It Takes A Lot Of People To Filter The Internet In China

from the employment-opportunities dept

Mon, Apr 3rd 2006 2:17am — Mike Masnick

The "Great Firewall" of China is quite well known. The fact that the country tries to block out plenty of websites and restrict what its citizens can do online is no secret. However, it seems that keeping Chinese internet users in check doesn't just take a lot of technology (often from American firms), but plenty of people. A new article suggests that the country has over 30,000 internet police to monitor what's going on -- and that doesn't appear to count security guards who literally look over peoples' shoulders at internet cafes. Given the size of the population, that may not actually sound that large, but it is pretty significant -- and it makes you wonder just how well that system scales as more and more Chinese citizens get online.

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25 Comments

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Andrew Pollack, 3 Apr 2006 @ 3:40am

oh sure, but its not as expensive as it could be..
I hear they can outsource it.
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Mont, 3 Apr 2006 @ 3:47am

Work at Home Opportunity
Now you can make $5,000, $10,000 and even $15,000 a month by working at home. With billions of Chinese getting online everyday your income potential as a Chinese internet filter is infinite!
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Max, 3 Apr 2006 @ 4:00am

How scale? Quite easy
In China is it possible that the police decides that the ones that browse in un-authorized sites get decapitated!

And they will do it for sure.

You know just last year there has been a video report of the shooting of a child (a girl) that at the end of the day has not reached her production target.

...
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ShaolinTiger, 3 Apr 2006 @ 4:01am

Yeah whoever can harness the Chinese Internet is going to be huge man.
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elaine, 3 Apr 2006 @ 5:14am

Who would have thought that by having such policy, the potential of China as a growing market would cotinue to grow? Just thinking about someone behind my back inspecting every webpage that I visit gives me the creeps.
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Scruffy Dan, 3 Apr 2006 @ 5:17am

Blogger
A friend of mine was in china, and realized that he could not access his blogger blog hosted on blogspot.com The great firewall blocks out the entire blogspot domain, but in their infinite wisdom the chiniese did not block blogger.com, so my firend was still able to post to his blog.

The chinese can't tell each other how much censorship sucks, but they can tell the world
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theinfor, 3 Apr 2006 @ 3:02pm

I'm from China and could not hate the censorship anymore! Especially after I came overseas and felt the difference. Nobody like it when what you can read is decided by someone else, but still, it's not easy to say: hey, i can do something about it
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Command Chen, 11 Apr 2006 @ 12:46am

Re:
We've got your number now, imperialist Elaine! Bah ha hah!
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China Law Blog, 13 Apr 2006 @ 11:27pm

Chinese internet filtering
There is far less internet filtering going on in China than generally believed. On top of this, the government really is not all that adept at it and the Chinese I know are quite adept at getting around it. I am not in any way condoning what is going on in China, but at the same time, I do think it is getting blown out of proportion. China Law
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Chris, 8 May 2006 @ 9:49am

heh
And to think, most products in the USA are made in China, a communist country the supresses its people. Think about that next time you are standing in line at Wal-mart with that little piece of junk in your hand.
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Kevin Williams, 28 Jun 2006 @ 11:32am

Re:
Just want to let you know that if you think there is not anyone inspecting every webpage you are visiting you as well as most are very wrong.
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Don, 23 Aug 2006 @ 1:46pm

China...
30,000 internet police and almost 3 billion people...almost like in North America eh?
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TRUTH, 8 Feb 2007 @ 4:23pm

Fuck China
http://www.fuck-china.com/
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Stuff, 8 Feb 2007 @ 4:33pm

China Law Blog
"China Law Blog" wrote:
"There is far less internet filtering going on in China than generally believed."

I for one go by what I see, and I see quite a lot. Curious to know who chinelawblog.com is I note that the registrar are these good folks: www.harrismoure.com. Nothing shameful in it, but I think you have a bit of a biased opinion seeing as how your are all about business flourishing in china.
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Keir, 27 Mar 2007 @ 6:59am

Deeply shameful
Can't say much about a culture that employs so many whose job is simply to keep the rest of the 1.3 billion permanently stupid.
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Sean, 13 Oct 2007 @ 7:03am

Re: China...
I don't see what you are trying to do here. Are you trying to say the numbers are similar to America's numbers? Do you really think America has 3 Billion people in it? What the hell? Are you trying to say we have 3,000 internet police?

Vague anti-American comments from Americans is a freedom and all that noise, but it's mostly just stupid. Although I give you some credit for trying to seem like an original thinker, that is so original!
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nuclrslug, 7 Feb 2008 @ 6:34am

Re: Re:
(Puts on tinfoil hat).
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ChimpAlert, 13 Jun 2008 @ 9:38pm

Speak Your Mind
Wear a T shirt printed with Chinese characters that says "Fuck China".
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2008 @ 3:08pm

Re: Speak Your Mind
fuck your dirty mother
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jewsintheshower, 20 Aug 2008 @ 6:45am

baseball bats for jews
the same for porch monkeys
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Jeff, 29 May 2009 @ 3:01pm

Try Freedur, you never seen anything like it
China firewall is lame – use Freedur.com to bypass it. You can bypass China Great Firewall and access youtube, facebook, blogger and all other sites which are blocked.
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sjo, 1 Jun 2009 @ 11:05pm

Re: How scale? Quite easy
Really? Even i'm a chinese but never heart that someone browse in un-authorized sites get decapitated. where did you heard of that?
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freedom or death, 8 Jul 2009 @ 8:56pm

fuck chinese communism
chinese communists are not human! they've all become the cruelest animals in the world! Damn it! They think that they can control this world? Daydreaming, they will have been destroyed sooner or later! wait and see!
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Jianxin Dong, 30 Oct 2009 @ 2:56pm

Han chinese best, all the rest is dog
Han chinese will try to fuck you up if you are not Han chinese, you must be like dog. Han chinese best, all the rest is dog, we will cheat, steal, spy, even WAR - whatever it takes to win we will do - that is my mind, that is the mind of Han chinese!!!!
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fuck chinese communists to death, 7 Dec 2009 @ 5:19pm

some Shanghai people are too cheap
The Chinese communists robbed their grandparents by 100, now the communists retuen 5 out of that 100 and they are thankful to the Chinese communists. in Chinese, it's called "犯贱“和”没骨头“。
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