title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: According to the "Brandon Sun", the Brandon Police Service and Brandon Fire Department indicate they are not provided dangerous goods lists by rail companies. Côte-Saint-Luc, Quebec mayor Anthony Housefather expressed concern in a recent council meeting about the lack of data: “I’m not the federal government, I didn’t determine if the railways have an obligation to provide [the information] to the municipalities or anyone else,” the mayor added. “The federal government should be doing that. I had one opportunity to get it for our city to work on our emergency measures plan and make sure that we’re prepared, and I prefer to have the information than not have it... Until such time as the federal government adopts more stringent requirements on the railways, anything we receive as information as a city comes from the sufferance of the railway, meaning we need to have a good relationship with the railway to get anything because they have no legal obligation under federal law to provide it to us,”


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Farnham's town council passed a resolution asking that the operation of a rail line that cuts the town in two be suspended until Transport Canada conducts a full inspection of the rails; Farnham mayor Josef Hüsler has also requested subsidies to move the rail yard outside the town and replace a level crossing at Quebec Route 104 with an overpass.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Quebec City mayor Régis Labeaume has offered that city's continued support for the reconstruction effort (the city already has emergency workers on-site) and called for the immediate construction of 1–2 km of new track to reconnect Lac-Mégantic's industrial park to the rails, bypassing the damaged downtown. He praised local mayor Colette Roy-Laroche unequivocally while denouncing Rail World CEO Burkhardt as a "corporate bum" whose modus operandi of taking large dividends in profit while leaving company coffers nearly empty would allow the railway to declare bankruptcy, leaving taxpayers to foot the huge cost of rebuilding Lac-Mégantic. Quebec City has also sent an expert from its museum of civilisation to identify artefacts in the wreckage which should be preserved for inclusion in a future monument, memorial park or exhibit.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Vaudreuil-Dorion mayor Guy Pilon has asked that municipalities be permitted to limit the speed of trains in populated areas, as homes and schools built fifty years ago near rail lines then carrying wood, grain and cereals are now endangered by high-speed hazardous goods trains.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Dourdan, France mayor Olivier Leglois has offered condolences to the mayor of Lac-Mégantic at the request of Le Chêne et l'Érable, a Dourdan local organisation supporting the sister city link between the two towns. While Dourdan has provided no immediate aid, its local government intends to support secondary efforts such as reconstruction of the town's library, which suffered nearly two and a half million dollars in damage and is a complete loss. While the local archives cannot be replaced, various universities and local groups in Quebec have collected books for a new Bibliothèque Mégantic.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Sister city Farmington, Maine sent firefighters to fight the blaze, raised over $6000 in local donations in the first few days after the derailment and had local officials meet with their Méganticois counterparts to offer aid and support. Both the municipality and the Farmington library have contacted their direct counterparts in other Maine municipalities to enlist their aid.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: During a July 11 visit Premier Marois criticized the rail company's response, while announcing a $60-million fund for survivor assistance and rebuilding. Ten days later, the federal government had yet to commit to any specific aid for the stricken community, despite requests from the municipality for help to rebuild damaged infrastructure and reroute the rails outside the stricken downtown.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: During an annual premiers' conference, the Council of the Federation, provincial leaders called for stricter requirements for liability insurance for rail carriers, real-time information on content and location of dangerous goods trains for officials at all levels of government and a federally supported national emergency response program.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: The premiers of Quebec and all four Atlantic provinces, as well as all six New England governors, have called for stricter federal regulation of dangerous goods by rail in both nations.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: A 2001 Quebec law (Article 8 of the Loi sur la sécurité civile) for which the corresponding regulations were never enacted was cited on August 19, 2013, by Vision Montréal, a municipal political party. Under that law, a company conducting activities or holding materials which could cause a major disaster would be required to disclose these risks to municipalities, indicating the potential damage and any contingency plans.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In Maine, where oil-by-rail has attracted environmental protests, the state legislature voted 91–52 for a study on transportation of crude oil through the state. The proposed study was vetoed by the state's governor and the Maine Department of Transportation (Maine DOT) has no plans to review movements of crude oil through Maine. Maine governor Paul Lepage has advocated federal review of all procedures affecting rail safety on both sides of the border.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Maine's US representatives Michaud and Pingree proposed The Safe Freight Act, a federal bill requiring two-person crews on freight trains, and are demanding the older DOT-111 design be replaced by sturdier cars for dangerous goods shipments.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: The U.S. Federal Railroad Administration has launched a full re-inspection of the of the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway's track in Maine. A committee of local mayors representing the Quebec municipalities along the line (Lac-Mégantic, Farnham, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Sherbrooke, Magog, Sutton and Cowansville) have called for a similar investigation by the government of Canada. The FRA also established an "Emergency Order establishing additional requirements for attendance and securement of certain freight trains and vehicles on mainline track or mainline siding outside of a yard or terminal" on August 2, 2013.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Maine DOT is working to establish contingency plans for local industry which uses MMA's rail lines. The state has contacted every Maine freight rail operator, seeking a trustee who could keep the line running should MMA cease operations.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: On July 7, PM Stephen Harper described the area as a "war zone" and claimed the federal Cabinet would have the proper authorities "to conduct a very complete investigation and act on the recommendations".


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: The disaster has drawn criticisms of federal deregulation of the rail industry in Canada. The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents inspectors at Transport Canada, has objected to a pattern of fewer inspections, deferred maintenance of rail lines already in poor condition and an increasing number of cars on each train, going as far as to label the government of Canada as "complicit" in the disaster. Leaders of two federal opposition parties, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois, have called for Parliament to examine rail safety in Canada with possible implementation of stricter regulation. The Conservative Party has opposed a critical review of Transport Canada's oversight of the railways, Millions of dollars budgeted to Transport Canada for rail safety in fiscal years 2011–12 and 2012–13 remain unspent.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In Canada, federal regulation requires rail carriers carry adequate third-party liability insurance but does not legislate a specific dollar minimum in coverage. The amount of coverage is not disclosed to the public nor to municipalities along the line. MMA was insured for $25 million in liability; a second policy exists but only covers damage to MMA equipment and rolling stock.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: The federal government had been subject to intense lobbying by CPR and the Railway Association of Canada prior to the disaster, with railway association lobbyists meeting with multiple federal officials “to inform about the movement of dangerous goods, including voluntary and regulatory requirements, volumes, customers and safety measures to assure them that current regulations for dangerous goods transportation are sufficient.” A similar situation exists in the US, with nearly $47 million/year in lobbying to delay safety measures such as positive train control.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: The Environmental Petitions process of the federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development is one avenue for citizen redress, whereby the Minister is required to answer within 120 days.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In December 2011, the Commissioner on Environment and Sustainable Development, a branch of the Auditor General of Canada, recommended to address weaknesses in the oversight of the transportation of dangerous goods. Deficiencies identified by the AGC in 2011 included:


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: At the time of the release of the AGC report, Transport Canada agreed to review its procedures and enhance all of its practices by April 2013.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Marie France Dagenais, director-general of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods division of Transport Canada, prioritizes her job as follows: "naturally we do it in cooperation with the industry and also representatives with the U.S. government because we want uniform standards in Canada and the United States” and thus explains the five-year delay to develop standards in her department. Meanwhile, some representatives with the U.S. government were participating in drug use and sexual activity with employees from the very energy firms they were to be regulating.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: However, it would appear that many of the issues raised by the audit are not new. “An internal audit identified these same concerns over five years ago. The department has yet to correct some of the key weaknesses in its regulatory oversight practices,” stated former environment commissioner Scott Vaughan in July 2013.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: On August 22, 2013, a committee of the Senate of Canada reported its findings. The Energy, Environment and Natural Resources (ENEV) committee decided in November 2012 to report on energy safety issues and had input from more than 50 individuals or groups as it crossed Canada. The chair of the committee, Sen. Richard Neufeld, said that the entire committee was supportive of minimum insurance coverage: “If they can’t afford their liability coverage, maybe they shouldn’t be in the business.” The committee noted that "pipeline companies are subject to a minimum of $1 billion available in bonds, lines of credit, third-party guarantees and liability insurance.", and that in 2012 alone there were 118 railway accidents involving dangerous goods. The 13 recommendations of the committee include:


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Stricter safety requirements, including two-person crews and additional requirements for hand brakes, were announced in October 2014. In February 2015, the federal Minister of Transport announced a two-year phase-in of stricter liability for rail carriers, in which a Class I railway handling hazardous material could be required to carry a billion dollars in liability insurance.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In Canada, a class action lawsuit was filed by Daniel Larochelle (a Lac-Mégantic attorney whose office was destroyed by the derailment and fire) and a group of Canadian and US law firms on behalf of Musi-Café proprietor Yannick Gagné and one of the widowers from the disaster, Guy Ouellet. Afterwards, two more petitioners were added to the suit, Serges Jacques and Louis-Serge Parent. The suit names a long list of rail and oil companies, including Western Petroleum Company and Irving Oil:


