Rudi asked: > how effective is an filter and any body know how effective the Chinese > government filter political content ? The main aim of the PRC government has been to suppress discussion in Chinese between Chinese citizens. They long ago realised that their system was not going to be perfect and adopted a "chilling effect" approach combining blocking of external websites which contain things likely to promote discussion of political change in China and blocking Chinese-language web fora where the government was criticised or "democracy on the Western model" for China was being promoted or discussed, together with high profile arrest and prosecution for persistent online critics resident in China. The anti-porn elements seem mainly to be used as a smokescreen for their political goals, as a way to justify their general filtering technology and other regulations of, e.g. Internet cafes, and to distract Chinese people from these political issues by creating a moral panic. (BTW, any chance of you learning how to use the shift key? English is much easier to read when it includes standard capitalisation at the start of sentences.) -- Professor Andrew A Adams [log in to unmask] Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/