Open Net Initiative: “Internet filtering in China in 2004-05: A Country Study”

The Chinese authorities have put significant effort into blocking internet access to the Nine Commentaries. According to a report issued by the Open Net Initiative (a collaborative project between research centers at the University of Toronto, Harvard Law School, and Cambridge University) on internet filtering in China: “Sites listed in response to a search for the ‘Nine Commentaries,’ a highly critical evaluation of the Chinese Communist Party published by the Epoch Times, were … nearly totally inaccessible.”

The study found that 90 percent of Chinese-language sites related to the Nine Commentaries were blocked, as well as 16 percent of their corresponding English-language sites. This was significantly more than the percentage of Chinese-language sites that more broadly addressed human rights and democracy (see figure above taken from the above-mentioned report).

The sites tested were the top 100 sites returned from a Google search engine for the relevant terms. Open Net Initiative, “Internet filtering in China in 2004-05: A Country Study”: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=706681