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: It alleged Canadian Pacific Railway "entrusted the transport of highly explosive shale liquids to a carrier with one of the poorest safety records in the industry which was operating on poorly maintained 'excepted track' that did not permit the transport of flammable or dangerous goods" and claims CP knew that MMA was insolvent and underinsured. It also targeted Union Tank Car Company, Trinity Industries and GE Capital Rail Services, claiming "non-reinforced older model DOT-111 tankers were wholly unsuitable for the transport of these highly explosive shale liquids". The lawsuit stated that the transportation of flammable and dangerous goods is limited to 10 km/hour. Canadian courts can award plaintiffs a maximum of $326,000 as compensation for non-economic damages like emotional distress.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In the US, multiple individual lawsuits were filed in Rail World's home jurisdiction of Cook County, Illinois on behalf of various groups of next of kin. One such lawsuit filed in Cook County by Lac-Mégantic lawyer Gloriane Blais with two US lawyers (Edward Jazlowiecki in Connecticut and Mitchell Toups in Texas) listed eleven defendants, mostly North Dakota oil companies directly responsible for the train and its contents. Jazlowiecki stated that Illinois has no limit on compensation for non-economic damage like emotional distress, and that he foresaw the verdict in 24 to 36 months. Another lawsuit filed in Chicago, Illinois on behalf of ten victims is asking for over $50 million in damages.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Tafisa Canada, Canadian Pacific Railway and Western Petroleum Company also announced intent to seek damages.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In mid-July, Burkhardt indicated “Whether we can survive is a complex question. We’re trying to analyze that right now.” On August 7, hours after Quebec health minister Réjean Hébert stated that the province may sue to recover costs of its aid to victims, MMA filed for bankruptcy protection under US Chapter 11 and Canada's Companies Creditors Arrangement Act. As many of the suits name multiple defendants, typically oil companies including World Fuel Services, the cases continued to progress despite MMA's bankruptcy filings.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: A $200 million legal settlement was proposed in January 2015, but remains subject to government approval in both nations.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In November 2015, the government of Quebec sued Canadian Pacific Railway alleging it was negligent in transferring the oil train to the Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic and that it failed to take precautions that would have prevented the disaster. “CP intends to fully defend itself in court,” was the company's response.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: On June 21, 2016, Lac-Mégantic Town Council decided not to pursue legal action against Canadian Pacific, citing the costs involved in doing so and that there was no guarantee of a successful outcome.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: On July 23, 2013, Transport Canada issued an emergency directive requiring at least two persons operate trains carrying tank cars of dangerous materials, prohibiting dangerous material trains left on the mainline unattended, requiring locomotive cabs on unattended trains be locked and reverser handles removed to prevent the train being put into gear, imposing requirements for setting hand brakes on trains unattended for more than an hour and requiring both the automatic brake (train brake) and independent brake (locomotive brake) be applied at their maximum force for trains unattended for an hour or less. A ministerial emergency directive remains in effect for six months, although it can be renewed.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: The United States Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) issued a number of emergency orders on August 2, 2013, to all railroad operating companies in the country. The orders include a requirement for railroad companies to develop and submit to the FRA a plan to notify the agency when trains carrying hazardous materials will be left unattended as well as processes to secure the trains in their positions and to ensure that the locomotive doors are locked. Before leaving a train unattended, railroad crews will need to notify dispatchers of the number of hand brakes that are being applied on the train along with the number of cars, the train length, the grade of the track on which the train is parked and the current weather conditions.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating multiple safety issues with crude oil shipments, which are the fastest-growing hazardous material shipments by rail. On July 29, the FRA requested American Petroleum Institute members provide data on content of their crude shipments and crude oil loading practices and proposed to do its own testing if the data were not made available. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration launched a 'Bakken blitz' of inspections of North Dakota oil trains in August 2013, citing ongoing concerns about improper identification of the chemical composition and flash point of flammable cargo.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: According to the FRA, chemical composition of the oil is not being properly identified on shipping manifests, despite the use of corrosive or volatile chemicals in the fracking process. Content of blended crude from multiple wells is not tested before loading, even though FRA indicates that “it is critical that shippers determine the proper classification of the crude oil” as a tanker with a higher safety classification (and not the standard DOT-111A car) is required for corrosive or explosive materials. The information is needed for provision to first responders and emergency services during a disaster.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In an increasing number of incidents, chemicals such as hydrochloric acid (used to release crude from oil well rock formations) have corroded tanks, covers, valves and fittings. As unit trains of tanker cars do not pass over weigh-in-motion scales in classification yards, many are overloaded, increasing risks of leakage as oil expands with temperature. The result has been twice the number of leaks from crude oil shipments as from alcohol shipments, the next highest hazardous material, even though comparable volumes of each travel by rail.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In January 2014, Canada's Transportation Safety Board recommended that DOT-111 / CTC-111A oil-by-rail cars built before October 2011 be replaced with the newer, reinforced design. It also recommended carriers perform route planning and analysis and advocated mandated emergency response plans. While TSB set no clear deadlines, Irving Oil plans to replace the remainder of its own fleet of DOT-111's by the end of April 2014 and ask its suppliers to modernise by the year's end.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In February 2014, the US Federal Railroad Administration placed crude oil under the most protective two sets of hazardous materials shipping requirements and issued an order requiring tests of crude oil before shipment by rail.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In April 2014, the Canadian government required a phaseout or retrofit of the older DOT-111 oil-by-rail cars on a three-year deadline and mandated emergency response plans for all oil shipments by rail.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: A new group of four commercial buildings was built to accommodate some displaced businesses on a new site near the sports centre. In August 2013, consultants began surveying the site of a new bridge across the Chaudière River from Papineau Street to Lévis Street, to serve the new commercial district. New rail track reconnected the local industrial park to the Montreal line in November 2013. Private residences were expropriated to make way for redevelopment in Fatima.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Students at Laval University, Université de Montréal, and Université de Sherbrooke collected tens of thousands of books for a new library. Libraries in other Quebec communities solicited book donations and searched local archives for information on Mégantic's history. The new library, which had received 100,000 donated volumes (some of them duplicates) by September 2013, opened on May 5, 2014, as "La Médiathèque municipale Nelly-Arcan" in honour of an author born in the town.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: A temporary "Musi-Café d'été" hosted numerous Quebec musicians, including Marie-Mai, Louis-Jean Cormier, Karim Ouellet, Vincent Vallières, Michel Rivard, Dan Bigras, Richard Desjardins, Claude Dubois, Paul Piché and Fred Pellerin, in a series of free benefit concerts in a 150-seat tent from August 2 until mid-September 2013, raising money for local rebuilding efforts. A new Musi-Café opened in a $1.6 million building at the foot of the new Papineau Street bridge on December 15, 2014.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Métro opened its new Métro Plus Lac-Mégantic grocery store on October 15, 2014. Dollarama has not yet returned; Subway has reopened in one of the new buildings on Papineau Street and Jean Coutu is operating from reduced, temporary facilities until a new location can be built in Fatima.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Local demands to re-route the rails around the town also remain unaddressed, despite the risk that oil shipments could resume by the start of 2016.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: In 2018, writer Anne-Marie Saint-Cerny published the book "Mégantic: Une tragédie annoncée", an examination of the disaster. The book was a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General's Award for French-language non-fiction at the 2018 Governor General's Awards.


title: Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

text: Also in 2018, Bruce Campbell published the book "The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied". For his work on Lac-Mégantic, Campbell was awarded a Law Foundation of Ontario Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: "It Wasn't Me" is the first single from Jamaican-American reggae musician Shaggy's fifth studio album, "Hot Shot" (2000). The song features vocals from RikRok (credited as Rickardo "RikRok" Ducent). The lyrics of the song depict one man (RikRok) asking his friend (Shaggy) what to do after his girlfriend caught him cheating on her with "the girl next door". His friend's advice is to deny everything, despite clear evidence to the contrary, with the phrase "It wasn't me."


title: It Wasn't Me

text: "It Wasn't Me" was released to contemporary hit radio on 7 November 2000 and has been regarded as Shaggy's breakthrough in the pop market. It is his highest-charting song to date, topping the charts in Australia, Flanders, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was the best-selling single of 2001 in the UK, selling over 1.15 million copies that year and over 1.42 million .


title: It Wasn't Me

text: The lyrics of "It Wasn't Me" depict one man asking his friend what to do after his girlfriend catches him having sex with another woman. His friend's advice is to deny everything, despite clear evidence to the contrary, with the phrase "It wasn't me." Ultimately, the narrator says that the advice "makes no sense at all". It is written in the key of C major.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: The song was inspired by a bit called "No Loyal Men," performed by Eddie Murphy in his comedy special "Raw" (1987). In an interview in February 2016, Shaggy acknowledged similarities with the War song "Smile Happy". The connection is further supported by Liam Payne's debut single of 2017, "Strip That Down", itself based on "It Wasn't Me", which credited both Shaggy (as Orville Burrell) and members of War as co-songwriters.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: The clean version of the song replaces the lyric "Picture this: we were both butt-naked banging on the bathroom floor" with "Picture this: we were both caught making love on the bathroom floor" and "Saw me banging on the sofa" with "Saw me kissing on the sofa".


