During a conference, Fang Binxing had to bypass his own filter designed to block foreign sites, in order to connect to a South Korean website. AsiaNews.it remains obscured, but through VPN is accessible throughout China. The futility of censorship.
Beijing (AsiaNews) - Censorship also affects the censors. Fang Binxing, considered the father of Internet censorship in China, had to fight against the Great Filter that he himself helped to put on foreign internet sites.
According to Hong Kong newspaper, Ming Pao, during a lecture on online security, he tried to connect to a South Korean website, but in vain: the censorship system he put in place since the late 1990s prevented him from accessing the site.
In order to continue his presentation, Fang had to circumvent his own system using a virtual private operator (VPN), just like many Chinese people: to overcome the national firewall, they connect through another country and this gives them the opportunity to access all censored content.
In China the AsiaNews.it site is among the censored sites. Yet many Christians and non-Christians in China access our news stories and information on a daily basis through a VPN, just as like Fang Binxing.
The experience of the "father of the Great Firewall" provoked jokes and witty comments among Chinese internet users. It only goes to prove how useless Chinese censorship is, although it continues to absorb a considerable budget to pay for 30 thousand cyber-police. Nevertheless, China is studying a series of rules to block all foreign websites.