Order of the Bath

China’s latest move in the censorship of the internet is to require all new PCs to come preinstalled with nanny software known as Green Dam – Youth Escort. The intention is to “protect” their younger citizens from corruption by porn and other unwanted things like democracy and the Falun Gong. Like all nanny software, it fails by ignoring some things which it should stop and stops some things which no one can see any reason for. It has also been subverted by methods which are widely publicised and has become a laughing stock. What is new is the inventive way that they youth of China have expressed their contempt for the whole idea. They have come up with a manga style mascot to express their opinions which is known as Green Dam Girl. She comes in a variety of hand drawn versions but common themes are highly symbolic code features such as the can of paint to cover up filth, a degree of undress (some quite explicit or self censored), the toy rabbit which is the Green Dam software logo and the river crab badge which in Chinese is a pun on “harmony” which itself is a code word for censorship. This is my favourite but there are lots more if you look for them.

This entry was posted on 25 Jun 2009 at 13:35 by Rick and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.