title: It Wasn't Me

text: "It Wasn't Me" was originally never intended to be released as a single. Before the original version of "Hot Shot" was released in August 2000, Hawaiian DJ Pablo Sato downloaded the album from "a Napster like MP3 site he won't name" and discovered that "It Wasn't Me" was "the album's standout cut." He played the song on American radio the next day, and in an interview, claimed, "The phone lines lit up right away. Within a couple of days, it was our number-one requested song." The song was released to radio on 7 November 2000, then was given a retail release on 6 February 2001 following its airplay success.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: "It Wasn't Me" was Shaggy's first number one hit in the United States. The song reached number two for two weeks from 16 December to 23 December 2000. On 30 December, it was bumped down one position to number three. It moved back up to the number two spot on 4 January 2001. The song peaked at number one for two weeks in February, unseating Destiny's Child's "Independent Women Part I".


title: It Wasn't Me

text: The song also reached number one on the UK Singles Chart on 4 March 2001, selling 345,000 copies, making the song a transatlantic chart topper. It also reached number one in Australia on 1 April 2001. It is also the 11th biggest selling single of the 21st century in the United Kingdom, with sales of over 1.42 million as of September 2017.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: As of August 2014, it is the 49th best selling single of the 21st century in France, with 399,500 units sold.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: It starts out with RikRok running to Shaggy's mansion to explain to him what has just happened. RikRok tells him that he cheated on his girlfriend and got caught. Shaggy tells him to tell her that "It wasn't me." The video then cuts into a flashback to earlier that day. RikRok has been caught sleeping with another woman, and his girlfriend is outside the apartment in her convertible when two women pull up next to her on their sport bikes.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: Then, the three women go into the building. He then sneaks out the window, takes the motorcycle of one of his girlfriends accomplices and leaves. The women come out and the girlfriend and one of the accomplices get in the convertible and the other gets on her motorcycle and they chase after him. From his mansion, Shaggy, using his futuristic technology, tracks down where RikRok is going and prepares an escape for him. RikRok then gets on a bridge over the highway when the accomplice rode on the bridge in front of him.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: He then hits the brakes to stop while she stops her motorcycle. RikRok then hears a noise behind him and it's the other accomplices and the girlfriend driving the convertible on the other side of the bridge with the highway down below. An eighteen-wheeler drives by, and Shaggy leaves RikRok a text message telling him to look behind and he notices the truck and jumps off the side of overhead and lands on the truck. He is then dropped off at Shaggy's mansion, showing the same scene from the start of the video.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: The lyrics of "It Wasn't Me" inspired "Slate" writer Josh Levin to coin the term the "Shaggy defense" to describe R. Kelly's defense at his 2008 child pornography trial stemming from the production of a sex tape: "I predict that in the decades to come, law schools will teach this as the 'Shaggy defense'. You allege that I was caught on camera, butt naked, banging on the log cabin floor? It wasn't me." R. Kelly was ultimately found not guilty on those charges.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: Levin repeated the term on NPR, and "Shaggy Defense" entered common use to describe a defendant flatly denying guilt despite overwhelming evidence against them.


title: It Wasn't Me

text: The song was spoofed by Bob Rivers, as "Caught Me One Handed", and makes a reference to the "Scooby-Doo" character, Shaggy Rogers. The video focused on him being caught masturbating (about the girl next door) by his mother. The song was also spoofed on "Svengoolie". On "The Chris Moyles Show", the song was used as a prank call with "Shaggy" (actually impressionist Jon Culshaw) trying to book a taxi, with the final line being "Can you drop me off at "The Chris Moyles Show" on BBC Radio 1?, 97 to 99 FM".


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The demography of the Republic of Bulgaria is monitored by the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: This article is about the demographic features of the population of Bulgaria, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Bulgaria has a high Human Development Index of 0.813, ranking 51st in the world in 2018 and holds the 38th position in "Newsweek"'s rankings of the world's best countries to live in, measuring health, education, political environment and economic dynamism.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Various estimates have put Bulgaria's medieval population at 1.1 million in 700 AD and 2.6 million in 1365. At the 2011 census, the population inhabiting Bulgaria was 7,364,570 in total, but more recent estimates calculate that the population has declined to 6.9 million. The peak was in 1989, the year when the borders opened after a half of a century of communist regime, when the population numbered 9,009,018.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The total fertility rate is the number of children born per woman. It is based on fairly good data for the entire period. Sources: Our World in Data and Gapminder Foundation.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: In 2016 a total of 64,984 live births were recorded in Bulgaria. The country has a crude birth rate of 9.1‰.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Seventy years ago (in the census of 1946), Bulgaria had a crude birth rate of 25,6‰. Ethnic Bulgarians (23,3‰) had a much lower crude birth rate compared to the two largest minorities: Turks (40,9‰) and Roma (47,2‰). However, it is unlikely that this difference continued since then, as birth rates in the Balkan countries dropped sharply.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Bulgaria has a low total fertility rate of 1.54 children per woman (at the end of 2016). This is up significantly from the late 1990s, but still below replacement and not enough to prevent further population decline, especially with emigration. Provinces with large Roma populations (for example Sliven, Montana and Yambol) tend to have higher fertility rates (and higher death rates) compared to other areas, whereas Turkish fertility is similar to the Bulgarian majority.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: As of 2017, the municipality of Nikolaevo has the highest crude birth rate with 18.6‰, followed by Tvarditsa (16.7‰) and Kaynardzha (15.7‰). All these municipalities have relatively large Romani populations.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: On the other hand, the municipalities of Georgi Damyanovo, Banite and Nevestino have a extremely low birth rates. These municipalities are almost exclusively inhabited by ethnic Bulgarians.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Bulgaria has one of the highest share of teenage pregnancy in Europe. Nevertheless, this number is declining rapidly in recent years.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The ten municipalities with the largest absolute number of teenage mothers are: Sliven (373), Sofia (339), Plovdiv (245), Pazardzhik (161), Stara Zagora (141), Nova Zagora (131), Burgas (108), Yambol (106), Haskovo (96) and Varna (86).


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Kardzhali Province and Sofia City have the highest life expectancy with 76.6 years for both sexes. The lowest life expectancy is recorded in the Northwestern provinces like Montana (72.7 years), Vratsa (72.8 years) and Vidin (72.9 years).


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The following forecast for the future population is an official estimate of the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Of the total 7,364,570 as of 2011, 3,586,571 are males and 3,777,999 are females, or there are 1,053 women for every 1,000 men.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The progressive decrease of the Bulgarian population is hindering economic growth and welfare improvement, and the management measures taken to mitigate the negative consequences do not address the essence of the problem. The Government Program for the period 2017 - 2021 is the first one that aims at overturning the trend. The program also identifies the priority means for achieving this goal: measures to increase the birth rate, reduce youth emigration, and build up regulatory and institutional capacity to implement a modern immigration policy tailored to the needs of the Bulgarian business.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The following table shows the ethnic composition of all Provinces of Bulgaria according to the 2011 census(% from the declared):


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The 2001 census defines an ethnic group as a "community of people, related to each other by origin and language, and close to each other by mode of life and culture"; and one's mother tongue as "the language a person speaks best and usually uses for communication in the family (household)".


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: According to the 2011 census, among the Bulgarians 99.4% indicate Bulgarian as a mother tongue, 0.3% - Turkish/Balkan gagauz, 0.1% - Roma and 0.1% others; among Turks 96.6% have pointed the Turkish/Balkan Gagauz as a mother tongue and 3.2% - Bulgarian; among the Roma 85% indicate Roma language as a mother tongue, 7.5% - Bulgarian, 6.7% - Turkish/Balkan gagauz and 0.6% - Romanian.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Bulgaria's traditional religion according to the constitution is the Orthodox Christianity, while Bulgaria is a secular state too. Since the last two censuses (2001 and 2011) provide widely divergent results, they are both shown in the table below. It is noteworthy that over a fifth of the population chose not to respond to this question in the 2011 census.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The results of the Bulgarian 2011 Census, in which the indication of answer regarding the question for confession was optional, are as follows:


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The results of the Bulgarian 2001 Census by ethnic groups, the latest census in which the indication of identification (whether by confession or as irreligious) in the question for confession was obligatory, are as follows:


