Current Event 2

The Google/China clash will be a strong force in either relaxing or tightening China's censorship policies. The attack on several of Google's servers a couple of weeks ago that was caused by Chinese hackers has created quite a stir in China's internet politics. The hackers hacked into Google to access content that is currently restricted by the Chinese government. The hackers want to access censored content. Google wants into China, but not at the expense of getting attacked again by hackers. In order to lower the likelihood of being attacked again, China would have to relax censorship policies., but the Chinese government doesn't want to do this.

In order for this conflict to be resolved, somebody's going to have to give. The hackers probably won't stop hacking. So, Google is either going to have to pull completely out of China, which I think would give Chinese censorship laws more leverage. Or, China is going to have to relax its censorship policies, which I think would lead to more attempts by powers, both domestic and foreign, to further attempt weaken the censorship laws. To all of this I say, "Go Google!"