Is China's Green Dam Done For?
Critics of the controversial Green Dam Youth Escort initiative applauded the delay, which some say could be a sign that the Green Dam is a goner.
In May, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a mandate that required all computers sold in the country after July 1 to come preinstalled with the Green Dam Youth Escort software package, a Web filtering solution China said was to protect children from pornography, online violence and other inappropriate or "harmful" content.
Soon after, it was revealed that Green Dam blocked much more than pornography, filtering other seemingly innocuous content like pictures of Johnny Depp and Garfield and blocking other content like political information and pages related to the Falun Gong movement.
China said it would not waver on its Green Dam July 1 deadline, but this week deferred it. So far, China officials have not set a new deadline for computer makers to preinstall the Green Dam filtering software.
Still, the about-face and subsequent delay has some hoping that China may scrap the Green Dam initiative altogether.
The MIIT, however, is giving no hints on what will happen with Green Dam Youth Escort now that it has pushed the deadline for PC and laptop makers to comply.
On its Web site, the MIIT gave no new deadline for installing the Green Dam filtering software, but did note that Green Dam could resurface in one form or another.