“The Connection Has Been Reset”
In the Atlantic, James Fallows writes about the Great Firewall and its limitations:
Depending on how you look at it, the Chinese government’s attempt to rein in the Internet is crude and slapdash or ingenious and well crafted. When American technologists write about the control system, they tend to emphasize its limits. When Chinese citizens discuss it—at least with me—they tend to emphasize its strength. All of them are right, which makes the government’s approach to the Internet a nice proxy for its larger attempt to control people’s daily lives.
Disappointingly, “Great Firewall” is not really the right term for the Chinese government’s overall control strategy. China has indeed erected a firewall—a barrier to keep its Internet users from dealing easily with the outside world—but that is only one part of a larger, complex structure of monitoring and censorship. The official name for the entire approach, which is ostensibly a way to keep hackers and other rogue elements from harming Chinese Internet users, is the “Golden Shield Project.” Since that term is too creepy to bear repeating, I’ll use “the control system” for the overall strategy, which includes the “Great Firewall of China,” or GFW, as the means of screening contact with other countries.
Origin: James Fallows, Atlantic
POSTED COMMENTS: One Response
The technical information in the piece is really interesting of course, but it is the cultural aspect that I find most fascinating. My strong impression, gleaned both by direct questioning (not too useful) and by round about probing, is that most Chinese are only vaguely aware of the extent of their golden shield; are completely unaware that it is the reason the internet is so painfully slow in China; and most intriguingly, seem to feel this to be a perfectly understandable and appropriate government function.
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