#thegreatfirewallofchina

[euniceyounice7]

CCTV all around China

What’s the case with China? What’s happening in China? Are the citizens of China living peacefully or frighteningly? Let’s explore more in this week’s blog!

In China, there are 802 million active internet users, representing 57.7 percent of the population, which in comparison, the United States only has 300 million internet users approximately. Yet, the Chinese government, President Xi Jinping, has made the world wide web not so wide as there are several issues (McCarthy 2018).

The Great Firewall of China

The Great Firewall of China has created barriers that limits the flow and exchange of information, in other words, the foreign websites and news agencies such as Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter, Reuters and BBC are barred from entering China’s internet (Maags 2019). Instead, China had their own version of Google, called Baidu, WeChat that is equivalent to Facebook and YouTube that is substituted by Youku. Furthermore, Dennis and Kahn (2019) asserted that the Chinese government restricted nine types of information, comprising post that might disrupt social order, and information that might harm the state’s dignity and interests. Additionally, Maags (2019) stated that public belief likewise influenced subtly by governmental social media accounts or “”50-cent army”, the state-employed bloggers that post positive news and comments about the government online to convince and influence public opinion. Nevertheless, there are Chinese citizens that refuse to believe and blindly follow the official propaganda. They responded using metaphors and code words to condemn the government and the lack of freedom of speech by accessing the internet via virtual private networks (VPNs) to avoid the Great Firewall (Maags 2019; Heaven 2019). 

Censorship in China

Censorship in China is another issue faced by the Chinese citizens. Kristof (2019) noted that President Xi Jinping that is anxious and insecure regarding Hong Kong protesters, religion and Winnie-the-Pooh related topic, has lead him to be frightened that real information will penetrate the Chinese echo chamber, undermining his propaganda department’s personality cult around a kind “Uncle Xi”. One example of censorship is the banning of Winnie-the-Pooh at China’s movie theatres and internet, due to commentators that suggested it looks alike with the overweight President Xi (Kristof 2019). According to Kristof (2019), President Xi wanted to censor information in China as well as the discussions and forums in the West these days.  

China’s Social Credit System

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOk27I2EBac)

Moving on, the China’s Social Credit System is a ranking system that helps monitor the behavior of its vast population by ranking all of them based on their “social credit” (Ma 2018). According to Ma (2018), the citizens’ score will decrease or increase depending on their behavior. This is a new technology that controls its population in a creepy and terrifying ways, which will be implemented in 2020 to ensure a safety living in China (Matsakis 2019). Each individual is given 1000 points and is consistently observed and rated based on their behavior via the pilot system (Jones 2019). They can earn points by doing good deeds such as helping the needy, donating money and praising the government on social media. In oppose to that, those behave badly such as criticizing the government, smoking in non-smoking zones, and stealing will lead to a decrease in the points. Rewards and privileges for the citizens with good behavior include receiving priority for children’s school admissions and higher opportunity of promotion at workplace. In contrast, the citizens with bad behavior will be punished by prohibiting to book train or flights ticket, public shaming, restriction in getting the best jobs and banning citizen’s children to study in the excellent schools (Ma 2018; Jones 2019).

Is China’s AI technology the answer to the future?

Personally, I think yes. This can be supported by O’Meara (2019) statement as AI technologies promise advances in communications, health care, transport and fundamental breakthrough that can potentially shape China’s future directions and reap the most advantages. For example, AI technology, incorporating huge patient data sets for training software to predict disease that needs research and development has created a distinctive opportunities and great potential workforce for China’s researchers (O’Meara 2019). 

Does China’s Social Credit System help the citizens to behave well and ensure a safety living?

I think it helps the citizens to behave well and ensure a safety living, at the same time, the citizens will live frighteningly as well. Implementation of China’s Social Credit System can assist in reducing crime, so citizens can live peacefully. Citizens with good score will be given privilege and rewards. In contrast, it will also permanently affect the next generation that is innocent and this is unfair for them in the future especially when they wanted to enrol in the best school but restricted to do so due to the previous generation’s bad score. Also, imagine Chinese citizens walking on a road with thousands or millions of surveillance cameras tracking them, they have no privacy and completely transparent as all the personal data is controlled by the government and there is limit in freedom of speech on politic issues.

