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There were a few comments on my entry regarding my site being blocked in China. I figured the whole issue deserved a blog entry, especially since controlled free-speech isn’t something we can all relate to very well. I’ll begin with the cut and dry of the situation but also direct you to my own personal knowledge and some interesting articles.
Now to the questions posed specifically about my site and why it might be banned. There are a few possible reasons:
1) My content has been read randomly by government moderators and has been blocked because of content.
2) Automatic filters picked out specific keyword combinations from my entries and deemed the content inappropriate.
3) My blog runs on a WordPress.org platform. This is important because I know that all WordPress.com hosted blogs are blocked.
[Note] My chances of “detection” on any of those three counts was increased by the fact that my site is a blog. Blogs, forums, and other discussion formats can be closely watched and quickly banned or event destroyed if hosted in China. Subversive or dynamic sharing of information is the most threatening. Even texting has proved a recent challenge to the Chinese government as it as been used to suddenly form public protest through instant coordination (but don’t worry, they are working on systems to monitor that too).
So I could have been blocked for hosting a blog, using WordPress, or based on content.
I hope this answers any questions and brings up many more. Please read further,
Left over from the Cultural Revolution in China and the death of Chairman Mao, the country was looking for new footing. Deng Xiaoping followed in leading the country towards that new future, communism with a capitalist twist. The statement makes most Westerners laugh, but it is a great description of the model the Chinese government seems to follow. From the early 80’s onward the economy expanded, and has continued to as we see today. Along with it, so did urban income and some promised public freedoms. Such items as free-speech were documented in the People’s Constitution, but not in a foundational sense like what we see in the U.S. Constitution.
Come 1989, the rest of the world had heard much of Chinese growth. In the same vein, many of the Chinese had begun to hear about much of the world. On some level, the ability to make economic decisions breeds other free-decision making as well. Pent up frustration towards government policy that conflicted with the social growth of free-decision making, to oversimplify, led to the Tiananmen Square protests and the disastrous government reaction that followed. Much of the world saw the images, thanks to another event attracting a larger media coverage in Beijing at the same time. The protest itself and the press response led to the continuing restrictions on speech and the press.
Seen as a threat and as something that can get out of control if not watched, speech, press and other forms of information sharing were again severely controlled. Today, it all still remains under control. Some conversation topics are still considered illegal, dissidents go under house arrest, CNN will cut out during particular reports, and even articles will be ripped out of stand copies of the Economist. This too goes for the internet and its vast information. Signals leave through only a few controlled “routers” or network exit points, control of what the population sees and is hosted locally is real. To refresh some internet basics, all of the network connections, servers, and routers around the world make up the internet. China controls its country’s access to all those external parts.
Wikipedia, portions or functions of Google, BBC, LiveJournal and other hosted blog services, Flickr, and the Human Rights Watch are all banned sites, just to name a few. Including my website!
They have some tricks to managing this, such as limiting the number of ways through which network requests move in and out of the country. This includes a huge monitoring staff and many automated services using mostly foreign technology. Keywords including freedom and democracy are mostly banned.
The control is inconsistent as the desire to share information can be infinite. Tricks such as IP masking and lack of agreement between government officials can leave things open at times. Even in the same city your luck can change when trying to access the same site. You will see as the Olympics get closer, a looser internet in China, thanks to many IOC requirements. Something tells me, much like similar situations before, it will go right back afterwards.
The issue continues to extend beyond borders as seen recently in controversies over US company compliance with the restrictions of the People’s Republic. All of it still surprises me, mostly an issue foreign to our ears.
