In the Year of Olympics, China Is Approaching It's Endgame -- Chinese
begin to protest censor****p of Internet
International Herald Tribune
Chinese begin to protest censor****p of Internet
By Howard W. French
Monday, February 4, 2008
WUHAN, China: As an 18-year-old student with an interest in the
Internet, Zhu Nan had been itching to say something about the country's
pervasive online censor****p system, widely known here as the Great
Firewall.
When China's censors began blocking access to the popular photo-sharing
site Flickr, Zhu felt the moment had come. Writing on his blog last
year, the student, who is now a freshman at a university in this city,
questioned the rationale for Internet restrictions, and in subsequent
posts, began passing along tips on how to evade them.
"Officials in our country claimed that Internet censor****p is done
according to the law," Zhu wrote. "If so, why not let people know about
this legal project, and why, instead, ban the Web sites that publicize
and examine those legal policies? If you're determined to do this, you
shouldn't be afraid of criticism."
Zhu's obscure blog post and his subsequent activism are a small part of
what many here are regarding as a watershed moment. In recent months,
Chinese censors have tightened controls over the Internet, often
blacking out sites that had no discernible political content. In the
process, they have fostered a backlash, as many people who previously
had little interest in politics have become active in resisting the
controls.
And all of it comes at a time of increasing risk for those who choose to
protest. Human rights advocates say that the government has been
broadening its crackdown on any signs of dissent as the Olympic Games in
Beijing draw near.
For the vast majority of Internet users, censor****p still does not
appear to be much of a factor. The most popular Web applications here
are games and messaging services, and the most-visited Internet sites
focus on everyday subjects like entertainment news and s****ts. Many, in
fact, seem only vaguely aware that the Chinese Internet universe is
carefully pruned, and even among those who know, a majority hardly seems
to care.
But growing numbers of others are becoming increasingly resentful of
restrictions on a wide range of Web sites, including Flickr, YouTube,
Wikipedia, MySpace (sometimes), Blogspot and many other sites that the
public sees as sources of harmless diversion or information.
The mounting resentment has inspired a wave of increasingly determined
social resistance of a kind that is uncommon in China.
This resistance is taking many forms, from lawsuits by Internet users
against government-owned service providers, claiming that the blocking
of sites is illegal, to a loose but growing network of software writers
who develop code aimed at overcoming the restrictions. Lately, an
Internet-based word-of-mouth campaign has taken shape, in which bloggers
and Web page owners post articles to spread awareness of the Great
Firewall, or share links to programs that will help others evade it.
In almost every instance, the resistance has been fired by the surprise
and indignation when people bumped up against a system that they had
only vaguely suspected existed. "I had had an impression that some kind
of mechanism controls the Internet in China, but I had no idea about the
Great Firewall," said Pan Liang, a writer of children's literature and a
Web site operator who first learned the extent of the controls after a
friend's blog was blocked.
"I was really annoyed at first," Pan said. "Then the 17th Party Congress
came, and I received an order that my Web site, which is about
children's literature, had to close its message board. It made me even
angrier."
Like many others, Pan used his Web page to post solutions for overcoming
the restrictions to some popular banned sites, and then he used a
historical allusion to mock his country's censor****p system.
"Many people don't know that 300 years after Emperor Kangxi ordered an
end to construction of the Great Wall, our great republic has built an
invisible great wall," he wrote. "Can blocking really work? Kangxi knew
the Great Wall was a huge lie: Just think how many soldiers are needed
to guard those thousands of miles."
A 17-year-old blogger from Guangdong Province who posted instructions on
how to get to YouTube, overcoming the Firewall's restrictions, was no
less philosophical. "I don't know if it's better to speak out or keep
silent, but if everyone keeps silent, the truth will be buried," wrote
the girl, who uses the online name Ruyue. "I don't want to be silent,
even if everyone else shuts up."
The Chinese government seems particularly wary of video-sharing sites
like YouTube and has recently tightened regulations on domestic Internet
providers in ways that are aimed at controlling such services.
Others, meanwhile, have gone beyond Internet-based responses like these
and taken more direct action. One such person is Du Dongjing, 38, an
information technology engineer in Shanghai who sued a branch of China
Telecom for contract violation because of the service provider's
unacknowledged restrictions on Web content.
In this case what initially angered Du was the surprise blocking of his
own business Web site last February. The site markets personal finance
software and had no editorial content of any kind. When the service
provider failed to explain why the link went dead, Du took the phone
company to court.
His lawsuit was rejected by a Shanghai court in October, but the case
has been heard in appeal and awaits a verdict. "The Americans have an
expression, 'You can't fight City Hall,' " Du said. "However, I believe
that with the help of today's Internet, the mood of the public, I can
win this case. I can even make a contribution to improving Chinese
democracy."
Even as anti-censor****p activism like this spreads, views are widely
divided about whether a grass-roots campaign can prevail in the end, and
even about how to define victory.
Some see strong continued popular resistance to the limits imposed by
tens of thousands of well-financed government technicians operating
powerful computers and predict a breakthrough.
Yuan Mingli, who created an anti-Great Firewall evasion group because of
his love for Wikipedia, said that the government was already at work on
new generations of Internet technology aimed at insulating Chinese users
even more from the rest of world. But he predicted its failure.
"That's impossible, fundamentally, because people's hearts have
changed," he said, adding that the system would "eventually break down
precisely because China cannot be completely disconnected to the outside
world anymore."
For some of the anti-censor****p activists, creating a broader awareness
of censor****p is itself an im****tant victory, whether the government
actually loosens its control over the Internet.
"If you don't know what's on top of you, than you won't fight back
against it," said Li Xieheng, a blogger who wrote a program he named
Gladder, meaning Great Ladder, to help users of the Firefox browser
overcome Great Firewall restrictions. "It's just like many people not
feeling that China isn't free. They're not aware of it and feel things
are natural here, but that's just the power of media control."
Li said he expected the Great Firewall to continue adapting to the
hit-and-run tactics of its opponents and even predicted that it would
get stronger. The movement, though, has proved the power of public
opinion as an im****tant limitation of the censors' power, he said.
"Why don't they just take Google down?" he asked. "It's because they
don't want to have a scene and have everybody know. A lot of people came
to know about the system because of Flickr, and that is something the
system needs to weigh."
Fan Wenxin contributed re****ting from Shanghai.
International Herald Tribune Copyright 2008 The International Herald
Tribune | www.iht.com
|
