Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department for the Study of Religions Culture studies of China
Lukáš Helebrandt
PERCEPTION OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP AMONG YOUNG SHANGHAI RESIDENTS
Bachelor's Thesis
Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Šindelář, Ph.D. Brno, 2014 I hereby declare that I have written this bachelor thesis on my own and that I have used only the sources listed in the bibliography.
...... Acknowledgement
I would like to express my thanks to Pavel Šindelář, thesis supervisor, for his help and advices both when conducting the research and writing the thesis, but mainly for his patience while waiting for the final version of this work.
I would also like to thank to Camila for her great translation of my online survey questions, to Pavel Řeháček for his help with data analysis, and to all my interviewees and online survey respondents for taking part in the survey. ABSTRACT
People's Republic of China is well known for its Internet censorship, but perception of the censorship by Chinese Internet users is a much less explored field. This thesis is trying to fill this gap with a re- search of young Shanghai residents' (university students and graduates) behaviour on the Internet and their attitude to Internet censorship. Combining qualitative and quantitative field research, the thesis surveys what Internet services on what devices do young Shanghai residents use; if they rely mainly on China-based websites, content of which is controlled by the Chinese authorities, or if they use foreign websites too, and whether they use circumvention tools to bypass potential censorship. Main research questions are trying to find out if young Shanghai residents are actually aware of the information con- trol on the Chinese Internet, if they think of it as of freedom of speech repressing censorship, or more as of a necessary tool to enforce good manners online among the evergrowing population of Chinese netizens? Who do they think conducts the censorship apparatus and what motives does he have? Is it perceived in a positive, negative or indifferent way? What do they think is it good for? Is the Chinese society really not ready for freedom of speech? How much do they know about the censorship work- ings and about censored topics? The thesis further tries to find out, whether respondents have a person- al experience of their or their friends' online posts being deleted, whether they know somebody who had problems with the authorities because of it, and whether they self-censor themselves before ex- pressing an opinion online. The primary means of data collection was a structured interview with ten representatives of the target group; answers were used to design an online questionnaire survey with an aim to verify the answers on a wider sample of respondents. More than 300 valid responses were re- ceived in the online survey. Gained data were analysed, but without an aspiration to create an universal model. The thesis is merely trying to bring an insight into how a specific stratum of Chinese Internet users (young, educated, and possibly well-off inhabitants of one of China's biggest cities) perceives its censorship. Considering the fact that censorship is mostly related to socio-political issues, the research also shows how the young generation is interested in these problems, and how strong is their need to discuss them in public. ABSTRAKT
Čínská lidová republika proslula kontrolou internetového obsahu. Méně už toho víme o tom, co si o cenzuře myslí sami uživatelé čínského internetu. Tato práce si dává za cíl tuto mezeru vyplnit, a to vý- zkumem vysokoškoláků a vysokoškolských absolventů žijících v Šanghaji, jejich aktivity na Internetu a pohledu na jeho cenzuru. Kombinací kvalitativního a kvantitativního terénního výzkumu práce zjiš- ťuje, jaké internetové služby a na jakých zařízeních mladí obyvatelé Šanghaje nejčastěji používají, zda se spoléhají především na služby provozované v Číně, a tedy podléhající čínské kontrole obsahu, nebo zda využívají i služby provozované v zahraničí, a zda kvůli přístupu k nim používají nástroje k obejití jejich případné cenzury. Hlavní výzkumné otázky cílí na to, zda jsou si mladí obyvatelé Šanghaje kont- roly informací na čínském Internetu vědomi; zda ji vůbec považují za cenzuru, nebo jen za způsob udr- žování dobrých mravů (či něco úplně jiného)? Kdo podle nich za cenzurou stojí a jaké jsou k ní mo- tivy? Je hodnocena kladně, záporně či indiferentně? K čemu může podle nich sloužit? Je opravdu čín- ská společnost nepřipravena na svobodu slova? Kolik toho vědí o fungování cenzury a o blokovaných tématech? Zjišťuje, zda se respondentů někdy cenzura osobně dotkla, zda ví o případu někoho, kdo měl kvůli sociálním sítím problémy s autoritami a zda kvůli ní přistupují na určité formy autocenzury nebo k jiným specifickým strategiím pohybu v kyberprostoru. Primárním prostředkem k shromažďování informací bylo hloubkové interview s deseti zástupci cílové skupiny, a na základě získaných dat byl vy- tvořen webový dotazník v čínštině za účelem ověření platnosti odpovědí na širším vzorku respondentů – byla získána data od více než tří set respondentů. Získaná data byla následně analyzována, nicméně výsledek analýzy neaspiruje na obecně platný model. Práce se pouze pokouší přinést pohled na to, jak je fakt, že je obsah na čínském Internetu cenzurován, vnímán vrstvou jeho specifických uživatelů (vzdělaných obyvatel velkého města ze středních a vyšších vrstev). Vzhledem k tomu, že se cenzura týká zejména politických a společenských problémů současné Číny, ukazuje výzkum i zájem mladé generace o tyto otázky a ochotu o nich veřejně diskutovat. Contents 1 Introduction...... 1 2 Internet censorship in China...... 4 How it works...... 5 The Great Firewall of China...... 7 3 Research Design...... 10 Research questions...... 10 Interviews...... 12 Online survey...... 13 Safety and security...... 13 Approach to incentives...... 14 Data Collection Process...... 14 Sample...... 15 4 Research Findings...... 16 Demographics...... 16 Used software and services...... 17 News sources...... 20 Satisfaction with quality of news coverage...... 22 Following Foreign Media...... 24 Information not to be found...... 28 Information to be deleted...... 32 Personal experience with deletions...... 35 Self-censorship...... 36 Blocked websites...... 37 Why? Necessary?...... 37 Circumventing the Great Firewall...... 39 Why circumventing...... 42 Why not circumventing...... 43 Development of Censorship...... 45 General feeling...... 46 The great firewall...... 48 Domestic censorship...... 49 Policy preferences...... 50 5 Conclusion...... 52 6 Bibliography...... 54 7 Online Survey Questions and Response Summary...... 57 1 INTRODUCTION
Constitution of the People's Republic of China (China) states, that “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demon- stration.”1 Despite this statement, China is infamous for suppressing these freedoms, especially in cases of political and human rights related topics. With rapid growth of number of Internet users in the first decade of 21st century, and especially with massive popularity growth of microblogs (wēibó 微博) and other social media, expressing an opinion or informing about an event has got much easier, and popular information spread quickly among once unimaginable amount of recipients. This development gave some Chinese intellectuals and western China-watchers a prospect, that civic society is slowly emerging in China, and it could be moving in the direction of democratisation.2
The ruling elites have, however, not underestimated the Internet's potential, and a sophisticated system of control and censorship has been put in place, together with corresponding legislature. And so even though the US president Bill Clinton expressed in 2010, that: “There's no question China has been try- ing to crack down on the Internet – good luck. That's sort of like trying to nail Jello to the wall.” , as Jeremy Goldkorn noted in China story yearbook 2012, “Most observers would now admit that the Jello is just hanging there, festooned with nails.”3
By the end of December 2013, there were 618 million Internet users in China, meaning that the Internet penetration rate reached 45.8%, or as high as 75% in Beijing and 70% in Shanghai. Internet has be- come an inseparable part of many people's lives, who daily use services with world's largest userbases to chat, shop, review restaurants, play games, read news, and share moments from their lives in blogs and microblogs.4 The government organs too have not fallen behind, not only with the notoriously well-known content control and censorship, but also with using the Internet to monitor citizens' moods and satisfaction with its governing. Local governments open microblog accounts to communicate with
1 “Constitution of the People's Republic of China.” The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. Mar. 14, 2004. Web. Sep. 1, 2014.
