China Digital Times

China news tagged with: Internet censorship (291)

• Jiao Xiang (焦翔): “Google, Don’t Become a Tool of Hegemony”

  

  China Media Project reports that comments showing support for Google in China have all but disappeared from the media and online forums in China, and been replaced with commentaries such as this one from People’s Daily:

  It is only normal for a government to exercise control over the Internet, and it is the same in any country in the world, in such areas as fighting pornography or committing online crimes, for example. At the same time, various countries similarly demand that the content of Websites abides by national law and preserves national security.

  In this regard, Google itself serves as an example, obscuring various satellite images of the United States. Generally speaking, monitoring, filtering and deletion are the basic methods by which countries control the Internet. This is especially true in Western countries, which while they yammer on and on about “freedom of expression” and “Internet freedom” in other countries, strictly control material that concerns their vital national interests. As, for example, when Google filters out posts that contain racial slurs or attacks on the United States.

  China’s Internet monitoring is entirely in accord with the law, and both Internet companies and Internet users are afforded a large degree of freedom. There are now 200 million blogs in China, making it the biggest blogging nation on earth, and every day hundreds of millions go online to say what they wish.

  As an online network, our People’s Daily Online is extremely free. We have already operated the “Strong Nation Forum” for a number of years. There is one principal that governs our work on the Internet, and that is respect for national laws and the preservation of healthy Internet development.

  So long as it does not violate the law, anything can be raised. Speech is completely free here at People’s Daily Online.

  » Read more
  • February 4, 2010 12:57 PM

• Chinese Twitterers are Well Off, Educated… and Mostly Male

  

  Shanghaiist translates the results of a survey by blogger kenengba of Twitter users in China, who he found to be predominately male, well-educated, and between the ages of 19-29. He also compiled responses of why users go to the trouble of using VPNs to access the banned site to read and write 140 word messages. The top answers were:

  1. To know the truth and open the horizon
  2. To record and share my life
  3. To get information and show my concern about democracy
  4. Because Fanfou has been shut down
  5. To get all the gossips in order to clear information for my colleagues who live in Mars
  6. Follow the planet that I like and later fall in love with everything in Twitter
  7. The exchange in Twitter is very interesting
  8. No censor here and we can preserve the primary mode of communication here
  9. To kill time

  » Read more
  • February 2, 2010 8:58 PM

• Web Inventor: China Will Relax Censorship

  

  On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Tim Berners-Lee, one of the inventors of the Internet, discussed Google in China and gave an optimistic perspective of the role of the Internet in China. From the Times:

  Speaking about the dispute between Google and China, Sir Tim said: “I think that openness increases steadily.

  “Every time you open it, the genie comes out of the bottle and it’s very difficult to put it [back] in the bottle.”

  He said he expected that countries such as China, which fiercely moderate some items online, would eventually open up, even if it will take a long time.

  “The internet has a tradition of bit by bit increasing openness,” he said.

  “It tends not to go backwards … [but] a government that is used to working with an uninformed citizenry might take a while to move to a position where the citizens are informed.”

  » Read more
  • January 31, 2010 10:57 PM

• Schmidt Says Google Aims to Put Pressure on China

  

  In Davos, Google CEO Eric Schmidt explains Google’s position in China:

  “We love what China is doing as a country and its growth,” Schmidt said today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We just don’t like the censorship. We hope to apply some negotiation or pressure to make things better for the Chinese people.”

  Google said this month that it would stop censoring results and might shut down the Google.cn site and offices in China. The company made the decision after discovering a “highly sophisticated” attack on its computer system and evidence that human-rights activists were targeted.

  Schmidt said today that he doesn’t want to close the Mountain View, California-based company’s operations in China. Last week, Schmidt said that Google continues to follow Chinese law and provides censored results on its Web site. He said that in a “reasonably short time from now, we will be making some changes there.”

  “We’ve made a strong statement that we wish to remain in China,” Schmidt said during a call with analysts.

  » Read more
  • January 29, 2010 12:31 PM

• Qian Gang: How Much Internet Freedom Do Chinese Citizens Have?

  

  For China Media Project, Qian Gang argues that the Internet in China cannot simply be judged as “free” or “not free,” and that the real situation is much ore complex:

  So, can we say that China’s Internet is controlled, or not? What sort of control are we talking about?

  Internet controls, in fact, are something every Internet user in China experiences and understands on a very intimate level. And the statement on Internet freedoms issued by the Information Office can itself be taken as an example of how control works.

  What we call the “long tail phenomenon” (长尾现象) can be seen as one of the defining characteristics of China’s Internet. The “long tail” refers to the chain of Web user comments and discussion that trails after online news stories. These can be exceptionally long tails. In fact, some news stories on major Internet portals can draw hundreds of thousands of comments, the plainest illustration of how enthusiastic Chinese feel about the right and the opportunity to speak their minds.