That’s all from me, thanks for reading!

References

Dennis, MA & Kahn, R 2019, Internet: electronic publishing, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 10 April, viewed 24 November 2019, <https://www.britannica.com/technology/Internet/Electronic-publishing>.

Heaven, D 2019, ‘China’s Great Firewall and the war to control the internet’, New Scientist, 12 March, viewed 25 November 2019, <https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132210-400-chinas-great-firewall-and-the-war-to-control-the-internet/>.

Jones, K 2019, ‘The game of life: visualizing China’s social credit system’, Visual Capitalist, 18 September, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-game-of-life-visualizing-chinas-social-credit-system/>.

Kristof, N 2019, ‘Let’s not take cues from a country that bans Winnie the Pooh’, The New York Times, <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/opinion/china-censorship.html>.

Ma, A 2018, China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system – here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you, Business Insider, 29 October, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.businessinsider.my/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4/?r=US&IR=T>.

Maags, C 2019, The Great Firewall of China, Fair Observer, 23 September, viewed 25 November 2019, <https://www.fairobserver.com/region/asia_pacific/great-firewall-china-censorship-chinese-news-today-vpn-china-38018/>.

Matsakis, L 2019, ‘How the west got China’s social credit system wrong’, Wired, 29 July, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.wired.com/story/china-social-credit-score-system/>.

McCarthy, N 2018, ‘China now boasts more than 800 million internet users and 98% of them are mobile [infographic]’, Forbes, 23 August, viewed 24 November 2019, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/23/china-now-boasts-more-than-800-million-internet-users-and-98-of-them-are-mobile-infographic/#461cd01e7092>.

O’Meara, S 2019, ‘Will China lead to the world in AI by 2030?’, Nature Research, 21 August, viewed 26 November 2019, <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02360-7>.

[vpninchina]

‪VPN翻牆‬ ‪香港團隊🇭🇰‬ ‪QQ：1299332798‬ ‪新用戶購買年費送三個月‬ ‪#ChinaVPN #GFW #ChinaFirewall #TheGreatFirewallOfChina #Firewall #China #VPNUse #EasyVPNUseInChina #VPNProviders #Chinese #Beijing #ChineseGovernment #VPNChina #Shanghai #Sanya #Guangzhou #Shenzhen #粤‬ (南京 新街口 initial) https://www.instagram.com/p/B78rZg2hCHV/?igshid=4yylbbqvmyv5

[spillthedigitea]

The Tea tastes better in China

The Great Firewall of China. An extremely fascinating conversation. One on hand, Westerners assume that our media, especially the social media’s of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, are the ultimate, monopolised industries in the world, without considering the 1.3 billion people who literally can’t access it in the first place. 

The Chinese Government’s allow their citizens to have social media accounts, however, these are on completely new and different platforms that are potentially able to compete with the likes of Facebook. China is the second-largest economy in the world, behind the USA (2015) so there is bound to have a rapid rate of technological developments and a movement towards a new media. Chinese citizens do not have access to our “normal” social media or even websites like Wikipedia. The Government has built a giant firewall against their people. But is it really affecting them? 

I was employed for a couple of months at a sports centre that was recently bought by a Chinese couple. I was informed and educated about how to use the platform “WeChat”, which is China’s “WhatsApp”. It was 100% written in Mandarin, and my bosses worked really hard to build their advertisements up on the application. That meant that I needed to learn how to navigate through, not only an application that I didn’t know existed, but one that was entirely in a language that I was unfamiliar with. 

I made the assumption “But this is Australia, and I, a social-media student, have never even heard of WeChat. This won’t work, we should try Facebook.” But much to my surprise, and a surprise it was, we had 300% more traffic in the first week of using WeChat in comparison to Facebook! Everyone had a unique code that they shared with us and 428/500 new guests that week was from WeChat. I was amazed! 