1 citizens5, microblogging has been used even as a means to communicate developments in a high-profile trial with a disgraced cadre Bo Xilai (Bó Xīlái 薄熙来)6 and in September 2014, the Communist Party has opened its own public WeChat account to communicate news and party wisdom to its members.7
On the other hand, the establishment does not neglect the care of how it is presented online by others. As Xiao Qiang, a professor who focuses on state censorship at the University of California, said to Bloomberg in August 2014: “The past 12 months has certainly been the toughest period” for the coun- try’s Internet ... “The past 12 months are only the beginning. We should see much harsher measures in the coming months and even years.”8 President Xi Jinping (Xí Jìnpíng 习近平) personally took a lead- ing role in the new Internet security committee, and unlike in the times of his predecessors, unwanted big figures on the Chinese Internet did not just have their accounts deleted, but were actually detained on criminal charges. The article further describes:
“Beijing police on Aug. 21 confirmed the detention of two employees of Beijing Erma Interactive Mar- keting and Planning Co., including well-known Weibo writer Qin Zhihui, for pushing false information to help clients drive up Web traffic. The case began a nationwide anti-rumor dragnet that continues to snare Internet users.
Where previous leaders complained about the spread of misinformation online, Xi criminalized it. The Supreme People’s Court and top national prosecutor issued an interpretation on Sept. 9 allowing pris- on terms of as long as three years for defamatory Web posts read by more than 5,000 people, reposted more than 500 times or cause people to hurt themselves.
In April, Qin pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in jail, the first person convicted under the new rules, according to Xinhua. Similar arrests continue, with four people accused Aug. 9 of spreading rumors, such as hearing gunshots in Beijing or predicting that an earthquake would hit the capital.
5 “How Weibo Is Changing Local Governance in China.” The Diplomat. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Sept. 2014.
8 Chen, Lulu Yilun, and Ting Shi. “Xi Remakes Internet in China’s Year of Blogging Dangerously.” Bloomberg. N.p., 15 Aug. 2014. Web. 2 Sept. 2014.
2 …
Two days after the Erma case, Beijing police held angel investor Charles Xue -- an American citizen known for sharing critiques of public policy with his 12 million followers on Sina Corp.’s Twitter-like Weibo -- on suspicion of soliciting prostitutes. It was the first in a series of moves against influential online commentators -- known as “Big Vs” because of the icon Weibo stamps on verified accounts.”
Besides detaining bloggers, all Google services got completely blocked since June 20149, and a law making real-name registration in public WeChat accounts compulsory came in August.10 There is every indication, that Chinese government is not going to release its grip on freedom of expression anytime soon.
9 “Google disrupted prior to Tiananmen Anniversary.” GreatFire.org. 2 Jun. 2014. Web. Aug. 19, 2014.
3 2 INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN CHINA
The Internet started to develop in China in the beginning of 90's, and attempts to control the available content and related legislation has not been long in coming; the first law providing for responsibilities about content appeared already in 1994, and more laws requiring registration of content providers and defining objectionable content and activities followed in 1996 and 1997.11 In a reaction to several incid- ents in 1999, such as spreading of websites commemorating the 1989 Tian'anmen student protests or informing about the Falun Gong movement (Fǎlún Gōng 法轮功), the rules were further tightened up: Chinese websites were forbidden to reference foreign news servers, and news service has been restric- ted to state-approved agencies.12
Frank Caso notes, that the above mentioned measures were of very little impact, and the more enforced ones came in 2002, when the definition of objectionable content was further widened, and concrete measures started to be taken against Internet dissidents – people who were publishing pro-democracy articles, downloading Falun Gong related content, or were simply “subverting the state.”13 Further le- gislation and practical steps were made in 2005, when for instance news portals started to be obliged to publish editorials provided by state agencies, and real-name user registration started to be required (however, the real-name registration requirement has never been fully implemented by most content providers). In 2006, major foreign search engines operators (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) agreed with Chinese government to modify their search results in accordance to the Chinese law, or in other words to implement censorship.
As stated in 2010 OpenNet Initiative report, starting from 2006, efficiency of real-time filtering has been increasing significantly, making it possible to intercept connections delivering pages with high concentration of sensitive words.
Milton M. Mueller in his classification of countries by their approach to Internet control labels China, as well as Burma, Russia, and other post-communist countries as a cyber-nationalist state, which tries to bend the Internet to its needs by filtering the content, licensing and regulating Internet content pro-
11 Taubman, G., „A not-so world wide web: the Internet, China, and the challenges to non- democratic rule.“, Political Communication 15 (1998): 255–272. 12 State Council Order No. 292, Laws and Regulations of the People's Republic of China, Peking, Zhongguo fazhi chubanshe, 2001. 13 Caso, Frank, Censorship, New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008.
4 viders, which must conform to state policies.14 China's approach to the cyberspace is clearly formulated in the 2010 White Book:
“Chinese government believes that the Internet is an important infrastructure facility for the nation. Within Chinese territory the Internet is under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty. The Internet sov- ereignty of China should be respected and protected. Citizens of the People's Republic of China and foreign citizens, legal persons and other organizations within Chinese territory have the right and free- dom to use the Internet; at the same time, they must obey the laws and regulations of China and con- scientiously protect Internet security.
