Does the Internet bring greater freedom and democracy to the PRC? essay
The emergence of the Internet in the People’s Republic of China dates back to 1994, but its history in the Republic has begun almost ten years earlier. In 1987, Professor Qian Tianbao sent the first email. A year later, the Beijing Institute of High Energy Physics has established communication with Europe and North America, and Tsinghua University – with the University of British Columbia in Canada (Tsui, 2005). Now, almost all personal computers are connected to the Internet. To date, the connection is mainly carried out through high-speed connections. There are many Internet cafes, which require passport of all clients. Internet cafe owners should keep photos of all visitors. Access to foreign sites in China is limited in order to censorship.
SECTION 1. Features of Internet use in the People’s Republic of China
1.1. Restrictions on the use of internet in the PRC
Advantage of the Internet is that it has high speed and interactivity compared to the print media. It means speed of communication and broad discussion. China’s Internet users turn to the internet to express public opinion, and here the government is increasing its control (Yang, 2007). Access to a number of foreign sites on the territory of the People’s Republic is limited within the project “Golden Shield” – “Great Chinese firewall.” The project is a system of Internet content filtering. In 1998, they began the development of the project, and, in 2003, it started working across the country (Barboza, 2005). “Golden Shield” is a system of servers on the Internet channel between providers and international networks of communication that filters the information. Only in Hong Kong and Macao, users have free access to the internet, these administrative areas does not apply censorship. Web pages are filtered by keywords related to national security, and the “black list” of URLs. Websites based in China, can not without special approval publish news, culled from foreign news sites. Explaining the meaning of the “Golden Shield” expert opinions diverge. The “Golden Shield” is very important for the PRC. Researchers argue that network attacks from other states can cause significant blow to China’s national security. For example, in 2011 about 50 thousand foreign IP address as Trojan horse attacked computers that were in the territory of the PRC. But we should not forget about the “cooling effect” that scientists believe to be a major problem for China. This term is understood as the legal sanctions with the use of physical or legal means in this context. The cooling effect is of negative character due to the nature of enforcement. It denies access to a number of foreign websites in China, and keyword filtering restricts scientific work of teachers and students of educational institutions. In turn, the tight control of the internet and keyword filtering increase the impact of the phenomenon of “filter bubble.” All legal websites use algorithms of selective guessing. Information is based on a previous search history and location of the user. As a result, websites show information consistent with the previous viewpoints. Many tend to believe that tight control and filtering complicate access to new ideas. Sites that are located in the PRC are registered at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which allows identifying the author of illegal content. Foreign search engines, including Google, Yahoo and Bing, also filter search results (Leslie, 2012).
1.2. Censorship in Internet use in China
It is hard to tell the exact date of the introduction of China’s Internet censorship. Some believe that it began in 1993, according to others – in 1997. Opinions on the first documents about internet censorship also differ. Some believe that the first document, which officially proclaimed Internet censorship was the document “Rules of regulation to ensure the safety of computer and information systems” (1994). Others argue that is was “Interim measures of management of international connections of computer information networks” (1996). According to the last of the documents, users must be registered, providers must be licensed, international traffic has to go through officially approved by the government gateways, transfer of anti-government or other harmful information is prohibited. In 1997, the item “harmful information” was supplemented by the concepts of “hacking” and “spread of viruses.” According to analysts, these measures included the transfer of the regulatory functions from the government to providers. In 2000, new laws were adopted, according to which providers must retain for 60 days all blogs in chat rooms and forums. This information must be accompanied by complete information about users, including contact details. Foreign companies were not allowed to become major shareholders of Chinese providers (Zheng, 2002).
China has blocked many of the world social networks: from 2008 – Facebook, 2009 – microblogging service Twitter. Skype has a special distribution with built-in filtering of unwanted content. Chinese residents are invited to enjoy such services as: Sina.com, QQ.com, they have the opportunity to leave a message on the website of the Communist Party of the country. On March 16, 2008, there has been blocked access to the video hosting YouTube, experts explain the fact that there appear dozens of videos of Tibetans speeches against “the Chinese occupation.” Most Western media are censored. In 2009, China launched a campaign to streamline the situation with common ways of downloading pornographic and obscene video. The main objects of such checking are stores that provide services for downloading video on the internet and saving it to mobile phones. In the fight against copyright infringement, torrent trackers were closed.
Since 2010, China adopted new rules, according to which all music posted on Chinese websites must be subjected to prior censorship. Local or foreign songs should take the prior approval of the Ministry of Culture of the country, before being placed in the Chinese segment of the Internet. In addition, foreign rights holders and publishers must provide all songs with lyrics translated into Chinese, and the confirmation of their rights to them. In early 2010, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the PRC has distributed new rules for a domain name in a zone .cn. Since 2010, all those who want to create a website in China previously need to present identification documents and a photograph, and pass an interview, after which it is decided whether the applicant can register a domain name (Zheng, 2013).
1.3. Controls of Internet censorship
A complex of government structures is engaged in Internet censorship in China. Experts describe control system of the Internet space in different ways because, on the one hand, each of the bodies has its profile, on the other hand – such distinctions are quite conventional. The PRC government often establishes new regulatory bodies and converts existing ones. Supervisory authorities exist in every province of China. Originally, Ministry of Internal Affairs controlled internet use, it has developed and implemented a powerful information filtering system. This system actually blocks undesirable foreign sites for Chinese users. Chinese programmer under the pseudonym Mr. Tao, prepared a report on “Journey to the Heart of Internet censorship” (2007), according to which the oversight functions in China are carried out by: Administrative Office for Internet propaganda and the Center for Public Opinion Research at the Information Service of the State Council. These services are engaged into supervision and regulation of information on the Internet, and monitor public opinion. Internet Office and the Office of Information and Public Opinion, which are also described in the report of the programmer, must hold weekly discussion of public opinion on the web. Another controlling authority is the Ministry of Public Security, whose main task is to fight against pornography, threats and incitement to violence. It also includes the Notification Center of publication of illegal content at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the PRC. Experts of Harvard Law School, University of Cambridge, Oxford and Toronto in a research project Open Net Initiative describe that Chinese Internet censorship is carried out by the State Council, Ministry of Telecommunications, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Public Security, and Committee on State Secrets. In 2004, according to the decision of the State Council, the validation feature of management and supervision in the field of culture in the Chinese segment of the web have been assigned to the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic. In 2010, there was created the Bureau to coordinate news, functional duties of which include checking information posts in social networks, blogs and forums (Helft, 2010). In 2011, there was created the State Chancellery for information on the Internet. It was the first institution in the country, specially created to control the Internet and block unwanted sites. Head of the Information Office of the State Council Wang Chen became the first head of the State Chancellery. In 2011, there was created a special unit with the unofficial name “Blue Grid army”, whose main task was to conduct educational hacker attacks on information networks of the armed forces of China.
In June 2009, authorities of the People’s Republic announced the decision to install web filters Green Dam Youth Escor on all computers sold in China. They control the time spent by users in the web space, and cut off access to online resources with pornographic and other “unhealthy” content. For the development of this program, the Government of China paid Jinhui Computer System Engineering Company 41,7 million Yuan (over $ 6,000,000). Rule was to come into force on 1 July 2009, but was postponed due to a sharp resistance of Internet community. In August of the same year, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Technology of China Li Yizhong announced that the program will be installed on PC in schools and on computers for public use. Green Dam program has been installed on 20 million computers of internet cafes (Dong, 2012).
Does the Internet bring greater freedom and democracy to the PRC? essay part 2
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