China has not disadvantaged their citizens at all with limiting their social media, in fact, these new platforms can soon become the dominant platforms. Such a new concept developing as we speak! Let us look forward to the future! 

And that’s the tea. 

Tea of the week: Oolong. S-oolong, reader. I’ve had a wonderful time creating this blog.

[jacobdigitalgown-blog]

8. The Great Firewall... which isn’t very great!

In my short life I have heard about this mysterious great firewall of China, I have heard that it blocks social media platforms such as Facebook and that it blocks inappropriate sexual content that surrounds the internet. Until now I did not understand how powerful of a force the great firewall is, considering it blocks much more than once thought. The Great Firewall of China is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the People's Republic of China to regulate the internet domestically. Its role is to block access to selected foreign websites and to slow down cross border internet traffic. This sounds a bit technical but it’s basically a higher power who decide what can be viewed and what can’t. Along with the content I noted above, the great firewall also blocks Google search, foreign mobile apps and even Wikipedia. This seems crazy, because without Wikipedia I am not sure how any of China’s university students would be able to complete assignments…

As a westerner I find it hard to believe that China would want to block their nations people from all the online spoils that we have access to. However, it is popularly agreed upon by people who live in China or have lived in China, that the great firewall was built for this main reason. In China there is a large gap between the rich and the poor, usually in correlation, the rich are well educated while the poor may not be. It is believed that the great firewall of China is in place to censor negative comments made against China mainly surrounding education and politics that they don’t want their citizens to know. On some websites like Facebook or Twitter, there are a lot negative news about China, some of which are real, others may be fake. The government is trying to protect themselves from their own people, by keeping them in the dark about sensitive topics. In doing so they have placed a big protective bubble over their citizens, in the 21st century where free will is of upmost importance, it seems cruel and unjust to censor the public. #ClassicCommunism

Fortunately for a lot of the public in China they are still able to connect with one another and create digital communities themselves. They do this with certain apps that are approved by the government, which are basically twins to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. However, they only display content their government allows them to see. So, in contrast it’s not all doom and gloom as you may expect… (**people screaming). The apps used in China to replicate some of the big western counterparts are, Youku, Weibo and WeChat. These twin apps are somewhat popular here in Australia. WeChat being used by over 2.5 million Australians. Even with the steady popularity of WeChat, I personally believe the people of China are not getting the full experience, which is a bit of a depressing thought. Social media platforms were created for people to connect, to share and illuminate others around you, with your own interests and opinions. Unfortunately, the great firewall of China is a great pain in China’s citizens asses, and this fault should be rectified. The people should be free to make their own choices on which cat videos they can search on the internet, rant over!

[digitalcommunicator-blog]

#no.8 The Censorship wall

The Great Firewall of China (2010) <http://bit.ly/1qHv0nP>.

If we hopped on a plane and went overseas we would naturally expect to connect with friends and family as we always have in Australia. Due to the censorship in China, most of its citizens do not use the online platforms that dominate social media today including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

'The Great China Firewall' can be described as the barrier placed between the people of China and the sites which are accessible to them. Chinese consumers spend most of their time on 'Qzone' (Chiu et al. 2012).

Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have restrictions placed on them in China. Although this may seem unfair, these restrictions on social media and foreign websites have resulted in Chinese properties thriving.

"YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in China, yet their Chinese equivalents are continuously expanding" (Crampton 2011).

Let's just imagine for a moment that instead of Australians spending most of their time on online social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, we instead spent more of our time on Australian founded platforms and social networking sites. What would our future look like?? Would Australian made sites gain same level of popularity??

The population of China is the greatest in the world, and this tells us a lot as to why Chinese online platforms generate such a high level of users. Even though these barriers may prevent most of the individuals living in China from accessing the universally dominating social media platforms, the censorship encourages people to grow their own business and branch away from the commercial trends which may boost their level of authenticity and credibility.

We are all so accustomed to the popularity of the sites which we use, and that is the very reason why we use them, we like feeling a sense of control and purpose. The more that people know of us, the more we feel that we are part of the world. Perhaps others may feel differently as they believe that the online world is not the real world. China may not allow its citizens access to particular social media platforms, yet the presence of online users remains high.

