Let The Winds of a Civilized Internet Blow

The New York Times recently posted an article ("As Chinese Students Go Online, Little Sister is Watching," May 9, 2006, Howard French) about Internet monitoring in China. In particular, it focused on a ShangHai university where over 500 students voluntarily and secretly volunteer to monitor online message boards and "steer away from" and/or delete "harmful" topics. The effort is part of the government's "Let the winds of a civilized Internet blow" campaign. Most of the policing is done on a voluntary basis by the schools, businesses and organizations to show everyone that they are with the program. My favorite quote from the article is by one of the student censors who said, "a bulletin board is like a family, and in a family, I want my room to be clean and well-lighted, without dirty or dangerous things in it." You know, like Bird Flu.

For me, I just want to be able to download my music from iTunes again!