Saturday, October 02, 2004

CNN - Google Bows to Chinese Censorship
An interesting news report from CNN. We have talked in the past about whether the Left Behind series presents a credible example of how believers could use the Internet to share the gospel during the Tribulation, or even today in a totalitarian country. In LB we see how Buck and the Trib Force use the Internet to post their web magazine The Truth and Tsion Ben-Judah's website, exposing Carpathia and teaching people about salvation and the meaning of prophetic events. But, could they do this without being shut down by the GC? From casual tracking of this topic, I would have to say it would be a very difficult thing to do. This CNN report demonstrates that even today, a repressive country like China has the ability to filter the Internet and control what portions of the web citizens can access. The sad thing is, American companies are actually providing this technology to China, technology that will be used to crack down on democracy activist and the underground church. Should Christians support companies that aid and enable persecution? Should Americans support companies that repress democracy and human rights?