Whether or not we are censored when it comes to online platforms, most people will find a way to stay engaged and co exist in the ever growing technological era we now live in.

Chiu, C, Lin, D & Silverman, A 2012, China's social-media boom, McKinsey & Company, viewed 3 August 2016, <http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/chinas_social-media_boom>.

Crampton, T 2011, 'Social media in China: The same, but different’, China Business Review, Vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 28-31, viewed 3 August 2016, <http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review/>.

'The Great Firewall of China' [image] 2010, Scoolbell, Wordpress, viewed 3 August 2016, <http://scoolbell.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/behind-the-great-firewall-of-china/>.

[spokeadoke-blog]

Week 11: Global social media: Case study China

I had heard of this many a time over the past few years however I was either too busy or as it didn't impact my life found no time to dig deeper.

The great firewall of China

Reading into the amount of effort that the Chinese government go to in order to add limitations to what citizens can view or are limited to viewing on the so called World Wide Web.

I cannot understand how this is able to be maintained in the level of scrutiny needed considering the population of china and the effect of users having internet access. The Filters begin with the internet service providers, blocking VPN access, filtering type of content and adhering to access measures in order to stop people doing what? That was one question I could not find the answer too…

The china internet users have a range of different type of social media that is again filtered restricted etc to the type of usage.

[bromeetsworld]

#nihao #Beijing #China ! I'm in you! 24+ hours and some 1,000 kilometers later it's time for some relaxation. China blocks #Instagram , #Facebook , #Twitter , and a lot of social media but I'm crafty. #travel #Asia #thegreatfirewallofchina (at Beijing Railway Station)

[digcom18-blog]

#8 Global Social Media // The Great Firewall of China

China’s online population of 731 million receives a highly restricted internet. Protecting China’s internet from foreign influence and securing their “cyber sovereignty” has led to the Great Firewall of China (GTW). GTW is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the People’s Republic of China to regulate internet domestically. It’s role in the Internet censorship in China is to block access to foreign websites and to slow down cross-border internet traffic. (Wikipedia)

This means, people living in China don’t have access to Google, Facebook YouTube or the New York Times. Skype is the most recent service to be removed from the App Store with Winnie The Pooh being temporarily banned as well. According to research done by Freedom House, China has the least online freedom, closely followed by Syria and Cuba.

China hasn’t always had restrictions in regard to the internet, when the internet came about in 1994 it was fairly free. However, as its popularity grew, in 2000 the government put in place new laws and rules surrounding internet use and what people would have access to. This is when the Golden Shield Project was introduced. This was a database driven surveillance system that had capabilities of accessing every citizen’s record, and created the foundations for the Great Firewall of China.

Currently, the government employs about 50,000 people to enforce censorship. This role entails banning websites that are disapproved and forcing search engines to filter out certain content. There are also social media influencers that are required to post pro-government comments on social media sites, with an estimated 500 million comments per year.

With more than half of China’s population online, the government argues that the restrictions are about maintaining social order and safeguarding national security. They believe that news exerted by online platforms such as Google and Facebook is not necessary information to be consumed by the people of China, hence why they have put these security measures in place. Several people do actually agree with China’s security around the internet, Zuo Aining, a senior credit risk associate has said, “I personally think that for the Internet, as a very open platform, certain strategies for oversight are very necessary… what I’m concerned about are things like terrorist attacks.”

Critics say that this is obstructing freedom of speech in the country and that the approach constrains China economically. They say that this is prevalent because they are stifling innovation, preventing the exchange of important ideas and cutting access to services used by businesses like Google Cloud. They fear that if other countries like Russia follow in China’s footsteps, in relation to internet security, that the vision behind the internet could be seriously compromised. (Bloomberg News)

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewallhttps://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-chinahttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-congress-classof2012-internet/internet-living-with-the-great-firewall-of-china-idUSKBN1CM1FRhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/14/truth-behind-great-firewall-of-china-headlines

[brookegrebertcraig-blog]

