Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

happy

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Twitter and FB are one of those small number which are cencored.
but you can surf it easily with proxy,if you reall want to surf it.

But most CHinese don't like Twitter and FB,because they are much technicaly inferior to their Chinese rivals such as weibo and QQ.
Why, chinese translation not upto satisfaction or any other reason ??
 

kseeker

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Here's an interesting blog post, read it if you have time

Three Things that Western Media Fail to Tell You About Chinese Internet Censorship

By Henry Jenkins

This is another in a series of blog posts written by the students in my PhD seminar on Public Intellectuals, being taught this semester at USC's Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.

Strategic Censorship, Ambivalent Resistance, and Loyal Dissident: Three Things that Western Media Fail to Tell You About Chinese Internet Censorship
by Yue Yang

When talking about the Chinese Internet, what would first come to your mind?

The largest online gaming population in the world? A highly creative ICT (information and communication technology) community? An enormous e-commerce market? "Tu hao(土豪)", "Watch and Observe (围观)", "Er Huo (二货)"ï¼Œ"Jiong (囧)" ?
I don't know about your answer, but I am sure most American media would say with alacrity "No, it is CENSORSHIP!" Indeed, "censorship" seems to have become their knee-jerk word to annotate the Chinese Internet. If you search "New York Times Chinese Internet" through Google, on the first page of search results, you would 9 out of 12 news stories related to censorship; for "CNN", it is 9 out of 9 (with 3 urls linking to non-CNN websites), and for "Fox news", it was 8 out 10.

Since American media is so interested in censorship on Chinese Internet, do they come up with good, objective censorship stories? As a native Chinese and a doctoral researcher studying the Chinese Internet in the US, I would say "yea" for "good storytelling" and "nah" for "objectivity". Try to click on one of the top urls and you will see what I mean: this is an exotic digital world: on one hand, the iron-wristed Chinese government launches another round of censorship campaign. It cleanses criticism, cracks down dissident sites, and even puts political foes into jails. On the other hand, facing ruthless and stifling censorship, courageous and canny Chinese "netizens" (Internet citizens) use their ingenuity in various ways, to flit machine censorship and to mock the impotence of government. Be it a gloomy "Big Brother" story or an empowering "Tom-and-Jerry" story, a censorship story never lacks tension or a easy-to-follow storyline. However, these stories grounded only on partial facts are not qualified for universal validity they imply, and they are often too interested in drama to capture the plain truth. In short, current censorship stories in mainstream media are often too simplistic to inform western readers of the complex politics on the Chinese Internet. In the following part, I will talk about three things that western media do not tell their readers about Chinese Internet censorship.

(1) Strategic Censorship: yes, Chinese people criticize the government on the Internet!

The first thing that western media do not tell you about Chinese online censorship, is that average Chinese Internet users can and do express a lot of criticism about the party-government. In fact, such criticism attracts little interest from the government censorship.
It is a widely recognized observation by people who personally attend to political discussions on Chinese cyberspace, that online space of speech is expanding and people can criticize their government without seeing their unfavorable comments censored over time. This observation is contrary to what most media censorship stories are telling people, but recently it has been confirmed by a large-scale, big-data research report from a Harvard research team. By collecting, analyzing, and comparing the substantive content of millions of posts from nearly 1,400 social media services over all China, and distinguishing what gets censored from what remains online over time in discussions around 85 topics, the researchers have upended some popular stereotypes, and found that "negative, even vitriolic criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content". Rather than remove any criticism against it, the Chinese government conducts strategic censorship, which "is oriented toward attempting to forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future".

(2) What Chinese People Think about Censorship: infringement of rights or Moral Guidance?

The second thing that western media do not tell you about Chinese online censorship, is that Chinese people's attitudes towards censorship are actually divided and ambivalent.

