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[Borkya]

So, I'm getting ready to start a blog about my whole china adventure, but I want to start it off right. I know there are a number of words that are "flagged" or "watched" or whatever by the government and if you use those words in China they can prevent you from accessing your site, right?

So what are the words to avoid?

[George]

OK, THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE.....*******. Then there is .****, also..***********.
There may be others, but go with those 3 for starters.

[decurso]

 

 George is right. If you can't use 'em blogging, you can't use 'em here.

[dragonsaver]

Not only can't you use them here, Raoul will 'KILL' you if you do.  It would close us down and that wouldn't be nice. 

That is why we are on version 3 of the forum.  Somebody on a different forum said naughty words and all forums using the parent forum were shut down. 

[china-matt]

Oddly enough, The Chinglish Adventures of Chairman Mao wasn't blocked while I was in China. Of course, now that blogspot is completely blocked, it's taken a hit too.

[Ruth]

Well, there's a religious leader whose first name sounds like Dolly Parton's first name. There's a religious group we have a whole thread about (see the 'we got gonged' thread). There's an island just off the east coast, there's a square in Beijing and there's a province out west - all begin with 't'. I'm sure there's more, but those are the hot topics that popped into my head when I read your question.

[Borkya]

Thanks guys. I like Ruths version the best, those words were a lot easier to figure out than George's! 

You can misspell them, right? Like we did with T Square (the place in Beijing) during that whole thing?

And what sort of leeway do you have? One "wrong" word and that is it? Instant shutdown? I take it the word China is okay, but I have seen other websites write it as ch1na.

[The Local Dialect]

I don't think you have to worry too too much about personal blogs that don't have a huge amount of traffic as long as you aren't overtly political. Even some very questionable content manages to stay available in China, so it isn't like they're outright harmonizing everything left and right. China tends to block blog hosts rather than individual blogs. Blogger and Wordpress are blocked so even if you're writing about puppies and rainbows, no one in China can read your blog. Provided your blog host isn't blocked, or you have a private domain, certainly you can write the word China, and write about China relatively freely. You can criticize Chinese culture and even society, but stay away from the political hot topics to be safe. I don't think there's instant shutdown over one word. You can mention T'b't in a completely innocuous way -- say you travel there, for instance, and write up a travelogue. I can pull up thousands of websites accessible from China that contain all of those hot words. It is more the way you use them than the words themselves. 

[Raoul F. Duke]

Ah, yes, I'm reminded of Our Stupidest Member Ever (OSME), who helpfully posted a list of all the words that would get a website blocked, right here on our website.

Surprisingly enough, we got blocked.

Fortunately, we were able to back in through a proxy, delete the offending post, and get our access restored.

We were also able to arrange to get OSME stuffed into the nose cone of a Long March rocket and fired into North Korea, where he is hopefully now compiling a list of Things That Piss Off Kim Jong-Il.

What a moron.

[mlaeux]

heh, heh

[teleplayer]

...Our Stupidest Member Ever (OSME), ....

.....

Thanks for the laugh. Now to start the new thread, "Words and Acronyms used by this forum's PTBs to describe people, places and events here."