…
...no organization or individual may produce, duplicate, announce or disseminate information having the following contents: being against the cardinal principles set forth in the Constitution; endangering state security, ..., subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification;... ; instigating ethnic hatred or discrimination and jeopardizing ethnic unity; jeopardizing state religious policy, propagating heretical or superstitious ideas; spreading rumors, ...; and other contents forbidden by laws and ad- ministrative regulations. These regulations are the legal basis for the protection of Internet information security within the territory of the People's Republic of China.15
As Mueller states, this white paper sums up and links together all the previous laws and regulations, and provides Internet control with ideological consistency, stressing Chinese sovereignty and top-down control. It shows unlimited power of the Chinese government over the Chinese Internet control, and provides a wide range of objectionable topics, allowing almost any content to be classified as objec- tionable.
HOW IT WORKS
There are two aspects to China's Internet censorship: blocking of content from outside the country, and controlling content hosted on servers inside it.16 Country profile in OpenNet Initiative report from 2011 states, that the feature of Chinese Internet censorship with highest impact is arguably the Internet con- tent providers responsibility to ensure, that their pages and services do not contain any sensitive content
14 Mueller, Milton, Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010. 15 Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, chapter 5, “The Internet in China“, june 2010.
5 – which is generally not concretely specified. There is no government office that would do all the filter- ing and deleting for all the Chinese websites, it is done directly by the companies running these web- sites. If they fail to control their content properly, they put themselves at risk of losing their licence, fine, and even prosecution. Content providers therefore have to “...install filters that prevent postings of thousands of keyword combinations, delete or conceal posts with sensitive comments, and cancel the accounts of bloggers deemed to have posted too many troublesome posts.” As the report further states, this leads to different implementations of censorship mechanisms by different services and websites, and concludes, that the uncertainty about whether user's post will or will not be considered question- able leads to strong self-censorship on the users' side.
Working in a Chinese server management company, I had an opportunity to investigate problems re- lated to the Internet Content Provider (ICP) licences personally. Every page on a website's top domain17 has to contain the ICP licence number in its body; usually it is put in the page footer. Should the web- master make a mistake and omit the ICP number from the website, connections to the website will get blocked18 in a matter of minutes. This shows that web traffic19 constantly, or at least in very frequent in- tervals, undergoes deep packet inspection for the ICP number. It can therefore be expected, that if a content provider's licence gets revoked, their site would become unavailable almost immediately.
However, the Chinese authorities seem to be nice enough to communicate with problematic websites owners first. One of the biggest Chinese gaming companies moved its forum servers to a different In- ternet data centre (IDC) from its gaming servers after receiving a threat from the authorities, that if they would fail to censor properly, next time the network or power will be cut out:
“We’ve moved the forums to be in different IDC than the game. The forum may have some posts that are forbidden by the government (such as the “fapiao” ones20) but we fail to clean up timely. The po- lice has informed us if the forbidden posts fail to clean up timely, they may unplug the network line or the power of the servers.”
Internet users in China face very similar requirements, even when using foreign-based services, which are out of Chinese authorities control. Cheng Jianping, a Twitter user, was in 2010 given the infamous
17 For example baidu.com/anything, but seemingly not subdomains, like anything.baidu.com. 18 With TCP reset packet. The IP address and TCP port do not get blocked, but as soon as a http request arrives, the connection gets reset. The reset packet was coming from a Cisco-manufactured device. 19 Presumably only unencrypted traffic; ICP checking for pages available only through https (very rare) would have to be implemented in a different way. 20 Fāpiào (发票) means invoice. Unfortunately I am not familiar with what kind of invoice-related posts these were.
6 reeducation through labor sentence, after she retweeted “...a satirical comment about the tension be- tween China and Japan and the anti-Japanese demonstrations taking place in China, and ironically suggested that protesters should attack the Japanese pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo.”21
THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA22
You can actually see it from cyberspace. – Jeremy Goldkorn
What we know as the Great Firewall of China (fánghuǒchángchéng 防火长城) is the system which takes care of blocking foreign websites (for example google.com, facebook.com, twitter.com or nytimes.- com) at the level of international gateways. As Goldkorn notes, the firewall blocks information on sev- eral different level; it can block an access to a domain name23 (for example facebook.com), to an IP ad- dress (unique technical identification of Internet servers), to a specific URL, or even to any page which contains too many sensitive words.24
In 2012, Goldkorn categorized blocked foreign websites into seven main categories (quote):
1. Chinese language news outlets that are sometimes critical of the government including the BBC, VOA Chinese, and Hong Kong’s Apple Daily website;
2. Web pages belonging to organisations that campaign against the Communist Party or that pro- mote Tibetan and Uyghur causes or independence for Taiwan, as well as sites belonging to the banned religious organization Falun Gong;
3. Websites about historical periods or events that are considered sensitive in China, for example the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, and the events of 4 June 1989;
4. English and Chinese language blogs and niche websites that follow Chinese current events, for example Danwei.org, ChinaGeeks.org, and ChinaDigitalTimes.net (a University of California Berkeley project);
21 Reporters Without Borders.“Woman Sentenced to a Year’s Forced Labor over One Ironic Tweet.” Nov 2010. Web. Sep 2, 2014.
7 5. Popular social media websites and user generated content websites including YouTube, Face- book and Twitter. The blocking of this type of website started in earnest after the summer of 2009, when the street demonstrations in Iran, sometimes called ‘the Facebook Revolution’ in international media reports, convinced the Chinese authorities that access to uncensored for- eign social media was a danger to ‘social stability’ in China. The events in Iran were followed by ethnic riots between Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese that started in Xinjiang on July 5 of the same year;
6. Pornographic websites; and,
7. Websites that sell or give away services to circumvent the Great Firewall like VPNs and proxy servers.
This categorization and examples seem to be still valid as of August 2014. In June 2014, as part of measures taken before the 25th Tian'anmen square massacre anniversary and before Hong Kong pro- democracy protests on July 1st, almost all of Google services have been blocked (although the Trans- late service on its Chinese address translate.google.cn remains available), together with instant mes- saging services Kakao Talk and LINE.25 These blocks are still in place as of September 2014.
The system seems to be highly decentralized, suggesting that the blocking of the most important targets happens directly at the international Internet gateways, whereas the less important ones (for example pornographic websites) are blocked at the local Internet service provider (ISP) level, making them available for some users and unavailable for others.