In 2009, the Chinese government made various censorship efforts to make it virtually prepared for an extremely sensitive time period: not long ago, the famous dissident and later-Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo released the "highly subversive" 08 Charter; starting from March, the government was to anticipate several major political anniversaries: the 50 anniversary for Tibetan uprising, the 20 anniversary for Tiananmen Event, and the 60 anniversary for the foundation of People's Republic of China. Although nothing except the 60-year national anniversary was to be publicly celebrated, the government was highly vigilant against any online-and-off commemoration or mobilization of other political anniversaries.
In such context, there was little surprise that the Chinese government demanded pre-installed censorship software called "Green Dam Youth Escort(Lvba Huaji Huhang绿坝花季护航)" on each new PC to be sold in the market, including those imported from abroad. The purpose, of course, was to protect the psychological health of the young from pollution through pornography and violence. But Chinese Internet users soon found that the software expanded censorship to political information. Worse still, the software had so many technical defects that it would severely hurt overall online experience and security.

Shortly after the installation plan was announced, a large-scale online protest occurred among Chinese Internet users, particularly among the younger generation. Young people soon launched an online carnivalist play-protest, characterized by a manga-style personification of the software called the "Green Dam Girl" (Lvbaliang 绿坝娘). At the same time, "2009 Declaration of the Anonymous Netizens" ("The Declaration"), a western-style manifesto against censorship appeared online.

Seeing such resistance, Chinese government canceled the installation plan, and the "Green Dam incident" became a typical case to illustrate Chinese emerging civil power countering the government's blunt censorship decisions. However, when examining the online comments on "The Declaration", researchers discovered wide expressions disagreeing with the anti-censorship declaration. In fact, there was considerable endorsement of the government's filtering attempt during the incident.

Why was there public support for censorship? After looking closely at these for-censorship comments, doing interviews with their authors, and analyzing the collected data with reference to Chinese culture, the researchers made some very interesting analysis: unlike western people who conceive government as a "necessary evil" and censorship serious infringement of freedom of speech, the majority of Chinese people uphold Confucian state-society ideal, represented by the notion "custodian government(父母官 fuwu guan)", which accordingly frame people's understanding of censorship.

So what does "custodian government" mean and imply? Basically, it is a Confucian notion that proposes a state-society model in which the government maintains its authority through displaying exemplary virtue and parental care for people, and in return, people respect and obey the government like they respect and obey their own parents. When both government and people perform their roles properly, social harmony and ideal that would yield the best for the most can be materialized. Note that traditional Chinese culture does not challenge hierarchy or centralization, nor does it often raise government legitimacy questions as long as the administration is established in accordance with Confucian ethics.

In the case of "Green Dam", a large number of people supported government censorship, because they expected a morally exemplary and custodian government to establish social norms and protect as well as regulate minors. In other words, to many Chinese, censorship does not necessarily mean violation of human rights or encroachment of individual interests, rather, it means moral measurements that are expected and accredited.
Such understanding was more popular among middle-aged Internet users, but it was not rare among the young either. In fact, researchers have found that quite an impressive percentage of Chinese Internet users are either unaware of or do not care much about the online censorship, stating that they are generally happy with the current cyberspace they have. In short, the general attitudes towards censorship are not as definite as most western media state.

(3) Subversive Dissident or Loyal Dissident?

The third thing that western media do not tell you about Chinese online censorship, is that Chinese Internet users are more of "loyal dissident" than subversive resisters, even if they were expressing criticism.
It was again in 2009, an Internet meme called the "Grass Mud Horse" (Caonima 草泥马) gained viral popularity in Chinese cyberspace. "Grass Mud Horse" sounds almost exactly like an abusive phrase, and it was originally invented by young Chinese gamers to dodge Internet censorship on obscene expressions. Soon the word play adopted the visual form of an alpaca, and put into different extension forms such as stories, animations, music videos, and T-shirts and dolls. Even a virtual Chinese character was later invented for it.

The phenomenal popularity of Grass Mud Horse attracted a lot of western media attention in its peak time. CNN, BBC, and the Guardian, for example, produce extensive report on it. Citing academics, these reports claim that Grass Mud Horse is not only a grassroots symbol of resistance against censorship, but also a "weapon of the weak" to challenge (the legitimacy of) the authoritarian government.

