Are they breaching the law, or there is no law

By K M Rehan Salahuddin
0 CommentsPrint E-mail China.org.cn, May 5, 2010
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Every time we open a website, almost any website, we have got to see some advertisements. Many website's webmasters or people responsible for the advertisements most of the time cannot make sure which advertisements will be on at a specific time as the advertisement space is maintained by a third party. There are several options to choose what type of advertisement or advertisement for which demography would be suitable for the website. But there is no control over the advertisement.

Recently there are some advertisements which are promoting such software to access a micro blogging site (twitter), which is blocked in China by the government due to specific reasons. Along with twitter there are some other websites like Facebook and Youtube are blocked in China. As everybody is a law abiding citizen people doesn't have much to argue about the issue. Also there are several Chinese websites of micro blogging, social networking and video sharing which are entertaining the netizens and didn't let the netizens to feel the void. But some advertisement at some Chinese websites and many blogs are promoting different advertisements about some software or proxy links which could help you to bypass the government block and enjoy the forbidden online services. And a question arose among people that if a service is forbidden how can some bypassing software or links are getting promoted?

May be many foreigners in China have complained about the block and tried to argue about the validity of the block. But as the reason of the block is concrete, no debate got any pace. While silently another debate started to gain the pace with a motion "Is it illegal to bypass the block and access those blocked sites" if yes then is it a punishable offence, if not then what is the validity of the block? The foreigners with a belief that when you are in China do as the Chinese do has started to feel confused as the number of people around them using those services keep growing.

As for the Chinese netizens, there are surely a lot of websites which may fill the void of these restricted sites but all of those are in Chinese. The number English speakers and learners are growing day by day and that creates the necessity of English websites. Unavailability of good English website from the country leads the netizens to seek for these forbidden services.

To maintain a healthy cyberspace, there is a requirement that all the websites should choose the advertisements according to the content of the website and must comply with government rules. There should be a well managed regulatory process to maintain the integrity through the government, cyberspace and netizens. The cyber law should describe clearly that, What is the offence level for breaching what type of cyber rules and regulations. If a well managed cyber law clearly describes about the forbidden sites and actions then the netizens will surely follow the government rules.

The author is a Phd student from Bangladesh.

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