After one year of managing servers for Chinese businesses all across China and abroad, and after dis- cussing with Chinese network engineers, I have to say that a lot of disturbances that the Great Firewall is usually given credit for may be actually caused by oversubscribed international connectivity lines, together with faulty, ineffective and error-prone network design in China. Hardly a day goes by without close-to-unusable response times and high packet loss for destinations as close as Hong Kong, Japan or Singapore; and from time to time (monthly could be a close estimate), it is even impossible for a few hours to connect from Shanghai to a server in Beijing, making it necessary to route the traffic via Japan or Korea. One day in August 2014, access to China-based websites from my office started to be ex-
25 “Google disrupted prior to Tiananmen Anniversary.” GreatFire.org. 2 Jun. 2014. Web. Aug. 19, 2014.
8 tremely slow; what we found out was that all traffic was being routed via Hong Kong and then back to China.
It is definitely possible that these malfunctions are caused willingly, to make users stick to China-based websites and to make international companies pay for expensive guaranteed international lines; other reason could be imperfection and low performance of the Great Firewall systems; third reason could be simply dilettantism and incompetence of Chinese Internet service providers.
The Great Firewall is not perfect and can be circumvented; the term that describes this in Chinese is fān qiáng 翻墙, which literally means “to jump over the wall”. The circumvention is possible by establish- ing an encrypted connection to a server outside of China, which is then used as Internet gateway. This effectively means that all Internet traffic from the user's computer will be encrypted, sent to the server overseas, the server decrypts it and sends to its final destination – and vice versa, so the user accesses the Internet as if she was outside of China. Tools which allow this are usually called proxy or VPN (Virtual Private Network).
Could these tools be blocked as well? Yes, they could, and very often they are. One of the reasons why all means to establish a VPN or proxy are not blocked is probably economic: there are many com- panies which depend on VPNs to securely exchange data with their overseas offices or clients, and whose business would be seriously disrupted. This could of course be solved by an opt-in system, when companies would have to apply for unblocking VPN access – an administratively and technically chal- lenging scenario, but not a completely unimaginable one.
For more information on circumventing the Great Firewall and Chinese users field experience with it, see the paper Collateral Freedom: A Snapshot of Chinese Internet Users Circumventing Censorship.26
More information summarizing on how the Internet censorship in China works can be found for ex- ample in Jeremy Goldkorn's essay Behind the Great Firewall in China Story Yearbook 201227, or in Gady Epstein's article China and the Internet: A giant cage.28
26 Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, An, Anne. “Collateral Freedom: A Snapshot of Chinese Internet Users Circumventing Censorship.” Open Internet Tools Project. April 2013. PDF. Aug 26 2014.
9 3 RESEARCH DESIGN
When reading papers on Chinese Internet censorship, I was missing more information about how many users are actually affected by these measures. Living in China for more than two years now, I could not resist the feeling that 99.9% of social networks content are actually pictures of people's dinners and selfies, content that doesn't really get censored – in other words, I had a feeling that great majority of people are not affected by the censorship, because they are not interested in any sensitive information. This lead me to the idea of conducting a research on this topic.
I chose young Shanghai residents as my target group for two reasons: Shanghai, because I live there and therefore it was relatively easy for me to find enough respondents. Young, because according to CNNIC 2014 statistical report, the largest group (31.2%) of Chinese internet users are between 20-29 years old.
First I defined research questions and attempted to get an answer to them by conducting ten face to face structured interviews. Based on data gained in these interviews I designed an online questionnaire sur- vey with an intention to validate wider applicability of gained answers. My goal was to get at least 200 responses, ideally more than that. The accumulated data were later analysed in this thesis, but the ana- lysis should not be taken as generally applicable – it only reflects views of young, educated and pre- sumably relatively well-of urban citizens.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research was conducted in order to find out answers to following questions:
Are the respondents interested in news, current affairs, in what is happening around them and in the world?
Where do they go to get information, what Internet services do they use? Some Internet platforms are totally under discourse control of Chinese state organs (state media, traditional news portals), some are censored, but still by their design suitable for fast spreading of information (Weibo microblogs), one of the recently most popular services – WeChat – is designed in a way to make users follow mostly only their close friends, make re-posting difficult by simply not having that feature, limits
10 groups sizes, and even despite these limitations has been recently made to make real name registration mandatory for public accounts with large number of followers.29, 30
Are they interested mainly in infotainment, or do they look for more serious news? From watching people around me, I felt that demand for serious news coverage would be very small.
Are they aware of the censorship? How often do they realize that something got censored?
Do they mind it? What is it actually for, and is it necessary? As Rebecca McKinnon blogged from CNBloggerCon in 2005 “[T]here was a surprisingly frank exchange about the way in which service providers have to police user content and kill everything political. All blog hosting and service provid- ing companies must police their users’ content. This is a fact of life which web businesses as well as users accept as part of being Chinese in China.”31 I wanted to find out whether “normal” users mind the censorship or not, how do they feel about it. Is it really censorship? Or is it necessary part of “civil- ising China”, as it is described in China Story Yearbook 2013?
What kind of content is do they think gets blocked or censored? Are they interested in it? Thanks to various projects like Greatfire.org32, FreeWeibo33, and amazing researches like Reverse Engineering Chinese Censorship34, where a fake social network website was established and the complimentary censoring was outsourced to an external company and analysed from inside, we have very good know- ledge about what kind of content gets censored. Do Chinese netizens know too? What is their idea of sensitive content?
Have they personally ever been censored? Do they censor themselves, before posting online? As it is described in the earlier mentioned OpenNet Initiative report, high degree of self-censorship has been argued as one of the biggest achievement of the system, where one can be never sure what is currently sensitive and what not. Better than risking that their post will get censored and possible problems with
29 “China Tightens Restrictions on Messaging Apps.” The Wall Street Journal. Aug. 7, 2014. Web. Aug. 19, 2014.
11 authorities, many users decide better not to share. Would they agree this is happening? Are they aware of this, or is it rather subconscious matter?
Do they circumvent the great firewall? From everyday situations, I would say that the amount of people using or feeling the urge to use circumvention tools to jump the Great Firewall is very low. Is that true, or do they actually use a VPN or another circumvention tools? What leads them to do or not to do it?
INTERVIEWS
The research took place in Shanghai, where I currently live, over the course of four weeks in July and August 2014. I started with face-to-face structured interviews with ten friends and colleagues of mine, as it was easier to persuade them to participate, and they all speak English on very decent level – there- fore the interviews were lead in English for most of the time. Interviews took between one and two hours. To reduce interviewees annoyance and bias in answers, I decided not to announce that my re- search was about censorship; I said it was about Internet usage habits, and started with general ques- tions about what the respondent usually does on the Internet, what services does she use, with emphasis on news and social networking websites, and what bothers her when using the service – restrictions, hard-to-find information, gossip, advertisement and so on.