The statement that "Grass Mud Horse" is a play turned into politics, making creative resistance against censorship and authoritarianism is indeed interesting. However, when analyzing how Chinese Internet users actually engaged in the "Grass Mud Horse" carnival, how people actually used the words, pictures and related stories to expressed what intentions, research has found that Chinese Internet users tended to use "Grass Mud Horse" to vent personal frustration, criticize local corruption and bureaucracy, rather than make accusations against censorship or challenge the government's legitimacy.

In a similar vein, through looking at the most popular and uncensored microblog tweets on Weibo that discussed political scandals during the Spring of 2012, some Swedish researchers have found that Chinese Internet users are more interested in criticizing certain activities of the Party than challenging its hold of power.

In fact, more and more scholars start to realize that consensus against the current regime in China is yet to be produced. More interestingly, despite pervasively expressed criticism of the government, in two highly respected surveys conducted by non-Chinese scholars (World Value Survey and Asian Barometer Survey), the rate of loyalty and recognition declared by the Chinese public to their government is much higher than those from western democratic societies. Instead of implying another uprising in China, these studies suggest that Chinese Internet users may become more critical and expressive, but they are not ready to demand fundamental democratization.
When creating Chinese Internet censorship stories, western media often fail with four things. First, it fails to look more closely at what is happening; second, it fails to avoid wishful speculations; third, it fails to account for complexity that disrupts clear storytelling; fourth, it fails to put incidents into the broad Chinese social and cultural context. With such failure, western media reduce the extremely interesting and complicated Chinese Internet to a monolith and create stereotypes.

I hope I have well explained some important aspects that go beyond the oversimplification of Chinese Internet censorship in western media, so that you, my dear readers, will not only have reservations next time you hear something about the Chinese Internet, but also suspend belief whenever you receive messages about a different society from the media. Bolstering critical thinking and avoiding stereotyping, that's what media literacy is working at, and that is also what I am trying to do with this blog post.
Yue Yang is a PhD student at Annenberg School for Communication, USC. Being a native Chinese, she is constantly confused and therefore deeply fascinated by the complexity of her country's culture and society, online and off. Her current interests range from Chinese people's imagination of the West, to the tensional dance between the Chinese government, the grassroots and the intellectuals on the cyber arena (and she always hopes that one day she could write as fast as she eats and publish as much as she speaks.).
 

nimo_cn

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I do not know, hence the questions !
i have no problem with some Internet portals being blocked in China, because most of them dont help much in Chinese life, even if they were not blocked.

even now they are blocked, it's easy to bypass the great firewall as long as you want to.

and more importantly, it makes sense to blocked them. two of most prominent portals that are banned are tweet and fb, now they are proved to be spying tools of American governments.

in contrast to many Indian posters' impression, Google and dfi are not blocked in China. but an interesting to know is that i cant access TOI for quite a while without a proxy.

Sent from my HUAWEI T8951 using Tapatalk 2
 

badguy2000

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Why, chinese translation not upto satisfaction or any other reason ??
well, in a word, in the eyes of Most Chinese,even who are in USA, twitter and FC is just shitty ,technically compared with QQ and Weibo.

with QQ, one can do anything in cybespace, that you can imagine ,from music,instant communition,watching film...etc.
 

badguy2000

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What ??? Explain the bold part.
when I became a member here, I was single,
then I got married,then I am a father now...

I post many pictures about my life...you can surf it ,if you like
 

nimo_cn

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for those who are interested in what is going on with Chinese cyberspace but cant read Chinese language , you can visit www.chinasmack.com

Sent from my HUAWEI T8951 using Tapatalk 2
 

happy

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when I became a member here, I was single,
then I got married,then I am a father now...

I post many pictures about my life...you can surf it ,if you like
Well, congrats on getting married and double congrats on becoming a father. :thumb:

But, what I dont understand is how is that relevant to my post which I am quoting below ???

The only plausible reason regarding why you can easily surf the websites is because you are higher up on the "50 cents" hierarchy.

