A new Pew Internet Project report indicates that most Chinese internet users think that web content should be controlled and monitored and that the government should be in charge of doing it, James Fallows writes on his Atlantic Monthly blog. This from the report:
Most readers of the Western press are aware of efforts by the Chinese government to control what its people can read and discuss online. Outside observers and human-rights groups monitor and criticize the government’s actions and publicize the techniques through which technologically savvy Chinese internet users can work around restrictions. Some analysts also track and interpret the government’s subtler shifts in balance that seek to encourage internet development while still exercising control over it…
[O]ther evidence suggests that many Chinese citizens do not share Western views of the internet. The survey findings discussed here, drawn from a broad-based sample of urban Chinese internet users and non-users alike, indicate a degree of comfort and even approval of the notion that the government authorities should control and manage the content available on the internet.
Fallows recently wrote an article on China’s Great Firewall here that is worth reading if you haven’t yet.
Also, here is a link to the report, which was written by Fallows’ wife, Deborah Fallows.
