Blogging, Facebook, email, e-commerce, Web surfing, -- the frenzy of Internet activity taking place around the world would have been unimaginable to students and educators less than a generation ago. The past 20 years have witnessed a meteoric rise of the Internet as a primary source of information, entertainment, business and communication for many students around the world. Easy student access to unmonitored communication and information of all sorts on the World Wide Web has introduced both exciting opportunities and tremendous challenges for parents, educators, and lawmakers.

Beginning in the 1990s, the United States tried to establish legal guidelines for censoring Internet content popularly regarded as offensive or harmful, particularly to young people. These attempts at legal censorship of materials on the World Wide Web (The Communications Decency Act and the Child Online Protection Act) were overturned in the courts on First Amendment grounds and touched off a national debate around technologies and censorship that continues today.

How can Internet policies support economic development, education, and free speech, at the same time as responding to the perceived threat an unmonitored World Wide Web presents to parental supervision? How can the general public be protected from harmful, false or offensive information? These sorts of debates over how Internet tools and content should be monitored are as international as the World Wide Web itself. Ray Tjahjadi, Information Systems Faculty at Reedley College offers the following brief review of how the People's Republic of China (PRC) is controlling what they perceive as politically sensitive aspects of the "Internet frenzy."
- Michele Delattre, ORIAS

"INTERNET FRENZY AND CENSORSHIP IN THE PRC" (PDF)

by Ray Tjahjadi, Information Systems Faculty
North Centers, Reedley College, California State Center Community College District

BIBLIOGRAPY

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1. The rapid growth of information-and-telecommunication technology utilization in China for businesses, communication, and entertainment purposes spurs an exponential growth of electronic devices such as computers, cellular phone, video games, and personal digital assistants (PDA). Commonly, these devices have a short life cycle, which is mainly caused by either consumer demand for faster and better features, inferior durability, or technology incompatibility. Looking at the upward trend of the number of personal computers and Internet users in China, one may speculate that there will be a tremendous demand for electronic devices in immediate years. The demand for new electronic devices, coupled with their short life cycle, if not properly managed, will create many challenges for China and the world. What are the issues of increasing electronic devices in China related to:

a. Energy use
b. Education
c. Pollution
d. Global environment impact

2. The Chinese government imposes strict censorship on the Internet in China, and at the same time, the Chinese government is investing heavily to increase the Internet utilization in China.

a. Will the Chinese government remove the Internet censorship if the censorship hinders the growth of Chinese economy?
b. If the Internet censorship is lifted in China, what culture and social-order changes will happen in China?