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: In relation to internal migration, according to the 1910 census, 300,000 or almost 10% of the ethnic Bulgarians were born in another Bulgarian municipality than the one they were enumerated in. The same data shows that the foreign-born ethnic Bulgarians numbered 78,000, or 2% of them, most numerous of whom were the 61,000 Ottoman-born, 9,000 Romanian-born and by less than 2,000 Austro-Hungarian, Serbian and Russian-born. By the 1926 census, there had been 253,000 refugees with granted households and land or citizenship but with many more in towns of uncertain number. 35% came from Eastern Thrace, 30% came from Greek Macedonia, another 18% from Western Thrace, 8% from Dobruja, 4% from the Western Outlands, 3% from Asia Minor, and 2% from North Macedonia. They constituted 6% of the country's population. In 1940, 70,000 Bulgarians were exchanged from Northern Dobruja. The total number of refugees in 1878-1940 is estimated at between 700,000 and 1,200,000.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: According to the 2011 census Russian citizens are the most numerous foreigners - 11 991, followed by 8 444 EU citizens (UK- 2 605, Greece - 1 253, Germany- 848, Poland - 819 and Italy - 456), citizens of Ukraine - 3 064, North Macedonia - 1 091, Moldova - 893 and Serbia - 569. 22.8% of them are from Asia, mostly from Turkey. Those with dual Bulgarian and other citizenship were 22 152, or 0.3% of the population. Of them persons with Bulgarian and Russian citizenship were 5 257 (23.7%), followed by persons with Bulgarian and Turkish citizenship - 4 282 (19.3%), Bulgarian and citizenship of the USA- 1 725 (7.8%). There are at least 17,527 Refugees of the Syrian Civil War with applications in Bulgaria. In 2001-2015 185,447 people applied for Bulgarian citizenship and 116,222 were provided with. 113,647 were granted on grounds of proven Bulgarian ancestry, including 59,968 North Macedonia citizens. 29,218 were Moldovan citizens, 5930 Ukrainians, 5374 Serbians, 5194 Russians, 3840 Israeli, 2192 Albanians, 692 Turks and others. In 2016, 12,880 foreigners were naturalized, including 6196 Macedonians.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: At the 2011 census the largest decadal age group of the identified as Romani people is the 0–9 years old or 21% of them, the same age group accounted for 10% of the Turks and 7% of the Bulgarians. Experts estimate that the Romani in some provinces make up 40% of all aged between 0 and 9 years. Amongst those who did not answer the question on


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Bulgarian children constitute the majority of all children in 23 out of 28 provinces. They constitute more than ninety percent of all children in two provinces: Sofia (city) (92%) and Pernik Province (90%).


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Turkish children constitute the majority in Kardzhali Province (68% of self-declared) and Razgrad Province (50% of self-declared); they also constitute the largest group of all children in Silistra Province (43%).


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Roma children constitute 12% of all children in Bulgaria and more than a quarter in three provinces: Montana (29%), Sliven (28%) and Yambol (27%).


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The ageing of the population leads to an increase of the median age. The median age is 43.6 as of 2017, up from 40.4 years in 2001.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: According to the 2011 census, about 112,778 people aged nine or more are illiterate. There are considerable differences in the share of illiterate persons amongst the three main ethnic groups. Amongst the Bulgarian ethnic group the share of illiterate is 0.5%, amongst the Turkish - 4.7% and amongst the Roma ethnic group - 11.8%. About 81 thousand people aged seven or more never visited school.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The number of unemployed people declined to 207 thousand people (or around 6.2% of the population) in 2017.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The unemployment rate in rural areas (around 10.0%) is nearly two times higher than the unemployment rate in urban areas (approximately 5.1%).


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Vidin Province has the highest unemployment rate with almost one fifth of its labour force being unemployed. The provinces of Shumen (15.9%), Silistra (12.5%) and Targovishte (12.4%) have also very high unemployment rates.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: According to Eurostat, 82.3% per cent of the population live in privately owned and owner-occupied homes, ranking it as 12th highest in ownership globally. It is down from a recent peak of 87.6% in 2008, and has been steadily falling since.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: The number of Internet users has increased rapidly since 2000—from 430,000 their number grew to 1.55 million in 2004, and 3.4 million (48 per cent penetration rate) in 2010. Bulgaria has the third-fastest average Broadband Internet speed in the world after South Korea and Romania with an average speed of 1,611 kbit/s.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Currently there are three active mobile phone operators—Mtel, Telenor and Vivacom, Mtel is the largest one with 5.2 million users as of 2010, Telenor has 3,9 million as of 2007 and Vivacom over 1 million.


title: Demographics of Bulgaria

text: Most Bulgarians (72.5 per cent) reside in urban areas. Approximately one-sixth of them live in Sofia, which has a population exceeding 1,200,000 people.


title: Gail Zappa

text: Adelaide Gail Zappa ( Sloatman; January 1, 1945 – October 7, 2015) was the wife of musician and composer Frank Zappa and the trustee of the Zappa Family Trust. They met in Los Angeles in 1966 and married while she was pregnant with their first child, Moon, followed by Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva. Gail was also the aunt of model and actress Lala Sloatman.


title: Gail Zappa

text: In 2002, Gail Zappa founded the Zappa Family Trust, a holder of the title and copyright to Frank Zappa's musical and artistic products, as well as his commercial image. In 2015, the Trust was given to her son Ahmet shortly before she died of lung cancer.


title: Gail Zappa

text: Adelaide Gail Sloatman was born in Philadelphia to John Klein Sloatman Jr. (1915–1967), who was a second generation German-American and nuclear physicist with the United States Navy, and Laura Freitas (born 1921), who was born in Honolulu of Portuguese ancestry. She had 7 siblings, including 1 half-sibling from her father's previous marriage to Joan Lou Gatt. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Adelaide Silva. She grew up in Hollywood, and lived with her family in London, where her father was posted in 1959, and attended Marymount International School. She also modeled for photographer Terence Donovan.


title: Gail Zappa

text: She worked at the Office of Naval Research and Development, and then moved to New York, where she studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in the mid-1960s. After returning to Los Angeles, she met producer Kim Fowley, and recorded a spoken word single with him as "Bunny and Bear". The record is a satire of Sonny and Cher.


title: Gail Zappa

text: Zappa made a very brief appearance with then musician boyfriend Bobby Jameson in the documentary film "Mondo Hollywood", filmed in 1966. She met Vito Paulekas and Carl Franzoni, the leaders of what became known as the "freak scene" in Los Angeles, and by her own account became something of a groupie.


title: Gail Zappa

text: She met her future husband Frank Zappa in 1966 when she was working as a secretary at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. They married in a civil ceremony in New York on September 21, 1967, late in her pregnancy with Moon Zappa, born a week later. The marriage also produced children Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva Zappa. Gail had a fraught relationship with her oldest daughter, Moon, which seemed to have been repaired at the end of Gail's life. But, upon her death, it was revealed that the Zappa estate would not be divided equally among the four Zappa children, leaving Moon and Dweezil in a weaker financial position. “It’s complicated enough to be grieving the loss of a mean mom,” Moon Zappa told the Los Angeles Times in 2016, “and then to find out she was meaner than I could have possibly comprehended... It’s comical, the level of betrayal.” Ahmet Zappa insisted his mother was misunderstood. “She demanded respect and got the respect," he said, "and that’s really unusual." An interview with Gail was featured in the 1987 book "Rock Wives", written by Victoria Balfour.


title: Gail Zappa

text: Gail can be seen behind Frank Zappa on the sleeve of his album "Absolutely Free" (1967) and on the original, parody cover of his "We're Only In It For The Money" album (1968). Frank Zappa also named Barking Pumpkin Records after his wife's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or smoker's cough. Frank Zappa's relationship with manager Bennett Glotzer ended in 1984. From then on Gail co-managed with Frank, acted as business secretary, and supervised the record labels and mail order business.


title: Gail Zappa

text: At the time of his death in 1993, Frank urged Gail to withdraw from the music business, but never clarified what was to be done with his publishing catalog. In 2002, Gail founded the Zappa Family Trust, intended to oversee the release of his recordings, including multiple previously unavailable works. The trust holds title and copyright to Frank Zappa's musical and artistic products, as well as his commercial image.


title: Gail Zappa

text: After Frank's death Gail authorized the release of the album "Läther". Frank had intended to release this in October 1977 but due to legal problems he was forced to shelve the album. Upon release in 1996 Gail said "As originally conceived by Frank, "Läther" was always a 4-record box set." Despite this, Frank had already submitted a group of four individual albums (five full-length LPs) to Warner Bros. Records in March 1977. The four individual albums and the "Läther" package have much of the same music, but each also has unique content. In any case, Warner breached the contract by failing to pay Frank upon delivery of the recordings. Gail also claimed that Warner had broken up the "Läther" recordings into individual albums. However, this is directly contradicted in multiple interviews. In 1978 Frank said "Läther was made out of four albums. Warners has released two of them already and they have two more that they're probably gonna release."


title: Gail Zappa

text: In July 2015, it was announced that Ahmet Zappa would take over operation of the trust. Ahmet's siblings Dweezil and Moon publicly expressed frustration with his appointment to that role.


title: Gail Zappa

text: Described as "a strong-willed and savvy business woman", Gail Zappa "frequently squared off against the music industry’s major players...". She sent a note ending "Fuck you" to Steve Jobs over the creation of the iTunes Store. She criticized tribute bands playing Zappa's music, saying: "It is absolutely identity theft because from my point of view, Frank Zappa’s audience deserves to hear the music—if it’s for the first time, especially—presented in a way that is in the best possible light of what the composer intended."