  Obviously, the recent statement from the Information Office on the topic of Internet freedom, an online story that was billed at the top of most major news portals in China for two straight days earlier this week, was guaranteed to draw the attention of Chinese Internet users. And this is also a topic we can expect to generate strong feelings and opinions.

  But when I searched through ten of China’s most high-traffic news portals on January 28, I discovered that four sites had no comments posted whatsoever.

  » Read more
  • January 28, 2010 11:37 AM

• The Chinese Internet Century

  

  An article in Foreign Policy looks at the future of a “permanently fractured web,” split between “two competing visions of the Internet: one open and global, the other highly controlled and often used for repression”:

  Clinton’s speech was not utopian. Her remarks were fairly measured about the potential political impact of network technologies. Eschewing the exuberant optimism that has characterized so much past thinking about the Internet, Clinton recognized that “modern information networks and the technologies they support can be harnessed for good or for ill.” Still, she held out hope that the United States could strategically use Internet technology to advance freedom and human rights around the world. To tip the balance to the good, she said, the United States plans to develop and distribute technologies to help people avoid censors, foster international norms against cyberattacks, cooperate across national borders to identify and prosecute cybercriminals, and exploit public-private partnerships to build a robust cyberdefense at home.

  These are noble aspirations, but they will have a very limited impact on China. Censorship, hacking, and economic warfare as practiced in China are rooted in a political and economic calculus that is unlikely to change. From the first introduction of modern information technologies, the Chinese have viewed them as a double-edged sword: essential to economic growth, but a threat to regime stability. Using a combination of old-school intimidation and high-tech surveillance, Beijing has managed to keep most materials it deems harmful off most computer screens in China and still promote economic growth.

  The fact is that the majority of Chinese simply don’t care, giving the government even less incentive to change its ways.

  Also related, David Bandurski of the China Media Project analyzes a statement by the State Council Information Office rejected Clinton’s criticism of Internet control. He also translates a People’s Daily editorial which states, “The Internet has no need for coercive captaining by “American-style freedoms.”

  » Read more
  • January 26, 2010 8:46 PM

• People’s Daily Published an Open Letter to U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

  

  While many netizens have expressed their outrage at the recent anti-vulgarity campaign, tightening controls over online gaming, and the Great Firewall in general, People’s Daily published an open letter to Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on Internet freedom which presented another perspective (translated by ChinaHush):

  First of all, Chinese government does not restrict internet users to use and access the Internet. I am a commentary writer; I spend most of my free time on the internet, looking for news, looking for different angles, writing reviews, expressing my views and opinions, and sometimes giving my personal comments and suggestions to the Government. So far, I have published thousands of articles, millions of words on uncountable websites like People’s daily, Xinhua and China Net etc. The government never give me any warnings and notices to tell me not go get on the internet or not to express my personal views.

  Secondly, I do not find information on the network unable to flow freely. 9 Am this morning, I turned on my computer, and went on People’s Daily, Xinhua, China News, Sina, Sohu, Netease, IFeng and other major websites. I can open and view information about politics, economic, military, sports, entertainment and current affairs. I sent an email to my friend “Yixiao”and Netizen “Yixiao” got my email quickly. I also chat with my friends on QQ group and never was affected by anything or noticed any information not able to flow.

  All the comments on the People’s Daily site showed support for the author. But ChinaHush also found the article reposted on other Chinese forums, where all the comments mocked the writer or said s/he must be a member of the Fifty Cent Party. From one comment on Netease:

  Did not want to post, but I saw this news really made me angry, When the authors talks about the internet situation here why do I feel like I am dreaming?

  » Read more
  • January 26, 2010 11:08 AM

• Bill Gates Says Internet Needs to Thrive in China (Updated)

  

  In an interview with Good Morning America, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talked about Google and Internet censorship in China:

  Asked in an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America about Google Inc’s (GOOG.O) dispute with China, Gates said the Internet is subject to different kinds of censorship around the world but has proved a consistent success at promoting openness and the exchange of ideas.

  “You’ve got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you’re in, or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there,” Gates, the world’s richest man, said without mentioning Google by name.

  “The Chinese efforts to censor the Internet have been very limited. It’s easy to go around it, and so I think keeping the Internet thriving there is very important,” he said.

  Update: The Atlantic Wire sums up and provides links to various reactions to Gates’ comments here.

  » Read more
  • January 25, 2010 10:31 AM

• Sim Chi Yin: Up Against the ‘Great Firewall’

  

  From the The Malaysian Insider, (via Wandering China blog):

  Each time Web portal executive Li (not his real name) receives an e-mail from his political masters telling him to remove certain posts and articles, he curses under his breath – and then immediately carries out the orders.

