There has been a lot of talk about a dam bursting in China this week and it is being seen as a good thing. Only hours before the July 1 deadline that the Chinese Government had set for the mandatory installation of the “Green Dam Youth Escort” software on every new computer sold in China, there was a rare and hasty retraction from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announcing that the initiative would be delayed.
This desktop software designed to block “harmful content” from the web was to be a new tool that would take China’s effort to censor the internet, already the most heavily controlled in the world, to a new level. That it has not succeeded is a fascinating insight into China today.
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