When I wrote my thesis on Ai Weiwei some months ago (by that time I did not see any end of my studies), I had a chapter on his online-activities, such as his former Sina-blog and his current micro-blog at Twitter. I always had difficulties to understand the related articles on Chinese internet censorship. I was wondering for example, how his Sina-blog could resist for so long in a country that we in the West consider to be “against democracy”. I don’t want to make a statement about this, but anyway, I found out how Ai Weiweis Blog could survive.
The Chinese system of censor-ship has many layers. The taken measures to maintain control are usually divided into reactive and pro-active measures.
Reactive measures are what our media always talks about: keyword-controll through blocking or filtering, blocking of whole websites, penalties, self-censorship and more. Pro-active measures are ways in which the government supports the net in order to profit from it in diverse dimensions, such as political integration of internet-users in surveys, opinion-polls, and betterment of the communication between the governed and the institution, which maybe causes a higher satisfaction in the population. Pro-active measures include the support of e-commerce to profit from economic growth. The Chines government further uses the net to spread propaganda, even though not as intense as it does within traditional media. And on some bulletin boards people can discuss pretty freely current political issues, only that most people who are using the internet in China don’t feel the urge to do so, because they (educated, middle class) are not unsatisfied with their lives.
Of the mentioned measures the most interesting one is self-censorship. That means that the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet Content Providers need to practice self-censorship, because they are running a risk when publishing or not deleting articles with critical content. The people controlling content on bulletin boards of ISPs are called “Big Mamas”. There have been many official rules published in the last 10 years on how to handle internet and its content. Not following those rules might lead to a closing of the ISPs service. On the other hand it is the author, who is responsible for an articles content, means, he is the one receiving the penalty.
Within the self-censorship I found my answer to my question on Ai Weiwei’s former Sina-blog. It could remain for a long time, because the service provider Sina did not regard the blog as too critical to be restricted or banned from the web. But in a certain combination an artists free-minded blog can become dangerous for an ISP. Ai Weiwei’s content was probably regarded as too critical in connection with the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre in 2009.
But I don’t want to change the topic. The internet in China is a little different from ours, but not in terms of user-behavior. Actually most users in China are basically interested in fun-stuff, like gaming and social media, and they are concerned more in everyday life issues, just like any other user population in countries with relatively unrestricted internet access, such as Germany. What is different is that the internet can exist in a different way. The understanding of internet is different, because information control has a long history and is kind of tradition. China tries to set borders to the web and defines by doing so an online territory. This is a point that concerns the US a lot. Not that I support any side, but actually one could ask, why everything in the world has to be seen from the western perspective to be classified as “ok” or as “unacceptable”.
When reading the literature on Chinese internet, there had been several differences due to the publishing time. The articles on Chinese internet between 1999 and 2002 had been mostly extremely strict in their opinion on internet control. They saw a great effect coming from controlling measures and regarded the internet as a medium which would transform Chinese society, which would seek for free information.
Articles till about 2006 started to look closer at the Chinese perspective. Some stated that the Chinese government has a quite well working control-system, the best in the world, and that internet doesn’t necessarily have to be seen from the US-american “Democracy”-perspective. Some others found out, that the PRCs control isn’t as effective as we believe, since the number of users and websites in China is high and increases more and more. Further E-Mail content can’t be censored. As well the behavior of netizens in the web had been reviewed, and that is when researchers started to find out, that the idea of the internet as a democracy-supportive tool wouldn’t be very effective.
It was just recently that more and more young researches started to criticize big US companies like Cisco for helping in developing some of China’s firewall software. Further in the “democratizing internet” discussion they asked, why none defines Democracy before writing or talking about it, which is an excellent point. The Chinese government has some democracy and supports it more and more, but according to the Communist Party’s definition of democracy. Those perspectives should be made clearer. As well recent articles tend to agree on the fact, that democratization is something, that has to be motivated in the outside world, the internet could only help some movement to stay closely connected.
Some authors ask, why none mentions what websites are open in China. Even though China has a censorship on pornography for example, it doesn’t have a focus on blocking such websites in comparison with several other Asian states, means the government only blocks a low percentage of pornographic websites. Another point of critique is that there is no comparison with the Western internet censorship, which maybe functions very different, but still exists.