title: Gail Zappa

text: In 2008, the Zappa Family Trust sued the organizers of the Zappanale Festival, held outside Bad Doberan, Germany, demanding they change the name of the festival, remove their promotional posters (which contained an allegedly trademarked moustache similar to Frank Zappa's) and remove the bust of him that has stood in the city center since 2002. In January 2009, the court found in Zappanale's favor after their defense argued that as the Zappa Family Trust only sells products on the Internet and accepts only U.S. dollars, it had not effectively exercised its trademarks in Germany for more than five years. The court also ruled that the use of the moustache was sufficiently different in Zappanale's merchandise so as not to cause confusion between the two.


title: Gail Zappa

text: Gail Zappa died in Los Angeles on October 7, 2015. "Rolling Stone" and TMZ reported that she died following "a long battle with lung cancer". She was 70.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Sprinting is running over a short distance at the top-most speed of the body in a limited period of time. It is used in many sports that incorporate running, typically as a way of quickly reaching a target or goal, or avoiding or catching an opponent. Human physiology dictates that a runner's near-top speed cannot be maintained for more than 30–35 seconds due to the depletion of phosphocreatine stores in muscles, and perhaps secondarily to excessive metabolic acidosis as a result of anaerobic glycolysis.


title: Sprint (running)

text: In athletics and track and field, sprints (or dashes) are races over short distances. They are among the oldest running competitions, being recorded at the Ancient Olympic Games. Three sprints are currently held at the modern Summer Olympics and outdoor World Championships: the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 400 metres.


title: Sprint (running)

text: At the professional level, sprinters begin the race by assuming a crouching position in the starting blocks before driving forward and gradually moving into an upright position as the race progresses and momentum is gained. The set position differs depending on the start. The use of starting blocks allows the sprinter to perform an enhanced isometric preload; this generates muscular pre-tension which is channeled into the subsequent forward drive, making it more powerful. Body alignment is of key importance in producing the optimal amount of force. Ideally, the athlete should begin in a 4-point stance and drive forwards, pushing off using both legs for maximum force production. Athletes remain in the same lane on the running track throughout all sprinting events, with the sole exception of the 400 metres indoors. Races up to 100 metres are largely focused upon acceleration to an athlete's maximum speed. All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element of endurance.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event—the stadion race, which was a sprinting race from one end of the stadium to the other. The Diaulos (Δίαυλος, "double pipe") was a double-stadion race, , introduced in the 14th Olympiad of the ancient Olympic Games (724BC).


title: Sprint (running)

text: Sprint races were part of the original Olympic Games in the 7th century B.C. as well as the first modern Olympic Games which started in the late 19th century (Athens 1896) and featured the 100 meters and 400 meters. Athletes started both races from a crouched start (4-point stance). In both the original Olympics and the modern Olympics, only men were allowed to participate in track and field until the 1928 games in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The 1928 games were also the first games to use a 400-meter track, which became the standard for track and field.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The modern sprinting events have their roots in races of imperial measurements which were later altered to metric: the 100 m evolved from the 100-yard dash, the 200 m distance came from the furlong (or mile), and the 400 m was the successor to the 440-yard dash or quarter-mile race.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Technological advances have always improved sprint performances (i.e., starting blocks, synthetic track material, and shoe technology). In 1924, athletes used a small shovel to dig holes to start the race. The world record in the 100-meter dash in 1924 was 10.4 seconds, while in 1948, (the first use of starting blocks) was 10.2 seconds, and was 10.1 seconds in 1956. The constant drive for faster athletes with better technology has brought man from 10.4 seconds to 9.58 seconds in less than 100 years.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Track events were measured with the metric system except for the United Kingdom and the United States until 1965 and 1974 respectively. The Amateur Athletic Association (AAU) decided to switch track and field in the U.S. to the metric system to finally make track and field internationally equivalent. Before this, American athletes could only qualify for world records at international events and Olympic Games.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Note: Indoor distances are less standardized, as many facilities run shorter or occasionally longer distances depending on available space. 60 m is the championship distance.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The event was a common event for most American students because it was one of the standardized test events as part of the President's Award on Physical Fitness.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The 50 metres is an uncommon event and alternative to the 60 metres. Donovan Bailey holds the men's world record with a time of 5.56 seconds and Irina Privalova holds the women's world record with a time of 5.96 seconds.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The 55 metres is an uncommon event that resulted from the metrication of the 60 yards and is an alternative to the 60 metres.


title: Sprint (running)

text: An extremely rare sprinting event, that was occasionally run in the 1960s. The world record of 6.90 is held by Bob Hayes.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The stadion, also known as the stade, was the standard short distance sprint in ancient Greece and ran the length of a stadium. However, stadiums could vary in size and there was apparently no definite standard length for them, e.g., the stadium at Delphi measures 177 m and the one at Pergamon 210 m.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The diaulos was an event contested in the Ancient Greek Olympia that was double the length of a stadion.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Sprinting spikes are typically designed to be lightweight, with a minimal cushion on the heels and a plate on the forefoot to keep the runner on the toes of each foot. The spike plate will typically have the maximum number of holes for metal spikes to be inserted to keep a proper grip on the track surface. These metal removable spikes also come in varying sizes. The spikes typically range from 4 mm to 15 mm and come in different styles. Most facilities have specific requirements for what size and style spikes can be used.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Starting blocks are not a necessity but are highly suggested for use in sprinting events. Starting blocks are a piece of equipment that typically consists of foot pads attached to a central rail. The point of using blocks is to help the athlete push themselves further down the track as quickly as possible.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The baton is a required element for any relay race. The baton is passed to each athlete through different exchange zones, with different techniques. Typically, about and in diameter.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Used typically in training sessions to measure relative times and recovery times. Stopwatches are not always the most accurate way to measure times in a race setting,


title: Sprint (running)

text: Fully Automatic Timing (FAT) and gate systems are used to accurately measure races, with results as accurate as up to 1/1000 of a second.


title: Sprint (running)

text: As of 2021, World Athletics (WA) is the governing body for track and field around the world. Every country that wishes to participate in WA competitions must become a member.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Each governing body sets its own rules for how competition is deemed fair.  World Athletics sets the competition rules internationally. The World Athletics rulebook is broken into 4 separate books.


title: Sprint (running)

text: Starting blocks are used for all competition sprints (up to and including 400 m) and relay events (first leg only, up to 4x400 m). The starting blocks consist of two adjustable footplates attached to a rigid frame. Races commence with the firing of the starter's gun. The starting commands are "On your marks" and "Set". Once all athletes are in the set position, the starter's gun is fired, officially starting the race. For the 100 m, all competitors are lined up side by side. For the 200 m, 300 m, and 400 m, which involve curves, runners are staggered for the start.


title: Sprint (running)

text: In the rare event that there are technical issues with a start, a green card is shown to all the athletes. The green card carries no penalty. If an athlete is unhappy with track conditions after the "on your marks" command is given, the athlete must raise a hand before the "set" command and provide the Start referee with a reason. It is then up to the Start referee to decide if the reason is valid. If the Start referee deems the reason invalid, a yellow card (warning) is issued to that particular athlete. If the athlete is already on a warning, the athlete is disqualified.


title: Sprint (running)

text: According to the World Athletics (WA) rules, "An athlete, after assuming a full and final set position, shall not commence his starting motion until after receiving the report of the gun or approved starting apparatus. If, in the judgement of the Starter or Recallers, he does so any earlier, it shall be deemed a false start."


title: Sprint (running)

text: The 100 m Olympic gold and silver medallist Linford Christie of Great Britain famously had frequent false starts that were marginally below the legal reaction time of 0.1  seconds. Christie and his coach, Ron Roddan, both claimed that the false starts were due to Christie's exceptional reaction times being under legal time. His frequent false starting eventually led to his disqualification from the 1996 Summer Olympics 100 m final in Atlanta, the US, due to a second false start by Christie. Since January 2010, under WA rules, a single false start by an athlete resulted in disqualification.


title: Sprint (running)

text: In 2012, a new development to the false start rule was added. Because certain athletes could be disqualified for twitching in the starting blocks, but some athletes could make a twitch without the starter noticing and disqualifying the athlete, it was decided that twitching in the starting block while being in the 'set' position would only carry a maximum penalty of a yellow card or a warning. To instantly be disqualified for a false start, an athlete's hands must leave the track or their feet must leave the starting blocks, while the athlete is in their final 'set' position.


title: Sprint (running)

text: For all Olympic sprint events, runners must remain within their pre-assigned lanes, which measure 1.22 metres (4 feet) wide, from start to finish. The lanes can be numbered 1 through 8, 9, or rarely 10, starting with the inside lane. Any athlete who runs outside the assigned lane to gain an advantage is subject to disqualification. If the athlete is forced to run outside of his or her lane by another person, and no material advantage is gained, there will be no disqualification. Also, a runner who strays from his or her lane in the straightaway, or crosses the outer line of his or her lane on the bend, and gains no advantage by it, will not be disqualified as long as no other runner is obstructed.


