Besides the Great Wall, China has a far more ubiquitous 'Great Firewall of China' which blocks information coming into the country which is deemed offensive. For those vigilant regulators, it's not called censorship but the "guidance of public opinion."
Chinese Internet users often say that a website has been "harmonized," a euphemistic way to say that content has been shaped to adhere to the Communist Party's goal of building a "harmonious society."
An article lists some of the words which are blocked in searches: brainwash, censorship, civil movement, Cultural Revolution, Dalai Lama, dissident, exile, revolution, scripture, state security, Taiwan/Tibet independence, truth, Falun Gong...
"The scariest thing is that Chinese censorship does not have a list of dirty words which leaves journalists and web personnel nervous about how far they can go."
One scholar writes, "There are no explicit bad words, but the system really works by instilling fear."
Chinese filters and censorship encourages one to think about to what extent there are biases and subtle influences in the media for us all.