The articles often state without having much evidence. Statistics are often done with either a political or a commercial interest behind, so their results aren’t really reliable. Finally the Chinese internet is a permanently changing thing and thus it is difficult to come to temporary conclusions.
In the end I summed up some more information, and below you will find some bibliographical reference. I hoped you enjoyed reading so far.
Bom Domingo!
Kika
Tyyni’s Blog – Photo! Really Nice!
FURTHER INFORMATION
Some historical points:
1987 – 1st e-mail sent to Karlsruhe
1990 – 1st registered “ch” domain
1993 – 1st internet connection from Academia Sinica to Standford
1994 – 1st Chinese Website
1995 – 1st real usage and spread of internet in China, the true starting point
How many users?
919 m in early 2010.
Who uses the internet?
Basically a middle class, which is well of and not very concerned about politics. The internet itself is parting the country and the society, since you will find it mostly in the coastal areas and bigger cities. The rural areas are still pretty back-warded. Even though there are phone connections in many places, the governmental support on connecting the rural areas could be higher.
Critical Content:
If against the honor of the state and the PRC constitution. There are some hundreds (more than 500) keywords which are critical, such as Tiananmen, Falungong, Taiwan Independence, but as well names of higher government members and their families.
Who controls?
A lot of bureaus have something to say, but one should remember the Ministry of Information Industry (MII)as the basic organ. It is a conglomerate of the Ministry of Post & Telecommunication and the Ministry of Electronic Industries. The MII controls the data traffic and is responsible for setting up blockades.
How some people in China get free internet access?
-Proxy-Servers, the data and the credibility of those is often exchanged per e-mail, which remains an uncontrollable tool.
Bibliographical references:
BI Jianhai, The Internet Revolution in China: The Significance for Traditional Forms of Communist Control IN International Journal, Ausgabe 56, Nr.3, 2001, S. 421-441.
Citizens’ Civil and Political Rights IN Progress in China’s Human Rights in 2009, Hrsg. Information Office of the State Council of the PRC, URL: http://english.cpc.people.com.cn/66102/7150903.html, September 2010.
DAMM Jens, The Internet and the Fragmentation of Chinese Society IN Critical Asian Studies, Ausgabe 39, Nr.2, 2007, S. 273 – 294.
DODSON Elizabeth Kathleen, Cracks in the Golden Shield: The Rising Challenge of Expanding Chinese Internet Censorship Technologies, (Master-Thesis) Washington D.C. 2010.
GIESE Karsten, Wer hat Zugang zum Internet?: www-Nutzung und „digital divide“ in China, SCHUCHER Günther, Asien und das Internet, 2002, S. 35 – 45.
Industry Profile: Internet Access in China, Hrsg. DATAMONITOR, http://www.datamonitor.com, 2010.
KLUVER Randy und QIU Jack Linchuan, Rhetoric And Reality: The Internet Challenge for Democracy in Asia, Hrsg. BANERJEE Indrajit, Singapore 2003.
LI Ho-Chun, Digital Democracy in China: Evaluating Chinese Citizens’ Fight for Rights via the Internet, (Master-Thesis) Buffalo 2008.
VOLLAND Nicolai, China.com: Media Control and the Internet IN The Control oft he Media in the People’s Republic of China, VOLLAND Nicolai, (Dissertation) Heidelberg 2003, S. 531 – 582.
WANG Xiaoru, Behind the Great Firewall: The Internet and Democtratization in China, (Dissertation) Michigan 2009.
WACKER Gudrun, Widerstand ist Zwecklos: Internet und Zensur in China IN SCHUCHER Günther, Asien und das Internet, 2002, S. 70 – 93.
ZHAO Kefeng 赵克锋, Zhongguo Fanghuo Changcheng: Hulianwang Shencha de Falü-Jingji-Xue 中国防火长城:互联网审查的法律经济学(Die Great Firewall Chinas: Die Ökonomische Analyse des Rechts zur Internetprüfung), URL: http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/8561702.html, Beijing 2010.
