Chp 1

I always knew about China's intense censorship of the internet. However, one new thing that I learned was that China had virtually shut down an area of land they said to be about the size of Alaska. China shut down the people's 'private' cell phone providers to keep the information of riots and protest violence and killings private from the rest of the world. The weirdest part of this section to me was not even the fact that they shut down the communications of the people as a way of censoring the people, but how. I was really shocked that China was able to shut down companies that are considered private in America. To my knowledge, companies like AT&T, Comcast, etc., are not in anyway under government jurisdiction as far as service. (Of course the legal things are under government law - but not the fact that the service itself is active.) Since the people pay for these services and private companies provide them - I found myself more angry that the government shut down a service they did not own or operate. 

As far as pornography on the internet – I guess censoring it is better than promoting it, but at the end of the day, I think people who want to see it are going to find it one way or another.

Finally, I liked how the chapter was broken into easy to digest parts – it helped me categorize and process the information much better than just one long chapter that talked about everything all at once. I feel that pulling out topics helps me focus my reading and comprehension and I enjoy reading things more that way when I don’t have to search around for the point to a writing.