Background The convening of the 17th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in October 2007, at which China’s top echelon of government leaders chose their eventual successors, was the beginning of a momentous year for China, and consequently for domestic and international news media....

Despite the press attention being thrown at the China/Google relationship, there has been another issue in China brewing a little more subtly in the background that may cause further open access issues in a nation already struggling with Internet freedom. News stories...

In the wake of China’s first white paper on the Internet, a new idea has emerged that has been receiving little press, but deserves substantial discussion and debate. This idea is national Internet sovereignty. The new concept creates a...

A year ago this week, I wrote about how China was cracking down on social media sites in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square. This year, government censors are taking a different tack, making a flood of...

In January of 2010, following attacks on Google's corporate infrastructure originating from China, Google made the fateful decision to stop censoring results on its Chinese-language Google.cn site. Just a few days ago, Google finally made good on its promise, shutting down...

Last year when China’s Ministry of Public Security announced a directive calling for the obligatory pre-installation of Internet filtering software on all computers sold in China, the public response was one of widespread concern and opposition. After pervasive criticism and resistance,...

Following Google's decision, published on the Official Google Blog, to stop filtering search results on Google.cn, it appears that the Great Firewall is blocking search results for "Google Blog." Foreign visitors to Baidu are not exempt from the blocking: If a...

It has now been four years since Google announced its intent to censor search results in China. In January of 2006, after finding Google.com to be down about 10% of the time, Google made the now infamous decision to start...

Whilst attending the Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the OpenNet Initiative (along with partners of ONI Asia) gathered to present their upcoming book, Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace. A poster advertising the...

According to the Chinese government, Namibia — a southern African country with a population of 2 million — does not exist. Government censors ordered Chinese search engines to show no search results for the country's name this week, following a corruption...