title: Sprint (running)

text: The first athlete whose torso reaches the vertical plane of the closest edge of the finish line is the winner. To ensure that the sprinter's torso triggers the timing impulse at the finish line rather than an arm, foot, or other body parts, a double Photocell is commonly used. Times are only recorded by an electronic timing system when both of these Photocells are simultaneously blocked.


title: Sprint (running)

text: While genetics play a large role in one's ability to sprint, athletes must be dedicated to their training to ensure that they can optimize their performances. Sprint training includes various running workouts, targeting acceleration, speed development, speed endurance, special endurance, and tempo endurance. Additionally, athletes perform intense strength training workouts, as well as plyometric or jumping workouts. Collectively, these training methods produce qualities that allow athletes to be stronger, and more powerful, in hopes of ultimately running faster.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China (PRC) affects both publishing and viewing online material. Many controversial events are censored from news coverage, preventing many Chinese citizens from knowing about the actions of their government, and severely restricting freedom of the press. Such measures, including the complete blockage of various websites, inspired the policy's nickname, the "Great Firewall of China", which blocks websites. Methods used to block websites and pages include DNS spoofing, blocking access to IP addresses, analyzing and filtering URLs, packet inspection, and resetting connections.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: China's Internet censorship is more comprehensive and sophisticated than any other country in the world. The government blocks website content and monitors Internet access. As required by the government, major Internet platforms in China established elaborate self-censorship mechanisms. As of 2019, more than sixty online restrictions had been created by the Government of China and implemented by provincial branches of state-owned ISPs, companies and organizations. Some companies hire teams and invested in powerful artificial intelligence algorithms to police and remove illegal online content.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Amnesty International states that China has "the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world" and Reporters Without Borders stated in 2010 and 2012 that "China is the world's biggest prison for netizens."


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Commonly alleged user offenses include communicating with organized groups abroad, signing controversial online petitions, and forcibly calling for government reform. The government has escalated its efforts to reduce coverage and commentary that is critical of the regime after a series of large anti-pollution and anti-corruption protests. Many of these protests were organized or publicized using instant messaging services, chat rooms, and text messages. China's Internet police force was reported by official state media to be 2 million strong in 2013.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Especially during 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, in order to combat disinformation, several Chinese social platforms, including Quora-like Zhihu and the domestic version of TikTok, Douyin, Bilibili announced that they will display user locations based on internet protocol (IP) addresses which displaying user's province in China will be shown or a person's country or region if the IP address is located overseas, a feature that users cannot disable.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: China's special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau are outside the Great Firewall. However, it was reported that the central government authorities have been closely monitoring Internet use in these regions (see Internet censorship in Hong Kong).


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The political and ideological background of Internet censorship is considered to be one of Deng Xiaoping's favorite sayings in the early 1980s: "If you open a window for fresh air, you have to expect some flies to blow in." The saying is related to a period of the Chinese economic reform that became known as the "socialist market economy". Superseding the political ideologies of the Cultural Revolution, the reform led China towards a market economy, opening it up to foreign investors. Nonetheless, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wished to protect its values and political ideas by "swatting flies" of other ideologies, with a particular emphasis on suppressing movements that could potentially threaten the stability of the country.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Internet first arrived in the country in 1994. Since its arrival and the gradual rise of availability, the Internet has become a common communication platform and an important tool for sharing information. Just as the Chinese government had expected, the number of Internet users in China soared from less than one percent in 1994, when the Internet was introduced, to 28.8 percent by 2009.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In 1998, the CCP feared the China Democracy Party (CDP), organized in contravention of the "Four Cardinal Principles", would breed a powerful new network that CCP party elites might not be able to control resulting in the CDP being immediately banned. That same year, the "Golden Shield project" was created. The first part of the project lasted eight years and was completed in 2006. The second part began in 2006 and ended in 2008. The Golden Shield project was a database project in which the government could access the records of each citizen and connect China's security organizations. The government had the power to delete any comments online that were considered harmful.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: On 6 December 2002, 300 members in charge of the Golden Shield project came from 31 provinces and cities across China to participate in a four-day inaugural "Comprehensive Exhibition on Chinese Information System". At the exhibition, many Western technology products including Internet security, video monitoring, and facial recognition systems were purchased. According to Amnesty International, around 30,000–50,000 Internet police have been employed by the Chinese government to enforce Internet laws.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Chinese government has described censorship as the method to prevent and eliminate "risks in the ideological field from the Internet".


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The government of China defends its right to censor the Internet by claiming that this right extends from the country's own rules inside its borders. A white paper released in June 2010 reaffirmed the government's determination to govern the Internet within its borders under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty. The document states, "Laws and regulations prohibit the spread of information that contains content subverting state power, undermining national unity [or] infringing upon national honor and interests." It adds that foreign individuals and firms can use the Internet in China, but they must abide by the country's laws.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Central Government of China started its Internet censorship with three regulations. The first regulation was called the Temporary Regulation for the Management of Computer Information Network International Connection. The regulation was passed in the 42nd Standing Convention of the State Council on 23 January 1996. It was formally announced on 1 February 1996, and updated again on 20 May 1997. The content of the first regulation stated that Internet service providers be licensed and that Internet traffic goes through ChinaNet, GBNet, CERNET or CSTNET. The second regulation was the Ordinance for Security Protection of Computer Information Systems. It was issued on 18 February 1994 by the State Council to give the responsibility of Internet security protection to the Ministry of Public Security.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Ordinance regulation further led to the Security Management Procedures in Internet Accessing issued by the Ministry of Public Security in December 1997. The regulation defined "harmful information" and "harmful activities" regarding Internet usage. Section Five of the Computer Information Network and Internet Security, Protection, and Management Regulations approved by the State Council on 11 December 1997 stated the following:


title: Internet censorship in China

text: (The "units" stated above refer to work units () or more broadly, workplaces). As of 2021, the regulations are still active and govern the activities of Internet users online.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In 1996, the Ministry of Commerce created a set of regulations which prohibit connection to "international networks" or use of channels outside of those provided by official government service providers without prior approval or license from authorities. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has since been superseded by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology or MIIT. To this date this regulation is still used to prosecute and fine users who connect to international networks or use VPN's.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In September 2000, State Council Order No. 292 created the first set of content restrictions for Internet content providers. China-based websites cannot link to overseas news websites or distribute news from overseas media without separate approval. Only "licensed print publishers" have the authority to deliver news online. These sites must obtain approval from state information offices and the State Council Information Agency. Non-licensed websites that wish to broadcast news may only publish information already released publicly by other news media. Article 11 of this order mentions that "content providers are responsible for ensuring the legality of any information disseminated through their services." Article 14 gives Government officials full access to any kind of sensitive information they wish from providers of Internet services.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: On November 6, 2017, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress promulgated a cybersecurity law which among other things requires "network operators" to store data locally, hand over information when requested by state security organs and open software and hardware used by "critical information infrastructure" operators to be subject to national security review, potentially compromising source codes and security of encryption used by communications service providers. The law is an amalgamation of all previous regulations related to Internet use and online censorship and unifies and institutionalises the legislative framework governing cyber control and content censorship within the country. Article 12 states that persons using networks shall not "overturn the socialist system, incite separatism" or "break national unity" further institutionalising the suppression of dissent online.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In December 1997, The Public Security Minister, Zhu Entao, released new regulations to be enforced by the ministry that inflicted fines for "defaming government agencies, splitting the nation, and leaking state secrets." Violators could face a fine of up to CNY 15,000 (roughly US$1,800). Banning appeared to be mostly uncoordinated and ad hoc, with some websites allowed in one city, yet similar sites blocked in another. The blocks were often lifted for special occasions. For example, "The New York Times" was unblocked when reporters in a private interview with CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin specifically asked about the block and he replied that he would look into the matter. During the APEC summit in Shanghai during 2001, normally-blocked media sources such as CNN, NBC, and the "Washington Post" became accessible. Since 2001, blocks on Western media sites have been further relaxed, and all three of the sites previously mentioned were accessible from mainland China. However, access to "the New York Times" was denied again in December 2008.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In the middle of 2005, China purchased over 200 routers from an American company, Cisco Systems, which enabled the Chinese government to use more advanced censor technology. In February 2006, Google, in exchange for equipment installation on Chinese soil, blocked websites which the Chinese government deemed illegal. Google reversed this policy in 2010, after they suspected that a Google employee passed information to the Chinese Government and inserted backdoors into their software.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In May 2011, the State Council Information Office announced the transfer of its offices which regulated the Internet to a new subordinate agency, the State Internet Information Office which would be responsible for regulating the Internet in China. The relationship of the new agency to other Internet regulation agencies in China was unclear from the announcement.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: On 26 August 2014, the State Internet Information Office (SIIO) was formally authorized by the state council to regulate and supervise all Internet content. It later launched a website called the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and the Office of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs. In February 2014, the Central Internet Security and Informatization Leading Group was created in order to oversee cybersecurity and receive information from the CAC. Chairing the 2018 China Cyberspace Governance Conference on 20 and 21 April 2018, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, committed to "fiercely crack down on criminal offenses including hacking, telecom fraud, and violation of citizens' privacy." The Conference comes on the eve of the First Digital China Summit, which was held at the Fuzhou Strait International Conference and Exhibition Centre in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian Province.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: On 4 January 2019, the CAC started a project to take down pornography, violence, bloody content, horror, gambling, defrauding, Internet rumors, superstition, invectives, parody, threats, and proliferation of "bad lifestyles" and "bad popular culture". On 10 January 2019, China Network Audiovisual Program Service Association announced a new regulation to censor short videos with controversial political or social content such as a "pessimistic outlook of millennials", "one night stands", "non-mainstream views of love and marriage" as well as previously prohibited content deemed politically sensitive.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: China is planning to make deepfakes illegal which is described as the way to prevent "parody and pornography."


