Official Banned Word Lists Show Chinese Censorship in Operation

A paper on First Money details how TOM-Skpe and Sina UC, two popular instant messaging apps, censor keywords using the company's own sensitive word blacklist.  The authors were able to obtain the encryption keys for the word lists and have been downloading them on a daily basis for the past 18 months.

Showing for the first time the context behind the words that both get added and removed from the lists that two

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240"] Censorship (Photo credit: IsaacMao)[/caption]

major Internet players in China use, the paper sets out the answer questions about China's state censorship machine.  From the article's introduction:

Key questions for the study of state–sponsored Internet censorship include: how do censors determine which content to control? How are such determinations effectuated? With what speed? Do certain priorities apply when deciding what content should be subject to censorship and surveillance? Do censors care mostly about content that might cause organized movements such as protests? Do they always immediately censor current events that are sensitive, or are only certain current events targeted? These types of questions are difficult to answer, not only due to lack of transparency in China’s censorship apparatus, but also because censorship measurements can be biased and surveillance is often not possible to measure.

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