Internet censorship in the People’s Republic of China - Wikipedia
How China Controls the Internet - Business Week
China’s Internet: Let a Thousand Filters Bloom - Yale Global Online
“Internet Dissent” Key Issue in U.S.-China Commission Results - DailyTech
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[ absurdity, china, china-olympics, chinese_government, current events, free_speech, JustinFenwick.net, wikipedia, wordpress ]8 Responses to “The sharing of information is dangerous”
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November 29th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Ok, so I can buy that–but, as a student of Chinese, how do you feel about it? How do you reconcile yourself as some one participating in a dual identity by virtue of being bi-lingual, where that other person is involved in this particular cultural/political system? Just curious…
November 29th, 2007 at 2:06 am
As a student of Chinese, I am appalled and offended at a lot of the People’s Republic cultural/political system. Which is why first, I take it upon myself to educate myself fully on the matter. It would be wrong to say though that my study of a foreign language automatically presumes cultural or political responsibility. Does German imply Holocaust responsibility? Latin the Inquisition? or Sudanese the present day Darfur and southern Sudan conflicts?
Although, I agree, there is a unique dual identity that does develop from studying a language. I’ve always been amazed by it. In Chinese I see a newly developing self that parallels my youth in many ways.
The bf in China did impose a similar question about living in and under that type of political/cultural system. The argument being that by living there you automatically providing support to the system. I think this is a much more viable argument.
In the end, there is some responsibility to be had in either situation. I find myself first relying on educating and discussing issues with others. If anything, my study of and in China has been the root of much of my social justice tendencies. So maybe I’ll make change but for now, I don’t feel much guilt just learning the language.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:00 am
I was going to ask a similar question about how you feel about the situation. What I want to know is how you felt about your specific blog being banned and whether or not it was a suprise when you found out it was banned.
To add another question which was sort of inspired by the previous two comments: do you think that you have a dual identity by virtue of being bi-lingual? For me, being bi-lingual in German and currently living in Germany I’ve never actually felt myself having some sort of dual identity. I always assumed this sort of dual identity that freakzero is talking about comes from someone who is bi-lingual by birth and\or grown up in multiple\dual cultures, and not as a result of studying another language\culture. Sure there are aspects of the Chinese culture that you have adapted as your own, and the same goes for me with German culture, but does that imply dual identity?
November 30th, 2007 at 12:17 am
I wonder if we as Americans throw around the notion of “free speech” too freely. Do we in fact have freedom to say and express ourselves any way we want to? Or do we just experience a less intense version of what the Chinese people experience?
November 30th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I tend to wonder if greggcostanzo doesn’t actually have a valid point. As modern technology develops, even our new smart ID cards will reveal at any moment what we will be doing, how and where. Isn’t this just the same or even worse? Our ability to search out multiple ways of invading people’s privacy is truly an interruption of what i call my supreme identity and privacy!
November 30th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I agree with Justin-just because I can speak many languages, live in another country other than my native home, doesn’t make me have dual identity, or contribute to accepting the policies of that country. All I know is that when I come home to Canada I feel much more secure and safer! Furthermore, we all tend to look critically at others, when in fact we should turn inward and examine what our own countries are doing-how many secrets are there out there regarding policies that the citizen would be horrified to find out. One of these was when in the 50’s the medical field decided to fly over North America and spread flu germs to see how it affected the population. I could go on but let’s not judge others too much-let’s get our house in order first! Just my few ramblings!
November 30th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
In a recent book I read concerning the atrocities committed by Germans, Russians and Japanese during WWII, the author interviewed the actually people who committed these acts. He came to a final conclusion that the average person just wants to live their lives peacefully. As such, they adapt to the prevailing “powers that be,” no matter how oppressive. It is the rare person that can “buck” the system. I guess the same is true for the Chinese. They accept censorship as a normal part of their lives.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
In response to firepointe’s comment
living abroad has made me much more aware of what I like and more importantly what i dislike about my home country, America. In Germany i am constantly confronted by others who disagree and do not understand the us and our policy and cultural tendencies, in either trying to explain or defend, or much less frequently agree with their arguments, i have developed a greater appreciation for the things I like, and a much greater awareness of the things i dont like and disapprove of. Has this been the experience of anyone else who has lived abroad?