[Air-l] "Beijing losing censorship war on the Net" Straits Times, Singapore & "China Has World's Tightest Internet Censorship, Study Finds"

[George Lessard (s)]

>> Begin forwarded message:
>> [See also
China Has World's Tightest Internet Censorship, Study Finds
Joseph Kahn
The New York Times, 4 December 2002
  http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=517
>> and
Harvard Law School website  "Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering 
in China"
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china

> From: "Randolph Kluver (Assoc Prof)" <trkluver at ntu.edu.sg>
> Date: Wed Jul 30, 2003  4:24:26  AM America/Winnipeg
> To: <chineseinternetresearch at yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [chineseinternetresearch] Beijing losing censorship war on 
> the Net
> Reply-To: chineseinternetresearch at yahoogroups.com

Full text @ Straits Times, Singapore © 2003

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,201957-10594295
40,00.html?

>> or your shorter link to the full text is:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?O15125075

JULY 28, 2003
Beijing losing censorship war on the Net
By JOHN GITTINGS
>> [Excerpts] "...
LONDON - The Sars crisis in China has provided intriguing new evidence
on how the use of modern communications - particularly Internet and
mobile technology - can be used to break down the walls of official
secrecy.

When Beijing sought to conceal the spread of the virus, millions of
Chinese turned to their keyboards and cell phones to access banned
foreign reports and censored domestic information. Internet traffic rose
by 40 per cent, and cell phone traffic by 30 per cent. The government
was forced to issue regulations banning 'rumours about Sars' being
circulated by SMS, but to no effect.

As the Caijing financial magazine commented later, the choice was
between 'listening to back-street gossip or going on the Web'.

It was the latest round in an ongoing struggle between a long-entrenched
regime and a newly-emerging civil society for freedom of electronic
information which has intensified in the past two years.

The state apparatus has won some heavy-handed victories. More than 20
journalists and civil rights campaigners have been detained on charges
such as 'using the Internet to subvert state power'. Several have been
given jail sentences of up to 10 years.

Dozens of foreign websites are routinely blocked to anyone attempting to
access them through a Chinese server. Discussion groups and news forums
are filtered and cleansed of 'inappropriate' material. Some experts
calculate that Beijing spent US$200 million (S$350 million) last year on
new surveillance equipment.

Yet a relatively unfettered traffic in electronic news and comment
continues to grow at a pace which no amount of technology can control.

Most users observe some common-sense principles of self-censorship: No
one is going to criticise a party leader by name or defend the banned
Falungong sect.
>> ..."
>> " ...
CHANNELS OF FREEDOM

MATERIAL from Nongyou and other social-action websites is often passed
on via individual e-mail or posted on bulletin boards. There is also a
crossover of material between these sites and a handful of adventurous
print newspapers such as the Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekend).

In a recent example, protests at the death in custody of Sun Zhigang, a
young man held by the police in Guangzhou, were picked up by newspapers
after circulating widely on the Web.

Material also flows freely between the social-action groups and a number
of academic sites such as Xue er Si (Study and Thought), run by Beijing
law professor Yang Zhizhu, who organised the online petition calling for
justice in the Sun Zhigang case. These in turn have informal links with
sites outside the mainland, such as the 21st Century online magazine run
from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and some more radical sites in
the US.

The result is a continuum of argument and dissent, from the most
cautious to the most outspoken, which transcends China's national
borders. Current issues now being widely debated include China's
extensive use of the death penalty, the alienation of the Chinese
intellectual, and the government's mishandling of the Sars crisis.
>>  ..."
>> " ...
  The controls on foreign media vary in intensity: Some, including The
Washington Post and Reuters, were 'liberated' last year, but audio links
to the BBC and Voice Of America Chinese-language broadcasts are still
rigorously blocked.

Considerable effort goes into barring access to 'proxy servers' that can
be used to mask entry to forbidden sites. Use of the Google search
engine 'cache' facility for the same purpose has also been blocked.

The censor's technology includes key-word recognition which, for
example, prevents anyone from searching for the phrase 'Falungong'
(except on official government websites).

SUCCESS OR SHAME?
>> ..."
>> " ...
THESE blocking actions are no doubt reported to higher authorities as
evidence of success in the struggle against 'poisonous weeds' - and will
help justify claims for a higher budget. The operation is run by the
Ministry of State Security and is an embarrassment to the Chinese
Foreign Ministry which refuses to admit that it exists.

Although an intensely irritating form of censorship (especially for
foreign correspondents based in China), it is an increasingly futile
exercise as far as the Chinese people are concerned.

The government is engaged in a losing battle against a news-hungry and
increasingly sophisticated people who are finding creative ways to get
past the high-tech word-based filters. Chairman Mao Zedong was right
when he said that the course of battle was determined not by machines
but people.
>> ..."
>> " ...
The writer is a specialist on China at The Guardian and was based till
recently in Hong Kong and Shanghai. This article appeared in YaleGlobal
Online, www.yaleglobal.yale.edu ..."

>> = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>> Via / Excerpted / By / From / Thanks to:
         http://tinyurl.com/h4m7
         http://media002.tripod.com/

> From:
> "Randolph Kluver (Assoc Prof)" <trkluver at ntu.edu.sg>
> School of Communication and Information
> Nanyang Technological University
> 31 Nanyang Link
> Singapore, 637718
> (65) 6790-5770
> Fax (65) 6792-4329
   ---------------------- --------------~->
Full text @ Straits Times, Singapore © 2003
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,201957-10594295
40,00.html?
>> or your shorter link to the full text is:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?O15125075
JULY 28, 2003
Beijing losing censorship war on the Net
By JOHN GITTINGS
[chineseinternetresearch]
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>> (c)info
http://members.tripod.com/~media002/disclaimer.htm
Due to the nature of email & the WWW, check ALL sources.
>>> "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
>>>> (Gandhi)

>> [See also
China Has World's Tightest Internet Censorship, Study Finds
Joseph Kahn
The New York Times, 4 December 2002
  http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=517
"... "Defying predictions that the Internet was inherently too diverse 
and malleable for state control, China has denied a vast majority of 
its 46 million Internet users access to information that it feels could 
weaken its authoritarian power." That's the conclusion of a new survey 
of internet use in China done by a team of researchers at Harvard 
University. The six-month study found that "Beijing blocked thousands 
of the most popular news, political and religious sites, along with 
selected entertainment and educational destinations." Because all 
internet traffic is routed through a group of central servers in China, 
the internet may be easier to control than other forms of 
telecommunications such as phones and faxes. - YaleGlobal ..."

>> Click  here to view the study on the Harvard Law School website  
>> "Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China"
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china
Jonathan Zittrain* and Benjamin Edelman**, Berkman Center for Internet 
& Society, Harvard Law School    [ Overview - Methodology - Analysis & 
Summary Statistics - Conclusions - Technical Appendix ][ Specific 
Blocked Sites - Highlights - Analysis by Google Keyword (details | 
chart) ] ..."