Hence also why you dont have that stupid "Sent from my HUAWEI T8951 using Tapatalk 2".
If you are implying that married guys in CCP are extended all freedoms courtesy of their marriage, then :hail:

BTW, I would love to see your pics. Pls post link.
 

kseeker

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i have no problem with some Internet portals being blocked in China, because most of them dont help much in Chinese life, even if they were not blocked.

even now they are blocked, it's easy to bypass the great firewall as long as you want to.

and more importantly, it makes sense to blocked them. two of most prominent portals that are banned are tweet and fb, now they are proved to be spying tools of American governments.

in contrast to many Indian posters' impression, Google and dfi are not blocked in China. but an interesting to know is that i cant access TOI for quite a while without a proxy.
Thanks !

Perhaps, CCP doesn't want TOI to be available for common chinese netizens.
 

W.G.Ewald

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they are here to counter provocations and confrontations.

Sent from my HUAWEI T8951 using Tapatalk 2

As I have said before, everybody on DFI has his own opinion except Chinese. Chinese spout their party line without deviation. Chinese don't understand freedom of thought and are compelled to try to suppress it wherever they can.
 

W.G.Ewald

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I counted the number of posts you initiated in the China sub-forum in DFI in the last 40 days, and the results can be found in the table below:
Date |10/28 | 10/22 |10/19 | 10/21 |10/20 |10/18 | 10/15 | 10/1 | 9/30 | 9/29 | 9/25 | 9/22 | 9/21 | 9/20
# Posts | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 |2 |1 |1 |2 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1

You are pretty active in the China sub-forum, contributing at least 10 posts every two weeks. But you are relatively inactive between Oct 1st to Oct 15th; only 3 posts are originated by you (2 on Oct 1st and 1 on Oct 15th) and no other activities at all in between. This period of inactivity coincided with the US government shutdown from October 1 through 16. I believe it is possible that you could be paid by Uncle Sam to post here.
I am retired. My inactivity was either due to visiting a relative without internet access or a bout of tendonitis. :)
 

Ray

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well, you can change the government, but you can not change the boss who rule the society.

Whoever is in the power, Indian society is always ruled by the same rich class and tycoons,such as Gandis, Abani and Tartas...
To those guys, government is just their shirt..
whatever voters do is just to change their shirt.
Have you any idea of India and Indian politics?

Not change the Boss?

What do you think India is, China?

Atal Vajpauee and Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi are as similar as chalk and cheese.

Indian society is always ruled by the same rich class and tycoons,such as Gandis, Abani and Tartas...
Really?

I would not know which Gandhi is that you are referring to who is rich and a tycoon, and who is Abani or Tartas?

Lots of difference occurs when Govt are changed.

But that you will not understand.
 

amoy

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Can we get on to the topic ?
@badguy2000, @amoy, @nimo_cn

What's your take on Internet censorship in China ? Do you support your govt.s stand on this ?
well I didnt notice your @ me as most of time browsing on my cellphone.

here's my cross-post fm http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/...ne-hit-hong-kong-quicker-than-expected-4.html as deemed relevant -

By the way why is it faddish to get on social networks Facebook, Twitter or Youtube? Is it "in" to hv an FB account? Is that superficial? Apart fm platitudes like "cyber security" or political "openness" hopefully u're able to see it in commercial perspectives too, by simply checking market performance of Chinese equivalents like Tencent, Baidu, Sina, Sohu or Youku, traded in New York Stock Exchange/Nasdaq. From a business point of view the Chinese "infant industry" has more breathing space in China thanks to market access denial for FB and the likes. Any Indian indigenous firms to tap the tremendous market potential against West social networks?
on censorship its political or security aspects have bn explored a lot. I wish to draw again, your attn to its commercial side, and yes I'd support such "protectionism" for Chinese "infant" industry by means of "censorship" as u named it, of Google,FB, Twitter, YT and the likes.

to give u a glimpse (not most updated though) of their tremendous market value


also when u trumpet hollowly abt "democracy" or anti "censorship", a key fact is not to be neglected - internet penetration


Based on the abv graph (Y2008 though) only 1/3 of Indians hv internet access as "privileged" , whereas Chinese roughly 0.8+bil. That has said a lot - the internet users are most likely the cream of Indian society and most stratas, either financially or technically handicapped, are excluded from the small-circle circulation, needless to speak of "censorship" or inclusive democracy, trickling down to every social layer. In contrast majority of Chinese stay abreast of info sharing and more engaged, and even more equalitarian in the cyber age.

