The software is called Green Dam Youth Escort. The national government declared in May that the software would be mandatory on all computers in the realm by July 1, but since that date, various roadblocks have delayed the widespread distribution of the program.
Today the government shows signs of moderation when its Minister of Information Technology, Li Yizhong, said that PC manufacturers can decide for themselves whether to include the filtering software. Some PC makers have already started to bundle the program with their systems.
But according to online reports, this may be a temporary ruse. China will continue to mandate the software in schools and Internet cafes. In addition, the government may backtrack on this move or simply force PC makers to include some kind of porn-filtering software with their systems.
According to the Beijing government, Green Dam Youth Escort is designed to filter out "unhealthy" online content, whatever that means, but it's widely regarded as a porn filter. China's move to censor adult content at the PC level is just the base of its antiporn action. The government has also forced Google to remove adult results from its Chinese portal, Google.cn.
Seeing Beijing's actions as too harsh, the U.S. government in June called for talks to discuss China's censorship laws.