"Activity from China on our public Internet server picked up after January, 1997," said Kern. "A number of foreign news correspondents in China, including the staff of the VOA Beijing news bureau, reported that China appeared to be relaxing its policy of interfering with Internet access."
Then, connections to VOA's public Internet server from China dropped almost to zero in August, 1997. Activity from China has been almost nil since then, and the site continues to be blocked, according to Kern.
But clearly discrepancies exist in terms of connectivity, as Farrall said he was able to obtain access for our report.
The Jan. 12 issue of Time Magazine reported several black-listed sites of prominent Western media outlets, including Time's own Pathfinder site and cnn.com. However, there is no set pattern on what gets blocked and why. And it is almost impossible to confirm if a site is really blocked by the Chinese government.
According to a report by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, also issued in January, Embassy officers have discovered that CNNs Website is now accessible in China through some Internet servers. Time also observed that "The New York Times Website is generally blocked, while the Washington Post Website is not."
Meanwhile, Zhang Rong told OJR that the New York Times and CNN sites are not blocked at all.
For Farrall, so much confusion and inconsistency in the blocking business proves that China's Internet censorship is mild. "Certain Western news institutions pass in and out of favor several times a year, and are added or removed to the list as often," he said. "Still, the logic is puzzling. I believe it is just additional evidence that (the government) is not making a serious effort."
"Most professionals in the industry believe the list of blocked sites is intended only to convince the Internet-illiterate old-guard, with the exception of net savvy Jian Zemin, that the Internet can be controlled, and is not to be feared," he said.
Even if the government intends to bar all unwanted sites, Farrall believes it doesn't have the ability to do so. "The type of blocking they're doing, at the router level, means that there are relatively simple ways for those who know how to circumvent the blocks.
"Active censorship of the Internet is becoming increasingly expansive and impractical as more users go online," said Farrall. "Existing blocks are easily overcome by using proxy servers. New Websites come on line every day, old web sites change their addresses. Content from one is mirrored on another.
