update from the WSJ (paid sub) on the Great Chinese Firewall, quoting the China Internet project I played a small role in starting at Berkeley. The piece includes a list of keywords that are banned in China, a list that was first published by the China Digital News blog we launched last year.

It’s interesting to note how critical search is to the process of censorship in China and other countries. From the WSJ article:

The research project by the three universities, known as the OpenNet
Initiative, routed requests through computers in China to Google, Yahoo
and Chinese search engines Baidu.com, in which Google Inc. is an
investor, and Yisou.com, which is owned by Yahoo Inc. Searches with
sensitive terms like “Falun,” for the Falun Gong spiritual movement that
is banned in China, or “Free Tibet” were routinely cut off, without
sending back an error message, the report says.

The result, the foreign researchers say, is that the Internet in China
is very different from the relatively unfettered medium enjoyed in the
West, with implications for the creation of a seamless world- wide Web
of communications.
Mr. Zittrain says Saudi Arabia, for example, vigorously polices the
Internet in that nation, but unlike China, Saudi authorities make public
their general criteria for banning Web sites.

The banned list includes:
— Democracy
— Christian
— Falun Gong
— Hu Jintao
— Human rights
— Multiparty
— Oppose corruption
— Underground church
— Overthrow
— Prostitution
— Riot
— Sex
— Taiwan independence
— Tiananmen
— Traitor

Update:Wow – CDN got Slashdotted….