Thursday, March 22, 2012

Hacking Chinese censorship

People are natural improvisers.  When people see the need not being met by existing system, they apply creativity to solve the problem with existing means.  Some might call it wisdom of the crowd.  I call it improvising or hacking.

All of us are resourceful by nature.  We are wired that way.  If you look at all inventions, product designs, processes and so forth, all are created by people because they saw the need.  But our creativity does not stop at product design phase.  When users pick up something to apply to their problem, they again use their creativity to solve the problem by stretching intended use of the tool.  I wrote about this effect earlier.

This creativity does not know boundary.  It's happening in China as well.  When internet is censored to prohibit Chinese people from searching specific keywords, they are using their creativity to solve the censorship problem.  They are creating new urban dictionary terms to create new keywords to get around blacklisted keywords.

People will hack up a solution if there is a need.  Whenever you see one, there is an opportunity to improve the current design.
Bo Xilai is ousted Chinese official which triggered Chinese political instability;
find out more details from Wall Street Journal

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