In the next part of the interview I was trying to get information about respondent's news reading habits. What are her main sources, how often does she read news, and if she is satisfied with quality of report- ing.
Interview continued with questions about satisfaction with availability of information on the Chinese Internet. We usually started to talk about foreign vs. Chinese search engines, and later about censored topics, which would mostly be mentioned by the interviewee alone. More direct questions about cen- sorship followed, trying to find out how much the person is aware of what kind of censorship is carried on, how much it influences her life, and what is her opinion about it. I asked about personal experience with having online posts deleted, whether the respondent circumvents the GFW or not, and for what reasons. After these questions and also while asking them, free discussion on the topic was carried on.
12 ONLINE SURVEY
Based on interviews responses, I designed an on-line survey with the aim to validate these responses on a larger sample of respondents. Because of various restrictions in most of commercial survey tools free plans (mainly maximum amount of respondents and exportability of gathered data) and as a free and open-source software advocate, I used the open-source survey software LimeSurvey35 on my own do- main and server located in France. The survey was completely in Chinese, consisted of 42 questions and was designed to take around 10 minutes to complete.
Course of questions was similar to the interview structure: The survey started with indirect questions, trying to find out how satisfied respondents are with the content and conditions on websites and in ap- plications they use, and continued with direct questions about censorship and circumventing it.
The survey questions together with responses summary can be found in appendix.
SAFETY AND SECURITY Being aware of sensitivity of the research topic, I wanted to ensure survey participants' privacy and safety, not to bring them any potential problems with the Chinese authorities. Used methods were largely similar to these used by conductors of a survey focused on studying “users' on-the-ground ex- periences of circumvention technology in China”, published under the name Collateral Freedom:36
– Using fairly secured server based out of China, out of reach of Chinese authorities.
– Not allowing unencrypted access. The survey website was available only through encrypted connection (https), meaning that no network intermediaries could read respondents' answers.
– Not gathering any personal data like name, e-mail address, and so on. Logging of technical in- formation like IP addresses, which could potentionally be used to identify users, was disabled. Participants who wanted to use my offer of a free VPN account had to send me an e-mail, but there is no other way than time matching to pair their responses with e-mails they sent.
Just like the Collateral freedom researchers, I too was curious whether my research would get blocked by the Great Firewall. No blocking has taken place, possibly thanks to the fact that I resisted the
35 http://limesurvey.org/ 36 Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, An, Anne. “Collateral Freedom: A Snapshot of Chinese Internet Users Circumventing Censorship.” Open Internet Tools Project. April 2013. PDF. Aug 26 2014.
13 temptation to invite officers in Shanghai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, which I visited two times while conducting the survey, to take part in it.
APPROACH TO INCENTIVES To motivate people to take the survey, I decided to offer a one year free VPN account to first two hundred participants who finish the survey and share it with their friends. This information was mentioned on the survey front page and on all my invitations; the last page of the survey contained in- structions to send an email to a concrete e-mail address in Picture 1: Invitation to take the online case the participant was interested in the free VPN offer. survey After receiving a request for an account, I immediately sent back login credentials with an appeal to the person to make sure she shared the link to the survey and made sure that least one of her friends completed the survey as well. Unfortunately I have no way to tell if the person did so or not. Totally 78 VPN accounts were given out.
This kind of motivation could have and probably did bring participants who are particularly interested in circumventing the Great Firewall, and this fact should be kept on mind when interpreting the collec- ted answers.
DATA COLLECTION PROCESS As it was my first online questionnaire survey, I was a bit idealistic about how easy it would be to get enough respondents. Even though there was the free VPN offer, just having my friends sharing it on their WeChat and other social media accounts did not bring a large amount of participants. Therefore I created a small invitation card with survey URL and QR code, and started to give it to people in various locations – on the street, in metro, in Shanghai Exit-Entry Bureau, but mainly in Shanghai Library, which has proved to be an ideal place to get respondents. I visited the library five times, each time went through the whole premisses and personally invited people to participate. I reckon that I got about 150 respondents this way, and quite some more from their sharing with their friends – judging from amount of e-mails received after the library visits, it was the place where the free VPN offer actually started to bring more participants.
14 I used a company mailing list to invite all of my colleagues to take part in the survey, asking them to in- vite their friends and emphasising the free VPN offer. The e-mail provoked a rather unhappy response from my American boss, who said that my survey is “a sensitive topic and not something we can really ask our employees to do. And we certainly cannot give them VPNs under any circumstances.” I apolo- gized, and said that I emphasized the survey and the free VPN offer was a completely private matter, the reply was: “Yes, but still via company email and if someone reports we are encouraging people to talk about censorship or VPNs, could be a problem.” He asked me not to conduct my research among my colleagues any more.
I believe this is a good example of how high amount of self-censorship some foreign companies in China impose on themselves in order not to get any harassment from the government. Entertainingly enough, quite a few of my Chinese friends get a free VPN account from their companies, both Chinese and foreign owned ones.
SAMPLE Total of 314 valid responses were received. Of these, two were filtered out, because participants were from Taiwan and South Korea. All but one participant stayed with the Chinese language version of the survey.
There are four main groups among the respondents; unfortunately there is no good way to distinguish them from each other:
1. My colleagues from a Shanghai-based international IT company (about 40) – people working as IT professionals, project managers, in human resources department.
2. Back-office employees from a Shanghai-based real estate company (about 50).
3. Shanghai Library visitors (about 150) – the library is located in Shanghai city centre and is close to Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
4. The rest – respondents invited by previous three groups and respondents I invited when moving around different areas in Shanghai.
I believe that this way I got quite a diverse sample among my target group of respondents – young edu- cated people in Shanghai. Average time to finish the survey was 9 minutes and 20 seconds, showing that large part of respondents did probably not think about the survey questions very deeply.
15 4 RESEARCH FINDINGS
This chapter shows and comments on data gained in both interviews and the online survey. When refer- ring to the online survey questions, their code and form of answer is mentioned in brackets. All ques- tions together with responses summary can be found in appendix.
When it was possible to choose one or more answers (most of my questions), the question is labelled “multiple choice”. When it was possible to choose only one answer, the question is labelled “choose one.”
DEMOGRAPHICS
A total of 314 respondents finished the online survey, including all ten interviewees; answers of two re- spondents who are not Chinese were excluded. There were 153 female (49%) and 159 male (51%), most of them are between 18 and 31 years old37. Besides 171 (55%) native Shanghainese, there were participants coming from almost every Chinese province, of which 69 (49%) have only lived in Shang- hai for a year.
40 30 20 10 0 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 years
Figure 1: Respondents Age 77% of respondents hold a university degree, 18% were university students, 4% have not entered uni- versity yet and less than 1% did not attend an university.