P.S. even literacy rate has a great deal to do with a level playing ground.
 
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happy

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well I didnt notice your @ me as most of time browsing on my cellphone.

here's my cross-post fm http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/...ne-hit-hong-kong-quicker-than-expected-4.html as deemed relevant -



on censorship its political or security aspects have bn explored a lot. I wish to draw again, your attn to its commercial side, and yes I'd support such "protectionism" for Chinese "infant" industry by means of "censorship" as u named it, of Google,FB, Twitter, YT and the likes.

to give u a glimpse (not most updated though) of their tremendous market value


also when u trumpet hollowly abt "democracy" or anti "censorship", a key fact is not to be neglected - internet penetration


Based on the abv graph (Y2008 though) only 1/3 of Indians hv internet access as "privileged" , whereas Chinese roughly 0.8+bil. That has said a lot - the internet users are most likely the cream of Indian society and most stratas, either financially or technically handicapped, are excluded from the small-circle circulation, needless to speak of "censorship" or inclusive democracy, trickling down to every social layer. In contrast majority of Chinese stay abreast of info sharing and more engaged, and even more equalitarian in the cyber age.

P.S. even literacy rate has a great deal to do with a level playing ground.
I do not know how authentic your graphs and figures are but one thing is absolutely not correct. The one in the bold part.

If you can provide any other graph stating the contrary I would be surprised.

Most and I repeat Most of India's population is rural and so far Internet penetration has been slow and tedious process. The exact percentage also can be obtained online I guess.

Also, it is absurd to say that the cream of Indian society only has access to internet. All metros have 3g access and most tier 2 cities also are connected albeit 512 kbps and some rural places at 512 / 128 kbps.

Our metros are filled with middle class families and internet is a part and participle of all youth between 17 and 35.

So at best I can say that your comment was just to belittle India which is unwarranted and ill-conceived.
 

J20!

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Following Snowden's NSA leaks, I'm quite happy with govt "internet censorship". FB, Twitter, Google, Yahoo etc have all been SECRETLY giving the GCHQ and the American Intelligence Community billions of internet interactions from their global client list.

The NSA is actively storing and analysing all your social media communications and with it, building enormous social connection graphs on who you communicate with, how often etc, etc.

Whilst those very same organisations that give the NSA constant surveilance over your communications and internet usage make a killing on the stock market, you're here on DFI preaching "internet freedom" to us "mind-contolled" "Chini's".

Indian youth now communicate more via facebook than with texts or calls.

So please, Ewald, Ray, Kseeker and the rest, enjoy your ill-informed cheapshots and censorship-free internet "freedom".

PS. Ewald, simply going through the thread titles on the china sub-forum, its quite clear who provokes who. Calling reaction to provocation "provoking" should be starkly biased to any neutral observer.
 
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W.G.Ewald

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PS. Ewald, simply going through the thread titles on the china sub-forum, its quite clear who provokes who. Calling reaction to provocation "provoking" should be starkly biased to any neutral observer.
I start threads with significant stories about China which appear in a range of legitimate sources. I do not seek out a particular bias in the news,but if any of those stories are in the least unfavorable to the CCP, there is a strong reaction from DFI Chinese members. Many of those reactions are without factual basis; rather they are an almost reflex response. As I said, Chinese on DFI are almost monolithic. That is the pattern I observe.
 

W.G.Ewald

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China has around two million people policing public opinion online, according to a state media report that sheds light on the country's secretive internet surveillance operations.

Dubbed "public opinion analysts," they work for the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda department, major Chinese news websites and commercial corporations, according to The Beijing News.

Using keyword searches, their job is to sift the millions of messages being posted on popular social media and microblogging sites such as Sina Weibo, regarded as China's equivalent to Twitter. They then compile reports for decision makers, the report said.

The number of people monitoring internet activity to prevent criticism of the government and social unrest has been a subject of discussion for years, said David Bandurski, editor of the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project.
China 'employs 2 million to police internet' - CNN.com
 

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