Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem)

That was one hell of an article. I have nothing to say, besides the fact that I loved it.

Great, really informative. Five stars.
let me highlight a few bits for those who may postpone reading it due to its length:

"Before, [blogger Zhao Jing] said, the party controlled every single piece of media, but then Chinese began logging onto discussion boards and setting up blogs, and it was as if a bell jar had lifted. Even if you were still too cautious to talk about politics, the mere idea that you could publicly state your opinion about anything — the weather, the local sports scene — felt like a bit of a revolution."

--the feeling that you can share your opinion is really motivating, wisely contrasted at the end with:

"The government is reasonably tolerant of well-educated professionals online. But the farmers, upset about corrupt local officials, are serious activists, and they pose a real threat to Beijing; they staged 70,000 demonstrations in 2004, many of which the government violently suppressed."

Charles Chao, the president of Sina, the country's biggest news site:

"I don't want to call it censorship. It's like in every country: they have a bias. There are taboos you can't talk about in the U.S., and everyone knows it."-

--crafty blurring of moral, religious, political etc. taboos.
And most importantly:

If you talk every day online and criticize the government, they don't care," he said. "Because it's just talk. But if you organize — even if it's just three or four people — that's what they crack down on. It's not speech; it's organizing."

In accordance

"If the Internet is bringing a revolution to China, it is experienced mostly as one of self-actualization: empowerment in a thousand tiny, everyday ways."