As for travelling abroad, most of respondents (46%) have not been abroad yet, 33% travelled abroad and 16% lived abroad for more than six months.
37 18 was the lowest available choice, and at the same time I did not ask younger respondents not to do the survey, which could have led to younger respondents choosing the lowest available age.
16 USED SOFTWARE AND SERVICES
In order to get an idea about how my respondents spend their time online, one of the first question asked in the interview was about what software and online services do they use. Separate questions were asked for computer and for mobile devices: Some applications have both computer and mobile in- terface, and knowing which one is used more helps to predict basic usage habits, as we can assume that it is not very convenient to write longer text on a smartphone, but it is much more convenient to share recently taken picture and check smaller amount of content more often.
Based on my interviewees answers and on survey focus – services which get censored or blocked – I have chosen 19 online services and applications and asked the online survey respondents, if they use them on their computer, phone/tablet, if they use them less than before or stopped using it completely.
Almost all interviewees claimed that they now use Weibo much less than before, mostly in favour of
WeChat and its “Moments” (péngyou quān 朋友圈) social functionality. This trend is confirmed in CN- NIC 33rd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, which reports 9% decrease of microblog users: From 308.83 million in the end of 2012 to 281 million in the end of 2013.38 The report states fol- lowing two reasons for decline of social networking sites users39:
1. “Social networking sites are a waste of time” – this could correspond to my interviewees an- swers that “there is too much information on Weibo” and that “too much of the information is not true”
2. Rise of alternative applications: “of those who reduce use of of Microblog, 37.4% shift to WeChat” – this was the reason my interviewees mentioned in the first place, rationalized with “everybody is on WeChat now”. They also appreciated higher degree of privacy in WeChat Mo- ments, as there is no way to search among all posts, browse hash tags or even user accounts.
Similarly, in my online survey, 19% of respondents claimed they use Weibo less than before, and 11% stopped using it completely. Based on previous interviews, I was expecting even bigger decline in user base.
38 China Internet Network Information Center. 33rd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China. 2014. PDF. Aug 28 2014.
17 Most popular on computers: First three positions come with no surprise; Baidu as a biggest Chinese search engine, Youku and Tudou as representatives of Chinese Youtube-like video sharing websites, but it is hard to believe that Google search has almost the same amount of users as QQ Chat, especially after its complete block in June 2014. YouTube is also higher than expected. I suppose the results are biased by not asking how often do participants use the service.
Most popular on phones and tablets: Like on computers, Google services scoring relatively high.
Services used less than before: Decrease of QQ Chat and Weibo popularity is almost certainly caused by recent popularity of WeChat. Third place for Google search is probably result of its blocking in June 2014.
Services not used any more: Relatively high results percentage here make me believe that respondents actually checked this column even if they never used the service. Nevertheless, the results still seem to be representative: Most of my interviewees did not even mention Kaixin any more (Kaixinwang 开心网 was one of the first Facebook clones launched in China, and its popularity loss seems to be connected with their failure to buy the domain kaixin.com, which was later bought by its competitor, Renren (ren- renwang 人人网), also a Facebook clone), said they stopped using Renren, because it is profiled on high school and university students, and said they would still check QQ Zone (QQ 空间, a social network de- signed somewhere between Facebook and Twitter) just because its huge user base – “everybody has it”, as it is closely connected to one's QQ account.
Decline in Line usage could be caused by its blocking in June 2014. Other services seem to have lost their popularity on the more and more hegemonic WeChat.
18 Percentage of survey users Percentage of survey users Percentage of survey users Percentage of survey users who use following services who use following services who use following services who stopped using following on their computer: on their phone or tablet: less than they used to: services: Baidu Search 72.93 WeChat 85.34 QQ Chat 26.69 Kaixin 40.98 …, Youku, Tudou 67.29 Baidu Search 54.14 Weibo 19.17 Renren 37.59 QQ Chat 53.38 QQ Chat 45.86 Google Search 16.54 QQ Zone 36.47 Google Search 51.88 Weibo 44.74 Baidu Tieba 16.54 LINE 27.44 Weibo 39.85 …, Youku, Tudou 42.86 Renren 16.17 Skype 23.68 …, GMail, Hotmail 39.85 …, GMail, Hotmail 28.95 Douban 13.91 WhatsApp 22.93 Douban 38.35 Google Search 28.57 QQ Zone 12.41 Twitter 21.43 WeChat 29.70 Instagram 27.82 Facebook 12.41 Baidu Tieba 18.05 Baidu Tieba 26.32 Douban 22.56 Skype 11.28 Facebook 18.05 Youtube 24.81 QQ Zone 22.56 …, GMail, Hotmail 10.90 Youtube 16.17 QQ Zone 22.93 Baidu Tieba 18.42 Twitter 10.53 Instagram 15.04 Facebook 19.92 LINE 12.78 Youtube 9.40 Douban 12.41 Skype 19.92 Facebook 12.41 LINE 7.14 …, GMail, Hotmail 12.03 Renren 16.17 Youtube 11.65 …, Youku, Tudou 6.77 Weibo 10.53 Twitter 12.03 Renren 11.28 WhatsApp 5.64 Google Search 9.40 Instagram 6.77 WhatsApp 10.15 Instagram 5.26 QQ Chat 7.52 Kaixin 4.51 Skype 9.77 Baidu Search 4.89 …, Youku, Tudou 2.26 LINE 3.01 Twitter 9.77 Kaixin 4.89 Baidu Search 1.13 WhatsApp 1.50 Kaixin 2.26 WeChat 3.76 WeChat 1.13
Figure 2: Services used among respondents
19 NEWS SOURCES
Majority of respondents (83%) would say that they are interested in reading news (D01, Yes/No). Re- spondents who expressed they are not interested in news were asked for the reason why (D02, free text). The most common reason with 45% was that news are too manipulative and not trustworthy, the rest of respondents were too busy (15%), thought that news are not related to their daily life (12%), too boring (20%) or too negative (8%).
The next question asked respondents about their usual news sources (D03, multiple choice). As expec- ted, the most popular news sources are on-line: Social media (Weibo and WeChat Moments), news that pop up in the two most commonly used communicators WeChat and QQ, and Chinese news portals.
Figure 3: What are your usual news sources? 20 Under the “Other” option, respondents specified either RSS news aggregators, or “friends and col- leagues”.
