China and the Internet

This article from CNN is about China and its form of Internet censorship, known as the "Great Firewall."

Despite the  Chinese government's widespread censorship of online content, Chinese web-based businesses are doing extremely well. Some of them are worth billions of dollars. Also, the article mentions that China has "more Web users than the population of the United States."

People fifteen years ago didn't think China's system would work, claiming that an Internet without real freedom of expression isn't really the Internet. But nowadays, it seems like it's worked just fine for the Chinese - and that has implications for the rest of the world. Some human rights groups are concerned that places like Russia or Egypt might adopt similar systems. That's concerning, because access to information is an important component of freedom - so much so that unrestricted Internet access was at one point declared a human right.

There are ways for people in China to bypass the firewall, but the government has continued to crack down on these methods. New methods will probably appear in their place, but it may become harder and harder to develop them.