China's Censorship 2.0 (Green Dam update)

Chinaʼs Censorship 2.0: inside the “great firewall”

Rebecca MacKinnon

Journalism & Media Studies Centre, University of Hong Kong

rmack@hku.hk

1Friday, June 12, 2009

2 (or 3) kinds of censorship

2 (or 3) kinds of censorship• “Outside the great firewall”

• Filtering of websites outside of China

• “Inside the great firewall”

• Deletion of content on domestic commercial websites

• Takedown of domestically hosted websites

• Shut-down of data centers

• “Inside the great firewall”

• Deletion of content on domestic commercial websites

• Takedown of domestically hosted websites

• Shut-down of data centers

• New 3rd category: PC-level (“Green Dam”)

The “Great Firewall” in action

Filtering research: Open Net Initiative

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/index.htm

Human Rights Watch: search engine censorship research

Nart Villeneuve: University of TorontoSee: http://www.nartv.org/writing/

Blog post about “Tiananmen Mothers”

Censorship by Chinese blog-hosting companies

Your post “Tiananmen mothers organization publishes a website” has been successfully submitted! Because it

contains sensitive words, please wait for the community editors to approve it. Please donʼt re-post. Thank you.

15 blog hosts tested, 108 valid testsCompany A

0 27 54 81 108

Number of blog posts tested

NOTE: Company names have been replaced with letters due to concerns that companies who censor

less will be subject to repercussions.

PUBLISHED PAPER: “Chinaʼs Censorship 2.0: How Companies censor bloggers.” First Monday.

Vol. 14, No. 2 - 2 February 2009URL: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2378/2089

Main findings• Censorship across 15 BSPʼs varied

even more than expected

• A great deal of politically sensitive content survives in the Chinese blogosphere despite censorship

• Censorship methods vary greatly from company to company, implying companies have at least some choice

Bao Tong essay blasting 1-party system (with his name removed): censored by only 2 of 15

Xinhua: Hu Jintao pep talk to Olympic athletes censored by Mop.com and Blogbus

Mop: “Sorry, your article has been sent to the recycling station, please revise it then publish again.”

Conclusions• Network-level filtering (“the great firewall”) is only one

part of Chinese Internet censorship.

• Domestic host-level censorship is not centralized.

• Domestic host-level censorship is outsourced by government to the private sector.

• Censorship is inconsistent - itʼs usually possible to post your content somewhere, for at least a while.

Common Western view of Chinese censorship: “Great Firewall” is only part of the picture

“Iron curtain 2.0”(h/t Lokman Tsui)

Photo courtesy “PC fish” on Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Point_Alpha_Ostseite.jpg (GNU Free Documentation License)

“Net nanny”

Photo courtesy “merwing” at http://flickr.com/photos/merwing/2569326878/ (Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license)

Chinese web management: Hydro-electric engineering metaphor

Photos: LEFT: “noelinthebahamas” on Flickr at http://flickr.com/photos/noelinthebahamas/2417798169/ (Creative Commons BY-NC-ND)RIGHT: “yunmeng” on Flickr at http://flickr.com/photos/yunmeng/323886547/ (Creative Commons BY-NC-SA)

“Green Dam” software mandate: likely failure?

Anti-censorship Protest video: “song of the grass mud horse”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3tPA_Z_MT0

“cao ni ma” ＝“grass mud horse” (alpaca sheep)

草泥马

Anti-censorship Protest video: “song of the grass mud horse”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3tPA_Z_MT0

*你妈

Same sounds, different tones =“F***your mother”

“cao ni ma” ＝“grass mud horse” (alpaca sheep)

草泥马

Anti-censorhip meme:“River crab wears three watches”

“Harmonious”

“He xie”

“Harmonious Society”Slogan of President Hu Jintao

“Harmonious”

“He xie”

三个代表

“Three Represents”Slogan of fmr. Pres. Jiang Zemin

“san ge dai biao”

“Harmonious”

“He xie”

“Rivercrab”

三个代表

“Harmonious”

“He xie”

“Rivercrab”

三个代表

代三个表

“dai san ge biao”

“Wears three watches”

freedom vs. control

Both photos in public domain via Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T_Jefferson_by_Charles_Willson_Peale_1791_2.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Hamilton_portrait_by_John_Trumbull_1806.jpg

freedom vs. control

Both photos in public domain via Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T_Jefferson_by_Charles_Willson_Peale_1791_2.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Hamilton_portrait_by_John_Trumbull_1806.jpg

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