  Heavy-handed – and tightening – censorship was a key reason cited by international cyber giant Google for possibly quitting China, the world’s largest Internet market.

  But it is a daily reality for the thousands of fresh-faced Chinese who work in China’s “Silicon Valley”, Zhongguancun, in west Beijing.

  Mostly graduates of top local universities, many struggle with the sort of “schizophrenia” Li professes to have – yearning for free flow of information but having to block an ever-growing list of “sensitive” words and content.

  » Read more
  • January 24, 2010 10:09 AM

• China Hits Back at Clinton on Net Freedom

  

  The Chinese government has responded quickly and strongly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom yesterday. From Information Week:

  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu called remarks Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “harmful to Sino-American relations.”

  Clinton called on the Chinese to conduct a “thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions” that hit Google and other Western companies in recent weeks that are believed to have emanated from China.

  “We also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent,” Clinton said, during a speech in which Clinton called on world governments to establish policies toward a more open Internet.

  But Zhaoxu said Clinton’s singling out of China was inappropriate and misguided, and constituted an inappropriate meddling in Chinese affairs. “The Chinese Internet is open,” Zhaoxu said in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site.

  The Wall Street Journal looks at reactions from Chinese bloggers and other supporters of free expression:

  Mrs. Clinton’s speech was closely watched by opponents of government censorship in China, which U.S. diplomats promoted in discussion sessions with Chinese bloggers Friday at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and at consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou. Wen Yunchao, a Guangzhou-based blogger, on Twitter called the speech “a declaration of war from a free nation to an autarchy,” and compared it to Winston Churchill’s anti-Soviet speech decrying the Iron Curtain.

  Chinese blogger Zhou Shuguang said in an interview, “The Clinton speech is for sure to have positive effect. It’s welcomed by China’s Internet users, especially the active ones on Twitter, regarding the censorship situation in China.”

  Others were less impressed. Novelist and blogger Yang Hengjun said on Twitter the speech was positive but that Chinese Web users should not expect too much from it. “The U.S. government has been talking about supporting world-wide Internet freedom for ages, but it hasn’t done much yet.”

  The English edition of the official Global Times issued an especially harsh editorial:

  The US campaign for uncensored and free flow of information on an unrestricted Internet is a disguised attempt to impose its values on other cultures in the name of democracy.

  The hard fact that Clinton has failed to highlight in her speech is that bulk of the information flowing from the US and other Western countries is loaded with aggressive rhetoric against those countries that do not follow their lead.

  In contrast, in the global information order, countries that are disadvantaged could not produce the massive flow of information required, and could never rival the Western countries in terms of information control and dissemination.

  Keeping that in mind, it must be realized that when it comes to information content, quantity, direction and flow, there is absolutely no equality and fairness.

  Meanwhile, in Forbes, Beijing Bureau Chief Gady Epstein argues that Chinese propaganda linking Google’s actions with U.S. foreign policy may divert the debate to one over bilateral squabbling rather than one over freedom of expression. Yet, he continues:

  …The U.S. government and Google both have taken the right stand, and that counts for something in the long sweep of history. If Chinese critics lump Google and the U.S. together on Internet freedom, that is because they are onto something: The values that both Google and Clinton expressed this month are rooted in American, Bill of Rights principles.

  That’s the good news: The world’s leading superpower and the world’s leading Internet company have made a clear statement that fundamental freedoms–of expression, of assembly–must apply in cyberspace. They have taken note that, as Clinton said Thursday, these freedoms won’t flourish on their own, despite techno-Utopian predictions to the contrary.

  See also “The Internet Freedom Agenda” from Foreign Policy.

  And the New York Times writes:

  In an editorial, the English-language edition of a Chinese newspaper, Global Times, said that the demand for an unfettered Internet was a form of “information imperialism,” because less developed nations could not compete with Western countries in the arena of information flow.

  One big question is whether ordinary Chinese will, to any large degree, accept China’s arguments. Although urban, middle-class Chinese often support government policies on sovereignty issues such as Tibet or Taiwan, they generally deride media censorship.

  That feeling is especially pronounced among Chinese who refer to themselves as netizens. China has the most Internet users of any country, 384 million by official count, but also the most sophisticated system of Internet censorship, nicknamed the Great Firewall.

  » Read more
  • January 22, 2010 10:40 AM

• China Can Stonewall Google, but Its “Great Firewall” is Really a False Front

  

  From the Money Morning:

  What China hasn’t done is to acknowledge what the real stakes are here. This is more than just a squabble between an Asian country and a Western company: It’s a realization by China that it may no longer be able to repel an overwhelming tide of free – and unfiltered – information.

