Travis Rutledge Ms.

Hofmann English 1102 3/31/14 Internet Censorship in China and the United States Its the early morning and I am sitting at my computer checking my email and Facebook. I see people complaining about having to go to work, people complaining about the gas prices, and people even complaining about the upcoming deadline of Obama Care. When I see an email from a cousin of mine who is living in China for work, I always feel worried. His emails are always very short, not saying very much about work or how things are over there. When he came the states for holiday, it seemed like he never stopped talking, saying all the things he wanted to say in the emails but couldnt. He kept saying things like how he had to be careful of what he said online, or what he posted, because in China the internet is highly regulated and has strict laws. My cousin told us stories about how one of his friends at work was always complaining about the government on his blog and how it wasnt right, and then one day he never came back to work. Some said the government arrested him for what he posted online. I have always been on the Internet ever since I was little and had a computer in the house. Growing up becoming very fond of it and technology, this story has always been an interest of mine. In the past, I have done research on various things having to do with Internet, like a bill that was going through the United States government known as CISPA, or Cyber Intelligence Sharing Protection Act. CISPA was a proposed bill that would allow websites to give your personal information to the United States government without your consent. I also had a teacher who visited China and returned with stories of what the Internet was like. Having been really

close to the teacher at the time, I was fascinated by the stories and ever since Ive always wanted to learn more. What makes the internet in China so much different than in countries like the United States when it comes to its censorship? Chinas growth and stake on the Internet is a unique one. The Peoples Republic of China had embarked on a program of economic expansion and industrial reconfiguration in the late 1970s, the nations economy had expanded at an unprecedented rate in terms of its political and cultural frameworks. Chinese leaders spent a lot of time improving the Internet which led to the worlds fastest internet growth rates, with 26 million in 2001 to over 87 million in early 2004 (Kluver) In 2010, China had the highest internet user count of over 400 million. (Google and Internet Control) When I read this, I was astounded. Once I realized that China had more people using the internet than the United States has citizens, I was blown away. Chinas internet growth however was piggybacked with efforts to limit the potential for social or political destabilization by the public. This involved creating an infrastructure that would allow for governmental surveillance, and active censorship of any content that might present the government in a negative light. (Kluver) I wanted to know why China wanted to shape the internet in this way so I read in to it and discovered that during Mao Zedongs dominance over the political apparatus, all of the different kinds of media were seen as exclusively political mechanisms. The state mainly controlled all media outlets, focusing them on further development and improvement of the government. However, I found out that China wasnt alone in their development of their Internet infrastructure. The United States played a role in the development of the Internet in China in terms of the technological architecture and the applications and uses of that architecture. (Kluver)The source even went on to say that the rise of the internet will ultimately lead to the democratization of China. This shocked me because I

didnt know the US had a role in how the Chinese structured their internet. Realizing that the United States played a role, leads me to realize the Internet in China was loosely structured similarly to the US in the beginning, and that the censorships that are present today in China, did not come from this, but must have arisen from the governments desire preserve their status and control. However, todays Internet censorship in China is still very strict and comes with very severe consequences. There are more than a dozen agencies that are involved in implementing a host of laws, regulations, and other tools that are meant to try to keep information and ideas from the Chinese public. An example of one of these laws and regulations are for example, preventing people posting about the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests. There are severe consequences for breaking these laws or crossing the line. Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, was given a 10-year prison sentence for merely talking about what hes not allowed to do with regard to Tiananmen Square. Previously, I knew that there were regulations and laws against postings about the Tiananmen Square Protests, but learning that a person got a 10-year sentence for just saying what he cant do was crazy. (Chinas Censorship of the Internet and Social Media) Another person I read who was prosecuted was Liu Xiaobo, who was using the Internet to advocate for human rights and political reform. This kind of behavior is prohibited in China, because that state, or government, sees the Tiananmen Square Protests as a negative appearance of the government. Liu Xiaobo was in the wrong in the eyes of the government because use of the Internet to advocate things such as human rights or political reform encourages social and or political destabilization. Because of this, discussions like these are not tolerated in China. Here in the United States, we have the royalty of having the right to use the internet to express our voice for human rights and political reform and not have to worry about being prosecuted for it due to the

