The Chinese government is trying to force makers of personal computers to provide censorship software with every PC sold in the country from next month.
The move is being presented as an attempt to protect children from online pornography but is raising suspicion that Beijing could be trying to take its internet censorship to a new level. In recent weeks, China blocked access to many websites, including Hotmail and Twitter, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests.
In a notice to PC makers, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said all PCs shipped in China needed to offer Green Dam/Youth Escort, identified as a “green internet filtering software”, either pre-installed or as part of basic software packages.