WASHINGTON – Be careful what you type, Big Brother is watching.
The Atlantic magazine reports on two lists of words that may draw unwanted government attention or censorship. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Analyst Desktop Binder” includes a selection of “terms-to-watch,” and China has inadvertently revealed some of the stones in their digital censorship, dubbed the “Great Firewall.”
Unsurprisingly, the words reflect subject matter each country sees as a national security threat. The American list includes phrases such as “domestic nuclear detection,” “dirty bomb,” “shots fired” and “Emergency Landing.” China’s includes terms such as “freetibet,” “facebook” and “blood is on the square.”
Neither list was free from the obscure, of course, with the inclusion of “boobs” and “chinese people eating babies” on the communist country’s list. “Pork” and “wave” were included on the DHS list under the “Health Concerns” category.
The DHS list was made public through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, according to The Atlantic, and the Chinese list was the product of a new Google initiative that informs users if they type in a keyword that could be blocked by the Great Firewall.
Check out the American list in this Scribd document, starting on page 20:
Analyst Desktop Binder_REDACTED
Here’s some of the entries from the Chinese list:
- blood is on the square
- boobs
- chinese people eating babies
- blood is on the square
- boobs
- chinese people eating babies
- east.*turkistan|turkistan.*east
- epochtimes
- falun
- freetibet
- gfw.* 什么什.*gfw
- great.*firewall|firewall.*great
- heguoqiang
- heywood
- hotspot.*shield|shield.*hotspot
- hujin
- jasmine.*revolution|revolution.*jasmine
- jiangzemin
- jiaqinglin
- jzm
- lichangchun
- likeqiang
- liu.*xiaobo|xiaobo.*liu
This isn’t the first time Google has taken a jab at Chinese online censorship. Last June it started advertising to users whose accounts could be the target of ” state-sponsored attacks.”
The designer of the Great Firewall made headlines last May when a protester threw shoes and an egg at him.
More at TheAtlantic.com.
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