It’s crazy to think most mainstream social media sites are blocked in China. #thegreatfirewallofchina 

[vpninchina]

VPN翻牆 香港團隊🇭🇰 QQ：1299332798 新用戶購買年費送三個月 #ChinaVPN #GFW #ChinaFirewall #TheGreatFirewallOfChina #Firewall #China #VPNUse #EasyVPNUseInChina #VPNProviders #Chinese #Beijing #ChineseGovernment #VPNChina #Shanghai #Sanya #Guangzhou #Shenzhen #粤 (China) https://www.instagram.com/p/B73CnpThVwZ/?igshid=kpdnk4eq8ie3

[andallthatdigitaljazz]

The Great Firewall of China

The Great Firewall of China is the encompassing term that underlines China’s attempt at regulating and controlling the internet and media from “evil cultures” through strict legislation, projects and censorship. China’s citizens’ freedom of speech is inhibited as the censorship blocks and filters all incoming content, in particular political and religious material. 

The topic is huge but for a brief down-low, see below:  

China’s censorship is considered more extensive and advanced than any other country in the world, with a recent BBC report highlighting an estimated two million police forced are employed to monitor microblog state media. Over 60 internet regulations have been implemented by the government with popular Western social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter banned and inaccessible unless you use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or other technical tricks to tunnel through the inter-meshed system of Internet roadblocks. Amnesty International notes that China “has the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world” and in September 2013, the New York Times reported that China’s highest court and prosecution office issued guidelines that define and outline penalties for punishing online rumours and slander. The rules give some protection to citizens who accuse officials of corruption, but they say that a slanderous message forwarded more than 500 times or read more than 5,000 times could result in up to three years in prison. 

This in mind, there is a common assumption often made by the Western world that the citizens of China are missing out of the social media revolution due to the Government restrictions, however, it is evident that China is in fact progressing within their own internal social media revolution through subsequent advanced clones of popular social media platforms such as Sina Weibo, which is similar to the US site Twitter. Rather than eliminate social media, China's censorship and restrictions on foreign websites and social media has resulted in a flourish of home grown Chinese social media website equivalents to popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. By some measures, usage of Chinese social media is some of the most intense in the world.

These popular microblogging sites such as Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo are smaller versions of typical blogging sites, where users can comment, exchange and share contents, images, sentences and links. These sites allow users to post about simple to serious topics and can also promote websites, services and products. Uploading and updating information in 140 character blocks, which can be a long paragraph in Chinese.

A notable example of China’s censorship sees their 2011 attempt at covering up a high-speed train crash near Wenzhou, a city known for its wealth and entrepreneurs. Two train lines collided derailing six carriages and one train losing four carriages, including two that toppled forty metres to the ground below from the viaduct where the crash had occurred. Citizens took to social media to spread the news of the incident, with posts such as

“Help! Train D301 is derailed just near South Wenzhou Station. Everywhere you can hear children crying. We can’t find the train crew. Please help us!”

seen by Yangjuan Quanyang’s microblog page which lit up the microblogosphere. Initial reports surfaced the following morning from the Ministry of Railways nothing the accident was due to a lightning strike and that all dead had been accounted for, however later that morning a toddler was found alive in one of the carriages and when asked how the ministry had found a toddler alive after issuing their statement, an official spokesperson proclaimed “it’s a miracle!”. Further video footage of the accident saw citizens falling from the viaduct and bulldozers attempting to cover the scene with dirt. It soon became apparent that the Chinese Government attempted to cover up the high speed train crash as journalists were ordered not to investigate the causes and footage.

Internet users were outraged and attacked the government’s response to the disaster, with the media trying to shift focus to more “extremely moving” stories such as blood donations. In the week following the crash, over twenty million tweets about the incident circulated on China’s microblogs. Many were highly critical of the Ministry of Railways and its handling of the disaster with comments expressing fear that the railway budget had been skimmed. However, their ability to vent through social media platforms about the topic was short lived, as propaganda officials demanded that media and internet companies reduce and eradicate the coverage and criticism of the train accident. And like that, the train wreck story disappeared from the front pages of papers, internet portals and hot topic lists as quickly as it had appeared. It seems, in collusion with the popular twitter site Weibo, system operators threatened to suspend Weibo accounts found guilty of spreading “poisonous rumours”.

