Why does China limit access to Social Networking sites?

1. 84

   stricktlydatingposted 14 years ago

   Why does China limit access to Social Networking sites?
   
   For example, I've heard they have no access to Facebook.

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2. 82

   earnerposted 14 years ago

   China is a communist country, not a democracy.  This means the people of China do what they are told and have less freedom of what they are allowed to do.
   
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Republic_of_China

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3. 68

   dotslashposted 14 years ago

   Many countries dislike social networking sites because they allow free speech.  China are not able to control what their citizens say and do on  these sites, so they block them.    In fact China are rapidly moving towards the most restrictive internet policy in the world (apart from a few exceptions like North Korea and Iran).
   
   At the moment they have a system based on a blacklist - where they block particular sites, there are indications that they will soon move to an internet based on a whitelist - that is you can only access websites that appear on this list.
   
   This of course is much more restrictive, but is probably due to the problem that there are many ways of bypassing the traditional censorship model by using proxies and VPN tunnels.

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4. 60

   babychingposted 14 years ago

   @earner:  You are wrong.  China is no longer a communist country.  This is a common misconception because the ruling party is called the Communist Party (an old name that no longer makes sense).  China began opening it's doors to international trade in the late 80s and early 90s.  Free markets are everywhere.  Thousands of American jobs have went to the lowest bidders in China and we experience 9% growth per year.  Do you think that kind of growth could happen in a communist country?
   
   You are confusing economic systems with forms of government.
   
   For comparison, the USA is a democracy with a capitalist economy.  China has an authoritarian government with a capitalist economy.

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5. 59

   JayJacksonposted 14 years ago

   Just because China has embraced some aspects of a free-market economy does not mean you can automatically take the Communist label off of the country.  It is still a single-party system, whose power is granted by the Constitution and cannot be challenged. 
   
   China is still recognized worldwide as the 5th remaining Communist power, and in almost all aspects they are run as a Communist society.  Attempting to call them "authoritarian" is strictly to try to make it appear as if major changes have been made, when it actuality this is far from the case.

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6. 52

   Kyzaposted 13 years ago

   Well China is a communist, and they have censorship. Censorship in a goverement is where they try to hide things about the goverment and certain events from the public, however things like google can destroy that and ruin censorship.

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7. 61

   prettydarkhorseposted 13 years ago

   They are still on the stage where they are curtailing some rights, slowly transitioning to the capitalist mode of production but still the political structure is tight.

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8. 54

   roy10posted 13 years ago

   Jul 7, 2009
   Following last weekend’s deadly riots in its western region of Xinjiang, China’s central government has taken all the usual steps to block citizens from accessing foreign web services: aside from crippling Internet service in general, the authorities have blocked Twitter, removed unapproved references to the violence from search engines and has now apparently moved to bar its citizens from accessing Facebook from most parts of Mainland China just now. Two weeks ago, the government had already blocked just about every Google service, including communication tools like Gmail, Google Apps and Google Talk

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9. 60

   thejeffriestubeposted 13 years ago

   Because the people having a mind of their own does not equal to Communism.

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