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After Internet authorities asked Google to stop disseminating pornographic images and information on its Chinese service website last week, a section of Western media reacted strongly and suggested the Chinese government's move was a "cover for detecting and blocking sensitive political content". Media organizations in certain Western countries seem particularly interested in China's Internet "censorship". As a Chinese journalist, I sometimes travel to those countries. And almost every time I've had a chat with my Western counterparts, they've asked me what I thought about "media censorship" in China. "Call it 'censorship' if you want to," I've replied, "I believe there have to be regulations on what is accessible in information vehicles, be they traditional media forms or the cyber world." And I've told my friends that their countries, too, have imposed regulations to prevent the spread of "harmful content" on the Net. The definition of "harmful" or "improper" is not absolute. Who can tell if it does not include "political content"? For instance, there were reports as early as the mid-1990s about "G7 threat to online free speech and privacy". A Western organization called "Coalition of Online Civil Liberties Organizations" revealed major Western nations "have endorsed a number of restrictions and controls on the Internet. These include the prohibition or censorship of sources that may contain 'dangerous' information, restrictions on electronic speech of unpopular political organizations, and the imposition of 'key escrow' or other means of allowing governments to violate privately encrypted correspondence." | 