This story shows the almost dominant and undeniable internet and media censorship that goes on in China, illustrating the complexity of China’s networked reality. There are limits to what can be said online, and the state uses its vast resources of technology and human labour to ensure those limits are enforced.

REFERENCES

Anti, M 2011, 'Behind the great firewall of China', TedTalks viewed 20 May 2015  http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_anti_behind_the_great_firewall_of_china.html

Branigan, T 2011, 'Chinese anger over alleged cover-up of high-speed rail crash', the Guardian, viewed 19 May, 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/25/chinese-rail-crash-cover-up-claims>.

Crampton, T 2011 'Social media in China: The same, but different' China Business Review, Vol 38, Issue 1, pp 28-31 viewed http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review/

Datelineshanghai, 2015, 'Jumping the Great Firewall: Social Media Among China’s Youth', viewed 19 May, 2015, <http://www.datelineshanghai.com/scaling-the-great-internet-wall/>.

Smith, C 2014, '40 Amazing Weibo Statistics (April 2015)', DMR, viewed 19 May, 2015, <http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/weibo-user-statistics/>.

Thechinastory.org, 2015, 'Chapter 7: Behind The Great Firewall | The China Story', viewed 19 May, 2015, <https://www.thechinastory.org/yearbooks/yearbook-2012/chapter-7-behind-the-great-firewall/>.

[influencerofposts]

The Great Firewall of China

Although theGreat Firewall of China (GFC) is not something that you can see, there is no denying that it’s there, and it affects millions of people in China. The great firewall of China restricts the internet access so the people of China aren’t able to access sites such as; Facebook, Twitter, and even Wikipedia (Learning materials, 2015). Although China may not have access to a number of websites loved by the Western world, China has the world’s most active social media users (Chiu, Lin, & Silverman, 2012). A study has found that 95% of Chinese people, who live in a major city, were connected to a social media site (Chiu, Lin, & Silverman, 2012). Although China has the most active internet users in the world, it has the most restricted internet access in the world. China has a host of measures that are employed to make sure that ‘netizens’ cannot read about sensitive issues or post sensitive information that the government might deem threatening (Chinese Correspondent, 2013).



(The Great Fire Wall of China, n.d)

Although YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in China, they have developed their own versions of these platforms, such as Qzone and Youku (Julie, 2012) which are not known to the Western world are growing in popularity in China. In fact, according to a Boston consulting group (as cited in Crampton, 2011) the average Chinese internet user spends 2.7 hours a day on the internet. Crampton (2011) explains that the reason that Chinese people spend do much time on the internet is a results of migration from rural to urban areas separating families, and the loneliness of being a product if the one child generation. Crampton (2011) also believes that a distrust of information from government controlled media, is also a key reason that Chinese people spend so much of their time on the internet.

(Brick by brick, the great firewall extends, 2012)

According to OgilvyOne (Crampton, 2011) 55% of China’s ‘netizens’ had initiated or participated in online discussions about companies, meaning that over half of the country are engaging in discussions online. In fact, according to Chiu et al (2012) Chinese consumers say they are more likely to consider purchasing a product if they see it discussed positively on a social-media site, and more likely to actually purchase a product or service if a friend recommends it on social media. Does the social media really poise that much of a threat? The Chinese government seems to think so. They have one of the most complex multi-layered censorship systems in the world. According to Chinese Correspondent (2013), the censorship system is made up of three layers; First is the technical, the Great Firewall; Second is human-powered (a workforce that deletes posts and another that adds posts to spin the debate); Third and self-censorship (from Netizens and online companies themselves).

Why do you believe the Chinese government so heavily censors their people?



