Behind the 'Great Firewall': China's 'first blogger' speaks out

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.

The problems with Google's Gmail service in China is Beijing's way "to test the tolerance of the people," Mao said.

On March 21, Google announced that it appeared the Chinese government was at the root of problems that have dogged domestic use of Gmail since the end of January. The move signaled a new front on the internet giant's ongoing battles with Beijing since the service wasn't overtly blocked, but instead bedeviled with performance issues such as long log-on times, difficulties sending mail and using instant messenger.

"There is no technical issue on our side; we have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail," the company said in a statement. Beijing has denied it is behind problems with Google's email service in China.

"I think the Chinese government is trying to slow down people's communication, and is trying to slow down the speed of information flow in China," Mao told CNN in an interview with Kristie Lu Stout. "They cannot block Gmail totally, at this moment, because millions of people are using Gmail. If it is found that the government did this, people will react even more."