  China’s “Great Firewall” is more of a proverbial dike, and Mountain View, CA-based Google is a hole that needs plugging.

  In the digital age, Google’s mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” is more than just feasible.

  It’s unavoidable.

  Globally, more information is reaching more people at a faster rate than ever before. Innovations like broadband networks, wireless access and smartphones will intensify that trend. As emerging markets gain muscle, as wages grow, and as the world shrinks, a growing population will demand Internet access – and the unfettered and unfiltered information that goes with it.

  So while China can stonewall Google in the near term, it will have to concede defeat in its war on information – and probably sooner than it realizes.

  » Read more
  • January 21, 2010 1:03 PM

• Hillary Clinton Calls on China to Probe Google Attack (Updated with Photo & Video)

  

  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered an address this morning on Internet freedom around the world, in which she called on Chinese authorities to launch an investigation into the cyber attacks on Google and other U.S. corporations. From BBC:

  In a wide-ranging speech at the Newseum journalism museum in Washington, Mrs Clinton said the internet had been a “source of tremendous progress” in China, but that Beijing should investigate the attacks on Google.

  “We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions,” she said.

  “We also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent.”

  Again in reference to China, she said that any country which restricted free access to information risked “walling themselves off from the progress of the next century”.

  The US intended to address issues of internet freedom within its relationship with Beijing, she added.

  The prepared text of Clinton’s remarks is here, or just read the highlights of the talk via Reuters. See reactions from Evgeny Morozov in Foreign Policy; Ethan Zuckerman; and James Fallows.

  Follow tweets about the speech @netfreedom.

  » Read more
  • January 21, 2010 10:45 AM

• China Paints Google Issue as Not Political

  

  An article in the New York Times looks at the Chinese government’s reaction to Google’s decision last week to no longer censor its Chinese search engine:

  Officials were caught off guard by Google’s move, and they want to avoid the issue’s becoming a referendum among Chinese liberals and foreign companies on the Chinese government’s Internet censorship policies, say people who have spoken to officials here. There have been no public attacks on Google from senior officials or formal editorials in the newspaper People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece.

  Instead, most official statements and state media reports on Google’s surprise announcement that it intends to stop complying with Chinese censorship rules and might shut down its China operations criticized Google as trying to play politics and suggested that its business troubles in China were the real reason for the dispute.

  “The Chinese government wants to handle the issue on a commercial level,” said Su Hao, a professor of Asia-Pacific studies at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing.

  Yet other Chinese responses politicize the incident by equating Google with the U.S. government. From the Financial Times:

  Accusations in two newspapers that Washington was using Google as a foreign policy tool were echoed by Chinese government officials on Wednesday.

  This comes before a policy speech by Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, on internet freedom on Wednesday, raising the risk that the standoff will damage already testy relations between the two major powers.

  Global Times, a nationalist tabloid owned by People’s Daily, the Communist party mouthpiece, ran an editorial with the headline: “The world does not welcome the White House’s Google”.

  “Whenever the US government demands it, Google can easily become a convenient tool for promoting the US government’s political will and values abroad. And actually the US government is willing to do so,” the piece said.

  In an accompanying news story, the paper quoted Wu Xinbo, a political scientist at Fudan University, as saying “the Google incident is not just a commercial incident, it is a political incident”.

  See also “China plays nationalism card in Google dispute” from Canada News.

  » Read more
  • January 20, 2010 10:16 PM

• Google Hopes to Retain Business Unit in China

  

  From the New York Times:

  Google has said it is prepared to shut down its local Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, unless it is allowed to run it uncensored. The company has also indicated that it would like to retain much of its operations there, including its growing ranks of Chinese engineers, its sales force and its toehold in the country’s mobile phone business.

  If the company can reach an accommodation on these issues with Chinese authorities, the reward could be significant. Google would be able to claim a principled stand on free speech and human rights while suffering only marginal damage to its business in China.

  Experts on China say that is not likely to be easy. The company’s public repudiation of censorship in China has put the authorities there in a position where a forceful rebuke of Google may be all but inevitable.

  » Read more
  • January 19, 2010 8:18 PM

• Music Video: “My Brother’s at the Bare Bottom” (我哥在光腚)

  

  The Orwellian control efforts of Chinese Internet censors have not only generated an attention-getting pushback from Google, but on the heavily policed Chinese Internet, there are plenty of signs for resistance as well. The following music video parody shows that coded resistance from Chinese netizens is alive and well. In this bitter winter of the Chinese Internet, even the most self-censored Chinese search engine Baidu still can find over 29,000 copies of this song, including on one of the nation’s largest news and game portals, Netease. If you search the title of the song on Google? Over 830,000 webpages show up. (Lyrics translated by CDT’s E. Shih.)

  » Read more
  • January 18, 2010 10:10 PM

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