China Up to Its Old Tricks, Herdict.org Keeping Track

Herdict.org is a Harvard-based website that allows visitors to report problems with access to certain sites, enabling a way of drawing conclusions from raw data and tracking possible censorship. It’s been operational since Febraury. Users are able to report Web issues anonymously, and aggregate information can help users identify potential censorship issues. In a recent example, when Chinese browsers attempted to YouTube view video of officials beating Tibetan protestors on the one-year anniversary, they received an error message. Over 100 individuals from China reported the problem to Herdict, which set off a red flag that the government was blocking access, a fact that was later confirmed by Google. Of course, there are multiple possible explanations for any given disruption, and Herdict doesn’t investigate the claims any further. But if it looks like a duck, there’s a good chance it’s foie gras. It should be interesting to see how long it takes for countries like China and Iran to block access. [via Yahoo]