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Summary
A top Beijing official has said that a controversial Internet filter software was optional for all users after plans to install it on computers sold in China triggered a storm of protest. After you install the software, you can use it or you can decide not to use it, said Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information technology. When you buy a computer, a floppy disk or CD (with the software) is given out, and the right to choose resides with the parent, with society, he told reporters in Beijing. News emerging in June that all computer makers had been ordered to install the software caused outcry in China and abroad, with critics accusing the government of trying to increase controls over the Internet. Internet filtering is a prior restraint on free speech and that restraint on the flow of ideas inhibit everything from democracy to economic development, said Ed Black, president and chief executive of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. The government has said that the citizen can use the filter if they wish but its use at schools, internet cafes and other public places would be mandatory.
