This week News Stream on CNN International focuses on the world's largest internet market: China. Follow online or watch News Stream every week day at 8 p.m. in Hong Kong, 1 p.m. in London and 8 a.m. in New York.
Hong Kong, China (CNN) -- The battle of Chinese censors to block political commentary on the internet is akin to "a snake swallowing its own tail," said Isaac Mao, an influential Chinese blogger.
"I think the problem to the whole country is that if we censor more and more keywords, we will be stopping the country from more and more innovations," said Mao, considered China's "first blogger" and outspoken critic of his country's online censorship. "I described it as a snake swallowing its own tail because the snake is trying to find the food and attack, but eventually he found his own tail."
Mao runs Isaac Technology Venture Corp. and is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. He started blogging in 2002 and is followed closely as an influential figure who works behind the constraints of China's so-called 'Great Firewall', which closely monitors and restricts online content. The state policy on online media led to a public fight last year with Google when the company decided to side-step Chinese censor laws by moving its search engine functions to servers outside the mainland.
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