The OpenNet Initiative – which was set up by the University of Toronto, Harvard Law School, the University of Cambridge, and Oxford University – investigates Internet filtering and surveillance globally.
It has the following six entries on China:
In April the Ministry of Public Security launched a major crackdown on websites concerning not only pornography, but also illegal lotteries, trade, and “content that spreads rumours and is slanderous”.
In June image servers were blocked on the photo-sharing website Flickr.
In early August a court in Shanghai heard a lawsuit against China Telecom filed by a Chinese blogger relating to the blocking of his open-source accounting software website.
In late August Feedburner, a leading provider of RSS feeds, was blocked.
In September, Internet users couldn’t access tens of thousands of different websites after the Government shut down data centres ahead of the Communist Party Congress.
In November, Yahoo! settled a lawsuit with families of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, who are in jail in China accused of crimes against the state. The two men were jailed after Yahoo! helped the Chinese Government identify them by handing over their email records.
As they say it’s far from a comprehensive list, more of a sampler. Watch this space – OpenNet Initiative say it has more reports due out in coming months.
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