great firewall of china

Imagine going online and not being able to access the New York Times or BBC, and then calling your friend who lives in another part of the city only to find out that she has had no problem connecting to those websites. You try again a few minutes later and the problem seems to have been solved. And then imagine getting into this situation every so often for no apparent reason, technical or otherwise. Internet censorship in China is anything but systematic. But while some Internet users in China can easily circumvent the mechanisms used to block content, the majority are either not as tech-savvy or are terrified of persecution. The chilling effect is there, at the very least. And according to recent reports, not only is content being blocked, but thousands of websites, most of them for small businesses, are now going to be shut down for failure to register with the government. Even the global financial crisis takes a back seat to online suppression.