Images

Sun, A, 2012, Brick by brick the great firewall extends [Image], in, Over the Great Firewall: Using Pinterest to Connect with Chinese Applicants, Vericant, 20 August, viewed 8 February 2015, http://www.vericant.com/over-the-great-firewall-using-pinterest/

Snipview, n.d, The Great Firewall [Image], snipview, viewed 8 February, http://www.snipview.com/q/The%20Great%20Firewall

References

Chinese Correspondent, 2013, The Great Firewall of China, Open democracy, 15 March, viewed 8 February 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/china-correspondent/great-firewall-of-china

Chiu, C, Lin, D & Silverman, A 2012, China's social-media boom, McKinsey & Company, May, viewed 8 February, http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/chinas_social-media_boom

Crampton, T 2011, 'Social media in China: The same, but different, China Business Review, Vol. 38, no. 1, pp 28-31, viewed 8 February, http://www.thomascrampton.com/china/social-media-china-business-review/

Julie, 2013, 10 Chinese Social Media Sites You Should Be Following, Synthesio, 27 March, viewed 8 February 2015, http://synthesio.com/corporate/en/2013/uncategorized/10-chinese-social-media-sites-you-should-be-following/#

Swinburne Online, 2015, Week 11: Global Social Media: Case Study China ,MDA20009, Digital Communities, learning material on Blackboard Swinburne Online, viewed 8 February, 2015

[kkdigital-blog]

The Golden Shield Project

While we all know that social media has quite literally taken over the majority of our lives, and has become an extremely popular tool for communication as well as a source of entertainment in households worldwide.

 Although, what you may not know is that the largest population of Internet users in the world is China. Though, China has one of the most restricted Internets around the globe. The great firewall is said to be the most technically sophisticated Internet filtering/censorship system in the world. (Riggall, 2013)

 8 different Internet service providers that are all controlled by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology provide China’s Internet access. There are various multifaceted systems in place that censor the population of China such as IP blocking, DNS hijacking and keyword content filtering. (Riggall, 2013)

 Think about sitting down to your laptop or iPad after a long day at work, and attempting to log into Facebook. A censor message appears on the screen, and you are denied access to our favourite social media site. How would you feel? What would you think? Well, for the Chinese population this is a regular occurrence.

Though while they do not have access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, they are provided with alternatives that include Baidu (search engine like Google), Sina Weibo (blogging site like Twitter), Renren (their equivelant of Facebook) and Youku Tudou (Video site similar to YouTube).

Chiu, Lin and Silverman (2013, Pg 1) claim that “social media is exploding worldwide and China is leading the way”. While it is obvious that social media has indeed blown up so to speak, on a global level, I do not agree that China has been leading the way. Most countries including us here in Australia do have some censorship in place, but it is nowhere near what China is undertaking. This pretty much goes against our beliefs and values as Australian citizens, including freedom, free speech, and our rights as human beings to do as we please, provided it is still legal of course. 

I really hope that China doesn’t continue to attempt to change the way the world is able to utilise their Internet usage, because I certainly don’t want to log into Facebook one day to find that it has been blocked. Do you?

 References: 

- Riggall, M. (2013). Virtual Reality!: Behind the great firewall of China. [Online] Virtualreality91.blogspot.com.au. Available at: http://virtualreality91.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/behind-great-firewall-of-china.html

- Wikipedia, (2015). Golden Shield Project. [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project

[thesupplychange]

On the Market. #shop #furniture #antiques #patterns #Beijing #china #thegreatfirewallofchina (at Panjiayuan Antique Market)

[therealdirtychai]

I keep seeing notifications telling me that people are posting on my wall/I got tagged in a picture/people are commenting on my pictures, but I can't see any of it thanks to #TheGreatFirewallOfChina -_- Sorry if I seem like a jerk for not replying to anyone ^^;;;;; #NoMeGusta #YesFilter

[vpninchina]

QQ 1299332798 #ChinaVPN #GFW #ChinaFirewall #TheGreatFirewallOfChina #Firewall #China #VPNUse #EasyVPNUseInChina #VPNProviders #Chinese #Beijing #ChineseGovernment #VPNChina #Shanghai #Sanya #Guangzhou #Shenzhen #粤 (珠海 口岸) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7rAroMBL4u/?igshid=18kn1s18bo0t