China’s censorship programme

Many of you probably know of China’s censorship policy, where many ‘undesired’ websites deemed by the government are censored. Many of these websites, are websites that might stir the minds of Chinese citizens to go against the government. They might also contain negative information about them. The main purpose of this censorship policy is to prevent its own citizens from stirring up a revolt against the government. One such website that is blocked is Facebook, along with many other social networking websites.

You would also know that recently, search-engine  Google was forced to leave its business in China, because of its insistency in the refusal of censoring its search results. This shows how serious the Chinese government was in  its censorship policy. Many people have probably called Google silly because of it refusing a simple request, making it having to leave the biggest internet market in the world.

My feelings are that the Chinese government is both wrong and correct in its censorship policy. I think that it might have had good intentions. By censoring all these negative things, it will prevent people from revolting, and possibly maintain peace. However if the governments did  do anything wrong, why would they need to hide anything? Also, by censoring information, they are restricting the freedom of their citizens, not letting them do whatever they want. Everyone in the own world should have their own freedom, and view whatever they want to do. I feel that in order to properly promote peace amongst the people, they should make their own government anti-corrupt, instead of forcing people to believe what is not true. This way, there would be nothing that any websites can talk about them. Like the saying goes: prevention is better than cure.

I feel that there is no right or wrong as to whether Google should leave China. By not practicing censorship, they are upholding their own company values, as well as telling China that the world does not really approve of her censorship policy. However, it is also understandable if they want to stay in China. China has the greatest number of netizens in the world. It is definitely a great opportunity and place for companies to invest in, due to the big number of consumers they are facing.