Web Development Headache For Red China

Every night about midnight, Mumu (not her real name) turns on her web cam and begins dancing and prancing about for her more than 10,000 online visitors. Not only is Mumu pretty, but she is also a member of the Chinese communist party.

To a western onlooker, Mumu and her blog may seem a tad sordid, or at least cheesy, but because she works for the Chinese government, her exhibitionism, however anonymous, is an act of freedom this country has never known.

Blogs Everywhere!

According to the New York Times, the massive proliferation of weblogs and Internet use in general is causing a major headache to the powers that be (i.e the Communist party) in China. Major search engines like Google or Yahoo are actively courted by the government and asked to refrain from letting the winds of internet freedom blow too freely.

This has already sparked controversy in the West. Earlier this year, Yahoo gave out information identifying a counter cultural internet user to the Chinese authorities. This free speech activist was later arrested. Google, for its part, is rumored to quietly police web searches form China.

Censorship as Web Development Job?

But repression is mainly kept local. Chinese authorities are using Internet service providers to block access to subversive web content, but this is hardly practical when it comes to weblogs. There are too many blogs coming from too many websites, for any government to effectively control.

According to web development experts, there are 3 to 5 million different blogs in China. Most are private affairs between friends, but many use humor and cheekiness to take on previously taboo subjects.

Countercultural Web Development

"The new bloggers are talking back to authority, but in a humorous way," said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley. "People have often said you can say anything you want in China around the dinner table, but not in public. Now the blogs have become the dinner table, and that is new."

Weblogs and their international proliferation are just two web developments that are rocking the Internet world. No one knows where web development jobs will go next, but they continue to grow and change.

Source
New York Times