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In July 2019, the CAC announced a regulation that said that Internet information providers and users in China who seriously violate related laws and regulations will be subject to Social Credit System blocklist. It also announces that Internet information providers and users who are not meeting the standard but mildly violation will be recorded in the List to Focus.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: On 1 August 2022, the were issued by the China Internet Information Office came into effect, which requires Internet accounts to fill in their real occupations, and user IP location will be displayed, while registration of some accounts in professional fields is even required to provide verification materials.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: During the 2022 COVID-19 protests in China, the CAC directed companies such as Tencent and ByteDance to intensify their censorship efforts.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: After 15 December 2022, the Regulations on the Administration of Internet Followers' Commenting Services will be came into force, which for the first time considered "likes" as a type of comment. In addition, the regulations state that public accounts must take the initiative to review the comments left by netizens. Some experts have pointed out that this means that netizens may be punished by the platform or the authorities for the content of their likes.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Internet censorship in China has been called "a panopticon that encourages self-censorship through the perception that users are being watched." The enforcement (or threat of enforcement) of censorship creates a chilling effect where individuals and businesses willingly censor their own communications to avoid legal and economic repercussions. ISPs and other service providers are legally responsible for customers' conduct. The service providers have assumed an editorial role concerning customer content, thus becoming publishers and legally responsible for libel and other torts committed by customers. Some hotels in China advise Internet users to obey local Chinese Internet access rules by leaving a list of Internet rules and guidelines near the computers. These rules, among other things, forbid linking to politically unacceptable messages and inform Internet users that if they do, they will have to face legal consequences.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: On 16 March 2002, the Internet Society of China, a self-governing Chinese Internet industry body, launched the Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry, an agreement between the Chinese Internet industry regulator and companies that operate sites in China. In signing the agreement, web companies pledge to identify and prevent the transmission of information that Chinese authorities deem objectionable, including information that "breaks laws or spreads superstition or obscenity", or that "may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability". As of 2006, the pledge had been signed by more than 3,000 entities operating websites in China.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Although the government does not have the physical resources to monitor all Internet chat rooms and forums, the threat of being shut down has caused Internet content providers to employ internal staff, colloquially known as "big mamas", who stop and remove forum comments which may be politically sensitive. In Shenzhen, these duties are partly taken over by a pair of police-created cartoon characters, Jingjing and Chacha, who help extend the online "police presence" of the Shenzhen authorities. These cartoons spread across the nation in 2007 reminding Internet users that they are being watched and should avoid posting "sensitive" or "harmful" material on the Internet.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: However, Internet content providers have adopted some counter-strategies. One is to post politically sensitive stories and remove them only when the government complains. In the hours or days in which the story is available online, people read it, and by the time the story is taken down, the information is already public. One notable case in which this occurred was in response to a school explosion in 2001, when local officials tried to suppress the fact the explosion resulted from children illegally producing fireworks.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: On 11 July 2003, the Chinese government started granting licenses to businesses to open Internet cafe chains. Business analysts and foreign Internet operators regard the licenses as intended to clamp down on information deemed harmful to the Chinese government. In July 2007, the city of Xiamen announced it would ban anonymous online postings after text messages and online communications were used to rally protests against a proposed chemical plant in the city. Internet users will be required to provide proof of identity when posting messages on the more than 100,000 Web sites registered in Xiamen.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Chinese government issued new rules on 28 December 2012, requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the authorities. The new regulations, issued by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, allow Internet users to continue to adopt pseudonyms for their online postings, but only if they first provide their real names to service providers, a measure that could chill some of the vibrant discourse on the country's Twitter-like microblogs. The authorities periodically detain and even jail Internet users for politically sensitive comments, such as calls for a multiparty democracy or accusations of impropriety by local officials.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Fines and short arrests are becoming an optional punishment to whoever spreads undesirable information through the different Internet formats, as this is seen as a risk to social stability.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In 2001, Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese activists were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for using a Yahoo! email account to post anonymous writing to an Internet mailing list. On 23 July 2008, the family of Liu Shaokun was notified that he had been sentenced to one year re-education through labor for "inciting a disturbance". As a teacher in Sichuan province, he had taken photographs of collapsed schools and posted these photos online. On 18 July 2008, Huang Qi was formally arrested on suspicion of illegally possessing state secrets. Huang had spoken with the foreign press and posted information on his website about the plight of parents who had lost children in collapsed schools. Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, used his Yahoo! email account to send a message to a U.S.-based pro-democracy website. In his email, he summarized a government order directing media organizations in China to downplay the upcoming 15th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists. Police arrested him in November 2004, charging him with "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities". In April 2005, he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and two years' subsequent deprivation of his political rights.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In mid-2013 police across China arrested hundreds of people accused of spreading false rumors online. The arrest targeted microbloggers who accused CCP officials of corruption, venality, and sexual escapades. The crackdown was intended to disrupt online networks of like-minded people whose ideas could challenge the authority of the CCP. Some of China's most popular microbloggers were arrested. In September 2013, China's highest court and prosecution office issued guidelines that define and outline penalties for publishing online rumors and slander. The rules give some protection to citizens who accuse officials of corruption, but a slanderous message forwarded more than 500 times or read more than 5,000 times could result in up to three years in prison.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: According to the 2020 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, China is the world's biggest jailer of journalists, holding around 100 in detention. In February 2020, China arrested two of its citizens for taking it upon themselves to cover the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Great Firewall has used numerous methods to block content, including IP dropping, DNS spoofing, deep packet inspection for finding plain text signatures within the handshake to throttle protocols, and more recently active probing.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Golden Shield Project maintained and constructed by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the People's Republic of China started in 1998, began processing in November 2003, and the first part of the project passed the national inspection on 16 November 2006 in Beijing. According to MPS, its purpose is to construct a communication network and computer information system for police to improve their capability and efficiency. By 2002 the preliminary work of the Golden Shield Project had cost US$800 million (equivalent to RMB 5,000 million or €620 million). Greg Walton, a freelance researcher, said that the aim of the Golden Shield is to establish a "gigantic online database" that would include "speech and face recognition, closed-circuit television... [and] credit records" as well as traditional Internet use records.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: A notice issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on 19 May stated that, as of 1 July 2009, manufacturers must ship machines to be sold in mainland China with the Green Dam Youth Escort software. On 14 August 2009, Li Yizhong, minister of industry and information technology, announced that computer manufacturers and retailers were no longer obliged to ship the software with new computers for home or business use, but that schools, Internet cafes and other public use computers would still be required to run the software.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: A senior official of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council Information Office said the software's only purpose was "to filter pornography on the Internet". The general manager of Jinhui, which developed Green Dam, said: "Our software is simply not capable of spying on Internet users, it is only a filter." Human rights advocates in China have criticized the software for being "a thinly concealed attempt by the government to expand censorship". Online polls conducted on Sina, Netease, Tencent, Sohu, and "Southern Metropolis Daily" revealed over 70% rejection of the software by netizens. However, Xinhua commented that "support [for Green Dam] largely stems from end users, opposing opinions primarily come from a minority of media outlets and businesses."


title: Internet censorship in China

text: According to a Harvard study, at least 18,000 websites were blocked from within mainland China in 2002, including 12 out of the Top 100 Global Websites. The Chinese-sponsored news agency, Xinhua, stated that censorship targets only "superstitious, pornographic, violence-related, gambling, and other harmful information." This appears questionable, as the e-mail provider Gmail is blocked, and it cannot be said to fall into any of these categories. On the other hand, websites centered on the following political topics are often censored: Falun Gong, police brutality, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, freedom of speech, democracy, the Tibetan independence movement, and the Tuidang movement. Foreign media websites are occasionally blocked. As of 2014, "The" "New York Times", the "BBC", and "Bloomberg News" are blocked indefinitely.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Testing performed by Freedom House in 2011 confirmed that material written by or about activist bloggers is removed from the Chinese Internet in a practice that has been termed "cyber-disappearance".


