Intellectual Property Law

Chinese Great Firewall of Internet Facing Increased Criticism & Internal Attacks

By IBLS Editor

Reports that China's massive Internet is heavily policed and censored is news to few political aficionados or students of the World Wide Web but a movement is growing within the country to fight back against the Government's heavy hand and refusal to allow any genuine rights of free speech or expression. Now a protest surge is developing behind an 18-year-old student's obscure blog that questions whether China's policies are either logically related to their stated aims or even a smart policy for the State to pursue.

Lat year, Zhu Nan of Wuhan responded when China's censors blocked access to the trendy photo-sharing site Flickr, writing in his blog and examining the logic behind Internet restrictions. Then he began passing on tips to other users on how to evade the Internet censors. Mr. Zhu wrote, "Officials in our country claimed that Internet censorship is done according to the law. 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."

One of the real problems with Chinese Internet censorship is it is arbitrary and over-broad as technocrats have tightened controls over the Internet, many sites have been blocked that had no discernible political content. In the process, the censors have fostered a backlash, as many people who previously had little interest in politics have become active in resisting the controls.

The timing of these protests is notable since the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Beijing approaches which has already brought the prying eyes of the world and much human-rights criticism to this massive Marxist nation that still has no Bill of Rights or any fundamental protections to shield individuals against the Government. Therefore, the chances of a crackdown may be less at such a crucial moment. Or, then again, perhaps much larger.

As often happens in such situations, the acts of censorship have highlighted the issues being blocked and have brought more awareness to the topics than would have occurred otherwise. In China, most Internet users still seem indifferent to politics and instead use the Net for games and messaging services, while the most visited Internet sites gloss entertainment news and sports.

Many Internet users in China probably are not very aware that China's Internet universe is carefully pruned, and those who know hardly seem to care. But a cadre of protesters are becoming more vocal in their resentments that marquis sites such as Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Blogspot and a host of others that most would rate as harmless are being blocked, creating a social resistance movement that has few predecessors in recent years.

How are the protests being advanced? Lawsuits have been filed by Internet users against Government-owned service providers, stating that website blocking is illegal. Also, a secret army of software writers have emerged developing code meant to defeat the restrictions. Perhaps most explosively, a web user's word-of-mouth campaign has blossomed with bloggers and Web site owners posting statements and articles to throw the curtains back to expose the Great Firewall, and passing along educational tips on how it is designed and linking programs that help evade it.

What is undeniably happening, at the grassroots level, is that the more Internet users become aware of the size of the censorship enterprise, the more resentful they are becoming. Pan Liang, a children's writer and a Web site operator said, "I had had an impression that some kind of mechanism controls the Internet in China, but I had no idea about the Great Firewall," commenting on when he first realized a friend's blog was blocked. Mr. Pan said, "I was really annoyed at first, 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."

Mr. Pan then began to use his Web page to fight the censors and suggest solutions for evading the restrictions at banned sites, while citing a historical allusion to make sport of his country's censorship system. Said Pan on his site, "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. 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."

Internet activist Yuan Mingli founded an anti-Great Firewall evasion group because of his affection for the web encyclopedia Wikipedia, blocked in China. Mingli claims the Government is pouring countless yen into developing a new generations of Internet screening technology aimed at better censoring the Chinese Internet from any content they find objectionable. Mingli predicts the failure of such an enterprise, claiming -- "That's impossible, fundamentally, because people's hearts have changed." He added that China could no longer pretend to be isolated, saying the censorship system would "eventually break down precisely because China cannot be completely disconnected to the outside world anymore."

Speaking of history, one wonders if protesters like Zhu Nan, Pan and Mingli might be establishing a new Tiananmen Square moment for Chinese freedom of expression which, because of its size, stealth and support cannot be stopped with a few bullets or bullying tanks.

Full post as published by IBLS Internet Law Blog on February 04, 2008 (boomark / email).