Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
inform them that they are being monitored. Instant messaging and mobile phone text
messaging services are heavily filtered, including a program called QQ, which is
automatically installed on users' computers to monitor communications. Blogs
critical of the government are frequently dismantled, although for the most part the
government out-sources this function to blog-hosting companies (MacKinnon
2008
). In 2006, for example, Microsoft's MSN Spaces blog-hosting site agreed to
conform to government ''guidelines'' in return for freedom from censorship at the
ISP level. The popular service Sina Weibo, with 300 million microbloggers, uses a
point system to monitor politically objectionable comments: after an initial allo-
cation of 80 points, users have points deducted until they reach zero, when their blog
is terminated (Wines
2012
). In June, 2009, the government attempted to require
manufacturers to install filtering software known as Green Dam Youth Escort on all
new computers, but retreated in the face of a massive popular and corporate outcry
(LaFraniere
2009
), a lawsuit from a California firm, Cybersitter, alleging that China
stole its software (Crovitz
2010
), and the fact that Green Dam inadvertently jammed
government computers (Lake
2009
). In response, Falun Gong released a program to
circumvent it called Green Tsunami.
The Great Firewall system began in 2006 under an initiative known as the
''Golden Shield,'' a national surveillance network that China developed with the
aid of U.S. companies Nortel and Cisco Systems (Lake
2009
) and extended
beyond the internet to include digital identification cards with microchips con-
taining personal data that allow the state to recognize faces and voices of its 1.3
billion plus inhabitants. The envy of authoritarian governments worldwide, the
Golden Shield has been exported to Cuba, Iran, and Belarus. Indeed, in many
respects, China's state-led program of internet development serves as a model for
other authoritarian governments elsewhere.
The Chinese government has periodically initiated shutdowns of data centers
housing servers for websites and online bulletin boards, disrupting use for mil-
lions. Email services like Gmail and Hotmail are frequently jammed; before the
2008 Olympics, Facebook sites of critics were blocked. In 2007, the State
Administration of Radio, Film and Television mandated that all video sharing sites
must be state owned. Police frequently patrol internet cafes, where users must
supply personal information in order to log on, while web site administrators are
legally required to hire censors popularly known as ''cleaning ladies'' or ''big
mamas'' (Kalathil and Boas
2003
).
At times government censorship can generate problems with foreign investors.
The government for years blocked access to The New York Times, until its editors
complained directly to President Jiang Zemin, but left the web site for USA Today
unmolested (Hachigian
2002
). In the Chinese case, Google, the world's largest
single provider of free Internet services, famously established a separate, politi-
cally correct (by China's government standards) website, Google.cn, which cen-
sors itself to comply with restrictions demanded by the Chinese state, arguing that
the provision of incomplete, censored information was better than none at all
(Dann and Haddow
2008
). In early 2010, responding to the ensuing international
criticism, Google announced it would no longer cooperate with Chinese internet
