Politics, Technology: Benetton's Colors Magazine on Oppressing Journalists

Grim and unpromising

"“China operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated, and broad–reaching system of Internet filtering in the world,” according to a recent report by the OpenNet Initiative. Highly sophisticated filters can block up to 500,000 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) simultaneously, leave some parts of a website accessible while blocking others, and make e–mails disappear. Technological surveillance is backed up with the human kind: Thousands of state employees are thought to monitor web traffic, and 800 Internet Security Monitors will soon be dispatched to cyber cafés. And who is helping in this powerful and intricate clampdown on Internet freedom? Western companies desperate to do business with China: Firewalls and filtering systems have been provided by the American Cisco Systems, while Chinese Internet users wanting to start blogs on a site hosted by US company Microsoft are told that “democracy,” “human rights” and “Tiananmen” are examples of “prohibited language,” and advised to find an alternative."

Source: Benetton's COLORS