Human rights activists keeping an eye on government censorship of the Internet in China have accused Google, Microsoft and Yahoo of assisting the Chinese government control web content. US based ‘hacktivists’ have reported that searches on Google carried out from locations in the west, reveal significantly different results than the same searches carried out from locations inside China. Searches for the infamous ‘Tiananmen Square’ provide one such example.

The ‘hacktivists’, as they have been called, have been sending Chinese Internet users safe links and tips to help them by-pass the Great Firewall of China. The Great Firewall of China scans and filters web content, eliminating anything deemed offensive to the ruling party or liable to affect national security and stability. The Chinese government reportedly employs some 30,000 staff in the state mechanism that polices the web.

However, some expatriate Chinese in the US have been saying that there are clear signs that China is progressing towards allowing greater freedoms. They say the very fact the Internet exists in China at all is a clear sign that things are moving in the right direction and that being overly critical of the government at this point may cause a backlash; if it feels too threatened, the great slow moving dragon may stop moving altogether.

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