Judging from the interviews, the Tencent-provided “pop-up” news in WeChat and QQ applications are probably the main news source for a large majority of their users. In WeChat, this news source looks just like another active chat called Tencent News (Téngxùn xīnwén 腾讯新闻 ), several times a day pushes a notification about a new story, which looks and sounds exactly like a new chat message noti- fication. The news are provided by Tencent's own news portal news.qq.com. News feed can not be per- sonalized, but can be turned off. This feature is not available if the application interface is switched to English.
Very little amount of people said they would check more news sources than what they read on social media and these pop-up news.
21 SATISFACTION WITH QUALITY OF NEWS COVERAGE First question that attempted to find out the level of satisfaction with news coverage in Chinese media simply asked “How satisfied are you with quality of news?” (D04) and let respondents choose on scale from 1 to 5 stars. This question has not proved to be very useful (unless the respondents were trying to draw a vulgar image with the graph) – most respondents chose middle, most probably because they wanted to finish the survey as quickly as possible and they do not have any extreme positive or negat- ive feeling about their news source.
Figure 4: How satisfied are you with quality of news?
Next question attempted to find out what concrete problems do respondents see in their news sources (D05, multiple choice). The results start to be more interesting here, with “There are no problems” checked by not even 2% of respondents, followed by “Too many news criticising the government” with 6%. “Too many negative news” were third least popular option with 29%.
“Reporting is biased, leaves out some facts”, “Too much gossip / sensational news”, “Reporting ru- mours / fake news” and “News are overly positive” all got between 38 and 46%.
22 The two problems perceived by almost three quarters of all survey respondents are that domestic media do not report on some topics (72%) and that some news get blocked or censored (66%).
Figure 5: Would you say that news have one or more of following problems? The English translation “Some news disappear” is not correct, better translation would be Some news are blocked/censored.
Performing factor analysis40 of the data has shown that there were two main groups of answers that be- long together:
1. Media don't report on some topics, Some news disappear, News are overly positive, there are fake news and Reporting is biased
2. Too many negative news; Too much gossip; Too many news criticising the government
The answers chosen in this question show that great majority of respondents are aware of censorship and self-censorship of domestic media.
FOLLOWING FOREIGN MEDIA As a surprise came the high number of respondents (30%) who claim to follow news in foreign media. More than half of my interviewees said they read news in foreign media, but I attributed this mainly to the fact that they are often in touch with foreigners, and did not expect the rate to be this high among
40 Factor analysis helps to identify groups of inter-related variables, to see how they are related to each other. More information can be found in Wikipedia article Factor analysis.
23 more random sample of respondents. Unfortunately, a question about what language do they read the foreign media in or how often do they do so was not included in the survey. My interviewees men- tioned mostly BBC and CNN from the English-language media (although BBC has a Chinese language version, which, unlike the English one, is blocked in China), and unspecified Taiwanese media; as for frequency, most usual answer would be “few times a week” – foreign media were not main source of news for any of my interviewees.
Figure 6: Why do you read foreign media news?
Interestingly, when asked about the reason to read foreign media (D061, multiple choice), non-satisfac- tion with Chinese media coverage of both foreign and domestic affairs were with about 35% the two least popular choices, right after “No specific reason” with 7%.
24 The most popular reason was “I want to compare more viewpoints” (72%), which correspondents with answers of my interviewees: They described their motive was mostly to know the “foreign point of view”, as they suspected the Chinese media narrative is biased (“If something bad happens abroad, they give you all the details; if something bad happens in China, they only show how much they are helping”), or they were simply curious about how foreign media describe Chinese affairs. Second most popular reason was “I want to read more about foreign affairs” (64%), followed by “There are more news about my hobbies and areas of interest” (51%).
The answers in “Other” could be counted in the “not satisfied with quality of international or Chinese news in Chinese media”: “I don't trust the professional capabilities of Chinese media”41 and “Because many issues are not covered in domestic news reporting.”42 One respondent reads foreign media to practice English.
Respondents who did not include foreign media as their news source were also asked why (D062, mul- tiple choice). Interestingly enough, satisfaction with domestic media was with 5% the least popular op- tion. 20% of respondents are not that interested news, language barrier was problem for 27% of re- spondents, but the biggest problem was “Too hard to access” (57%). The Great Firewall wins.
Figure 7: Why do you not read foreign news?
41 “不信任国内媒体的业务能力。” 42 “因为很多事情国内不报道。”
25 The relatively low percentage of “Language barrier” and high of “Too hard to access” could mean, that respondents usually try to access foreign media news service in Chinese language: For example, as of August 2014 in Shanghai, English edition of bbc.co.uk was openable and browsable – as long as there is no attempt to access the Chinese edition. After trying to access the Chinese edition, connection re- sets, and the whole website becomes unavailable for a while.
In comments to this questions, respondents were complaining about slowness of access to or complete blocking of foreign news websites, but some simply said that they don't know many foreign websites, and some think that foreign news are too anti-Chinese.
26 INFORMATION NOT TO BE FOUND
All of interviewees and 77% of online respondents answered yes to “Have you ever searched for something on Chinese websites and couldn't find it or couldn't find satisfying results?” (E01, yes/no).
As mentioned earlier, both when conducting interviews and in the online survey, this question was asked before mentioning censorship, which lead to wider variety of answers about what is hard to find online. On the other hand, when reading the results, one has to keep on mind that both interviewees and online survey participants were aware of the fact that the research is conducted by a foreigner (Chinese people usually know that foreigners like to talk about censorship when talking about the Internet), and about 22% of respondents who participated in the online survey may have done it mainly because of their interest in the free VPN offer.
Interviewees usually first mentioned new movies, commercial software, or information related to their work (IT, culture) or studies, that could not be found probably for the reason of not enough coverage of given topic in Chinese language cyberspace, combined with limited capabilities of Baidu to search in different languages.
Results in the online survey (question E02, free text) were largely similar: Most common answers were complaining about not enough “specialized knowledge” (zhuānyèzhīshi 专业知识) information, some of them mentioning that situation got much worse after recent complete block of Google search engine and complaining about Baidu results order being too much advertising-driven. Second largest group of answers were sensitive historical events (mostly Tian'anmen protests) and mostly unspecified “sensitive politics” (zhèngzhì mǐngǎn xìnxī 政治敏感信息), but also concrete recent affairs, like Jasmine revolu- tion, problems in Xinjiang, protests in Hong Kong in June 2014 or conflicts between people and police about forced relocation.
“If you search for more detailed/comprehensive information using Chinese websites, you will not suc- ceed. I am really sorry Google got blocked.”