First Amendment. In my eyes, this comes across to me as the government oppressing their people in order to maintain their socialist, state-run country. In 2011, there was a congressional hearing on the topic of Chinas censorship of the internet and social media. In the hearing it was discussed how Chinas leadership had grown more assertive in its violation of basic human rights. With the boom in popularity of social media and popular internet sites, Chinese citizens remain under the watchful eye of the government. They are unable to voice a range of criticisms that Americans undoubtedly take for granted each and every day. The fact that China has imprisoned more internet activists than any other country in the world is a great sadness within itself. If a Chinese citizen posts a tweet that talks about local corruption they risk facing harassment or even abuse. This ordeal about how a Chinese teenager could face this type of repercussions over a tweet or post relates to me greatly. For example, Ai Weiwei was awarded an 81-day detention at a secret location in early 2011 for his social networking skills and unashamed criticisms of the government. He uses the website Twitter and publicizes his case by tweeting. (Chinas Censorship of the Internet and Social Media. I have, on countless occasions, ranted and complained about various things about the government whether it is a law or bill going through the senate; not once had I worried about what I was posting. I would only imagine how different it would be over in China. On another account, my US History teacher in high school had the opportunity to teach in China for a year and brought back personal accounts of internet censorship. He kept a Tumblr blog as a kind of diary that contained pictures and stories from his time there, and he had always expressed how he couldnt write all of what he wanted because he could have faced consequences for doing so. He also described how certain aspects of Google were blocked and that the search filters were

unbelievably strict. He also talked about when he visited the Forbidden City, and he wasnt allowed to take pictures of certain things when he was there. My intentions of this paper is not to bash the internet censorships that China has, but understand why they are what they are, and why they are so different than in America. An Editorial written by G.E. Gorman, an employee at the School of Information Management at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand talked about the very thing I was not trying to do, which was to understand Chinas censorships from unbiased sources. Gorman goes on to discuss how there are a mass of attacks on Chinas policy of internet control and how it isnt how it seems. He talks about how most societies censor the internet in some manor or another. In New Zealand, internet content is censored in schools, universities, and the law, CIPA, or Childrens Internet Protection Act, requires libraries and schools to filter internet content in order to receive federal funds. (Gorman) This really opened my eyes, to think that in China, all of the censorships may seem normal there, but from a liberal western democracy such as the United States or New Zealand, our view with regard to what content is acceptable is different. Based on my research, prior knowledge, and experiences, I have learned that nearly every country that has access to the internet has some sort of censorship, whether it be content censors for schools and universities like in the United States and New Zealand or much stricter censorships like in China, from a liberal democracy point of view. It makes me wonder in the future if liberal countries such as the United States will continue to pressure a country like China to change their stance to one more like their own. After reading sources that seemed to quote-onquote bash China and their censorships and sources that take an unbiased look at the matter, I have succeeded my goal to further my understanding of the censorships in China and why they are what they are. I would say the Chinese government has a strict control over the internet to

ensure the preservation of their stature. However when I started this inquiry project out, I thought I would find more correspondence in censorships between the United States and China. I found more information on Chinese censorships of the Internet and what made it what it was. This could have been due to the sources I chose to use, and the way I went in this paper.

Work Cited
China's Censorship of the Internet and Social Media: The Human Toll and Trade Impact : Hearing Before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, First Session, November 17, 2011 .
Washington: U.S. G.P.O, 2012. Print. Gorman, G.E. "China-bashing in the Internet Censorship Wars." Online Information Review. 29.5 (2005): 453-456. Print.

Google and Internet Control in China: A Nexus between Human Rights and Trade? : Hearing Before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, Second Session, March 24, 2010 .
Washington: U.S. G.P.O, 2010. Internet resource. Kluver, Randolph. "Us and Chinese Policy Expectations of the Internet." China Information. 19.2 (2005): 299-324. Print. Zhou, Yongming. Historicizing Online Politics: Telegraphy, the Internet, and Political Participation in China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. Print.