title: Internet censorship in China

text: A 2012 study of social media sites by other Harvard researchers found that 13% of Internet posts were blocked. The blocking focused mainly on any form of collective action (anything from false rumors driving riots to protest organizers to large parties for fun), pornography, and criticism of the censors. However, significant criticisms of the government were not blocked when made separately from calls for collective action. Another study has shown comments on social media that criticize the state, its leaders, and their policies are usually published, but posts with collective action potential will be more likely to be censored whether they are against the state or not.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: A lot of larger Japanese websites were blocked from the afternoon of 15 June 2012 (UTC+08:00) to the morning of 17 June 2012 (UTC+08:00), such as Google Japan, Yahoo! Japan, Amazon Japan, Excite, Yomiuri News, Sponichi News and Nikkei BP Japan.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Chinese censors have been relatively reluctant to block websites where there might be significant economic consequences. For example, a block of GitHub was reversed after widespread complaints from the Chinese software developer community. In November 2013 after the Chinese services of Reuters and the "Wall Street Journal" were blocked, "greatfire.org" mirrored the Reuters website to an Amazon.com domain in such a way that it could not be shut down without shutting off domestic access to all of Amazon's cloud storage service.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: For one month beginning 17 November 2014, ProPublica tested whether the homepages of 18 international news organizations were accessible to browsers inside China, and found the most consistently blocked were "Bloomberg", "New York Times", "South China Morning Post", "Wall Street Journal", Facebook, and Twitter. Internet censorship and surveillance has tightly implemented in China that block social websites like Gmail, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and others. The excessive censorship practices of the Great Firewall of China have now engulfed the VPN service providers as well.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: One part of the block is to filter the search results of certain terms on Chinese search engines such as (for example, Sogou, 360 Search and Baidu). Attempting to search for censored keywords in these Chinese search engines will yield few or no results.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In addition, a connection containing intensive censored terms may also be closed by The Great Firewall, and cannot be re-established for several minutes. This affects all network connections including HTTP and POP, but the reset is more likely to occur during searching. Before the search engines censored themselves, many search engines had been blocked.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Several Bulletin Board Systems in universities were closed down or restricted public access since 2004, including the SMTH BBS and the YTHT BBS.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In September 2007, some data centers were shut down indiscriminately for providing interactive features such as blogs and forums. CBS reports an estimate that half the interactive sites hosted in China were blocked.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of the government suppression of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, the government ordered Internet portals, forums and discussion groups to shut down their servers for maintenance between 3 and 6 June 2009. The day before the mass shut-down, Chinese users of Twitter, Hotmail and Flickr, among others, reported a widespread inability to access these services.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: 1. Corporations/government hire censors to read individual social media posts and manually take down posts that violate policy. (Although the government and media often use the microblogging service Sina Weibo to spread ideas and monitor corruption, it is also supervised and self-censored by 700 Sina censors. )


title: Internet censorship in China

text: 2. Posts that will be primarily auto-blocked based on keyword filters, and decide which ones to publish later.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In the second half of 2009, the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter were blocked, presumably because of containing social or political commentary (similar to LiveJournal in the above list). An example is the commentary on the July 2009 Ürümqi riots. Another reason suggested for the block is that activists can utilize them to organize themselves.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In 2010, Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo became a forbidden topic in Chinese media due to his winning the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Keywords and images relating to the activist and his life were again blocked in July 2017, shortly after his death.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: After the 2011 Wenzhou train collision, the government started emphasizing the danger in spreading 'false rumours' (yaoyan), making the permissive usage of Weibo and social networks a public debate.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In 2012,"" First Monday" published an article on "political "content" censorship in social media, i.e., the active deletion of messages published by individuals." This academic study, which received extensive media coverage, accumulated a dataset of 56 million messages sent on Sina Weibo from June through September 2011, and statistically analyzed them three months later, finding 212,583 deletions out of 1.3 million sampled, more than 16 percent. The study revealed that censors quickly deleted words with politically controversial meanings (e.g., "qingci" 请辞 "asking someone to resign" referring to calls for Railway Minister Sheng Guangzu to resign after the Wenzhou train collision on 23 July 2011), and also that the rate of message deletion was regionally anomalous (compare censorship rates of 53% in Tibet and 52% in Qinghai with 12% in Beijing and 11.4% in Shanghai). In another study conducted by a research team led by political scientist Gary King, objectionable posts created by King's team on a social networking site were almost universally removed within 24 hours of their posting.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The comment areas of popular posts which mentioned Vladimir Putin on Sina Weibo were shut down during the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit in Germany. It is a rare example that a foreigner leader is granted the safety from a popular judgment on the Chinese Internet, which usually only granted to the Chinese leaders. This move by the Chinese Government may be related to their close ties with Russia and Putin himself.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: WeChat is the dominant social media and messaging app in China, and is also the most popular messaging application for most Chinese nationals staying overseas. Though subject to state rules which saw individual posts removed, Tech in Asia reported in 2013 that certain "restricted words" had been blocked on WeChat globally. A crackdown in March 2014 deleted dozens of WeChat accounts, some of which were independent news channels with hundreds of thousands of followers. CNN reported that the blocks were related to laws banning the spread of political "rumors".


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported in July 2020 that the CAC would conduct an intensive three-month investigation and cleanup of 13 media platforms, including WeChat.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In March 2020, China suddenly started blocking website using the TLS (Transport Layer Security 1.3) and ESNI (Encrypted Server Name Indicator) for SSL certificates, since ESNI makes it difficult if not impossible to identify the name of a website based on the server name displayed in its SSL certificate. Since May 2015, Chinese Wikipedia has been blocked in mainland China. This was done after Wikipedia started to use HTTPS encryption, which made selective censorship more difficult.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: Beginning in 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in conjunction with the Cyberspace Administration Commission (CAC) began a sweeping crackdown on all VPN providers, ordering all major state owned telecommunications providers including China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom to block VPN protocols with only authorised users who have obtained permits beforehand to access VPN's (provided they are operated by state-owned telecommunications companies). In 2017 Apple also started removing all VPN apps from Apple app stores at the behest of the Chinese government.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The Chinese government censors Internet materials related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. According to the government's white paper in 2010 on the subject of Internet in China, the government protects "the safe flow of internet information and actively guides people to manage websites under the law and use the internet in a wholesome and correct way". The government, therefore, prevents people on the Internet from "divulging state secrets, subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification; damaging state honor" and "disrupting social order and stability." Law-abiding Chinese websites such as Sina Weibo censors words related to the protests in its search engine. Sina Weibo is one of the largest Chinese microblogging services. As of October 2012, Weibo's censored words include "Tank Man." The government also censors words that have similar pronunciation or meaning to "4 June", the date that the government's violent crackdown occurred. "陆肆", for example, is an alternative to "六四" (4 June). The government forbids remembrances of the protests. Sina Weibo's search engine, for example, censors Hong Kong lyricist Thomas Chow's song called 自由花 or "The Flower of Freedom", since attendees of the Vindicate 4 June and Relay the Torch rally at Hong Kong's Victoria Park sing this song every year to commemorate the victims of the events.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: The government's Internet censorship of such topics was especially strict during the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, which occurred in 2009. According to a Reporters Without Borders' article, searching photos related to the protest such as "4 June" on Baidu, the most popular Chinese search engine, would return blank results and a message stating that the "search does not comply with laws, regulations, and policies". Moreover, a large number of netizens from China claimed that they were unable to access numerous Western web services such as Twitter, Hotmail, and Flickr in the days leading up to and during the anniversary. Netizens in China claimed that many Chinese web services were temporarily blocked days before and during the anniversary. Netizens also reported that microblogging services including Fanfou and Xiaonei (now known as Renren) were down with similar messages that claim that their services were "under maintenance" for a few days around the anniversary date. In 2019, censors once again doubled down during the 30th anniversary of the protests, and by this time had been "largely automated".


title: Internet censorship in China

text: In 2009, the Guardian wrote that Chinese netizens responded with subtle protests against the government's temporary blockages of large web services. For instance, Chinese websites made subtle grievances against the state's censorship by sarcastically calling the date 4 June as the or "Chinese Internet Maintenance Day". Owner of the blog Wuqing.org stated, "I, too, am under maintenance". The dictionary website Wordku.com voluntarily took its site down with the claim that this was because of the "Chinese Internet Maintenance Day". In 2013, Chinese netizens used subtle and sarcastic Internet memes to criticize the government and to bypass censorship by creating and posting humorous pictures or drawings resembling the Tank Man photo on Weibo. One of these pictures, for example, showed Florentijin Hofman's rubber ducks sculptures replacing tanks in the Tank Man photo. On Twitter, Hu Jia, a Beijing-based AIDS activist, asked netizens in mainland China to wear black T-shirts on 4 June to oppose censorship and to commemorate the date. Chinese web services such as Weibo eventually censored searches of both "black shirt" and "Big Yellow Duck" in 2013.


title: Internet censorship in China

text: As a result, the government further promoted anti-western sentiment. In 2014, Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping praised blogger Zhou Xiaoping for his "positive energy" after the latter argued in an essay titled "Nine Knockout Blows in America's Cold War Against China," that American culture was "eroding the moral foundation and self-confidence of the Chinese people."