The Great Firewall of China also known as the golden shield project is an internet censorship and surveillance project that is operated by the government. In 2012, it was reported that China had been reinforcing it's internet firewall in attempt to block users access from social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube etc... These have been blocked in order to prevent it's people from becoming ‘corrupt’ and to neutralise critical online opinions.
By the end of December 2012, China had 564 million Internet users, 50.9 million more than the year before, and representing nearly 40% of the Chinese population.
A list of some types of banned websites/content includes:
· politically sensitive terms
· embarrassing news events
· online messages from dissidents
· political activism sites
· any microblog posts that it dislikes
· religious site
· pornography
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Twitter, Facebook and similar social network sites are nipped in the bud before they become popular. Instead, china has alternative websites or copycat sites which Chinese people are welcome to use. subject to the control of Chinese authorities, they are obligated to monitor and filter comments made by users or risk seeing their sites suspended
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China’s firewall, was cracked and users could access the banned social media sites
The Great Firewall of China
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Not surprisingly like you have highlighted, no matter what level of firewall or censorship, there will always be hackers who are able to work around this. The impact on the majority is however another story. Should be worth noting that many banned social media websites are overseas foreign operated but Chinese social media sites are very much allowed. This is quite interesting.
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