In the next question, participants were asked why do they think they could not find the information they were looking for (E03, multiple choice). 63% think it is because “it is considered sensitive”, 59% be- cause “the government forbids spreading this kind of information, which shows again that most parti- cipants had censorship on their mind when answering the previous question. “Nobody writes about this
27 topic on Chinese websites” with 26% was third most popular option, and interestingly enough, the op- tion that this kind of information could be dangerous for the society was with 15% the least popular one, which could show that respondents do not think that the information they were looking for and could not find could cause trouble in the real world. This comes as a bit of a surprise, as most of re- spondents seem to see censorship as a necessary tool to maintain social stability.
Figure 8: Why do you think you could not find what you were looking for? As for interesting comments in the “other” option, one respondent thinks that “Chinese people lost the ability to look for the truth”43. People were mentioning that the information they were looking for was blocked by the government (zhèngfǔ píngbì 政府屏蔽) or that Baidu is too advertising-driven.
In the next question, participants were asked about how did they feel about the fact that they could not find the desired information, and what did they do (E04, multiple choice). 57% claim that they got the information from another source, 18% asked their friends or family, 35% felt that nothing can be done
(méibànfǎ 没办法) and stopped searching. Only 16% felt angry, 30% annoyed. In comments, one per- son suggested, that “People who want to know will naturally circumvent the Great Firewall and find out. If it was publicly accessible, maybe it could lead to social instability”44. This respondent could not
43 guórén shīqùle tànqiú zhēnxiàng de nénglì 国人失去了探求真相的能力 44 其实，想要看的人自然会去翻墙看。如果公开放在网上的话有可能会导致社会的不稳定。
28 find information about “controversial events in the Communist party history”45. Majority of respond- ents commented that they circumvented the Great Firewall to find out the information.
Figure 9: How did you feel about not being able to find what you were looking for?
As both interviews and online survey results show, most of participants are aware of historical events and current affairs that are censored online. There is a slight contradiction in following answers, which were very popular and mostly came at the same time: Participants claimed, that they mostly give up searching because of not enough interest in the topic, but in cases when they were really interested, they were able to find the information somewhere else – either used VPN, asked friends or parents. Judging from interview answers, the “giving up” happens much more often, or their “other sources” were not very informed either: When asked for details about the topic with which they did not give up searching, the level of knowledge was very shallow. For Tianan'men square 1989 protests, typical an- swer would be “there were some students protesting there, the government used force to break the demonstration up, and some students were killed.” When asked about what were they protesting against, answer would be “against the government”, with no deeper knowledge of reasons or course of events.
45 对中国共产党比较有争议的事件
29 Even better job was obviously done with anti Falun Gong (Fǎlún Gōng 法轮功) propaganda: Most inter- viewees knew the name, some of them even mentioned it by themselves, and when asked what it is, the official devil cult (xiéjiào 邪教) label would always come up, with most people condemning it right away, without any doubt, talking about self-immolating practitioners, and even accusing practitioners of organs trafficking (which is actually what Falun Gong accuses the Chinese government of). There- fore they claimed that it is right to censor information about it – it could bring people into danger.
One interviewee said that she remembers, how suddenly all TV programmes stopped and there were warnings against Falun Gong practising everywhere for some time, but said that up till today she doesn't really know whether the information on TV was true or not.
I asked another interviewee: “Why can some videos not be on Chinese websites, but can be on You- tube?”, and the answer was “I don't know, they have to have their reasons, I don't really care.” There was generally no interest in the reasons, and agreement that the government should have the right to de- cide what is okay and what not.
My feeling from the interviews is well formulated in following note I took: When she didn't find the in- formation online, she didn't really care: “I just couldt find it, that's it.” Both she and her parents are not really interested in politics.
30 INFORMATION TO BE DELETED
All respondents I interviewed and 71% of online survey respondents have noticed deletions on Chinese social networks websites and services like Weibo or WeChat (G01, yes/no).
Both interviewees and online survey respondents were asked what kind of content it was (G02, mul- tiple choice). First answer in the interviews would generally be “posts critical to government” – which, according to findings in research paper How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Si- lences Collective Expression46, is actually not true: Most of government criticism on social networks actually stays; posts that get deleted are these with potential to lead to collective action in real world. Almost all participants agreed that this kind of information should not be deleted (G03b, yes/no).
As all four options were chosen by about 50% of participants, I supposed that there would be two groups of answers that would be usually checked at the same time. Factor analysis has proved this as- sumption: Respondents mostly chose either fake news and vulgar/obscene material, or news that make the government lose face and could cause public unrest.
Figure 10: What kind of content did you notice gets deleted?
46 King, Gary, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression.” American Political Science Review 107.02 (2013): 326–343. CrossRef. Web. 28 Aug. 2014.
31 Second most mentioned topic in the interviews were fake news and rumours. According to inter- viewees, people spreading rumours either want to spread negative opinion, create a sensation, or are not educated enough to see whether post they are reposting is true or not. As a right opposite to posts critic- al to government, 75% of survey respondents think that rumours should be deleted:
Figure 12: Do you think that fake news / rumors should be Figure 11: Do you think that news that would cause the deleted? government lose face should be deleted? Unfortunately I did not ask my respondents' opinion about how often are news critical to government actually fabricated rumours, or how often is legitimate criticism deleted under the false pretext of being rumours.
When asked about posts that could lead to public unrest , like demonstrations on the streets, more than half of my interviewees agreed with these being deleted. Prevailing opinion seems to be that people should not act impulsively, should calm themselves down, because the government usually knows the best what it is doing, as only the best ones get into the government. People are very often not capable of evaluating the situation properly. What the government is doing might not be good for an individual, but is good for the society as a whole. Instability, demonstrations and unrest are not good for the soci- ety and for China's development, and therefore the posts fomenting them should be deleted – at least in “current state of China's development.” Stability seems to be highly valued – even higher than justice.
Answers to the same question in the online survey (G03c, yes/no) gave a bit less clear result. 49% of respondents agree this kind of content should be deleted, 33% think the opposite and 18% did not an- swer, which is highest among this group of questions.
32 Figure 13: Do you think that content that could cause public unrest should be deleted?
Yes 49% No 33% No answer 18%
Almost all respondents think that vulgar and obscene material should be deleted (G03d).
None of my interviewees recalled they have ever noticed a deletion of posts on WeChat moments, and the recent closure of several popular public accounts in March 201447, massive shutdown of about 20 million supposedly prostitution-related accounts in June48 and a new law requiring all WeChat public accounts to “register using real names and sign an agreement that they will "abide by laws and regula- tions, the socialist system, national interests, the legitimate rights and interests of citizens, public order, social morality and ensure the authenticity of the information they provide.”49 all seem to have passed unnoticed.
A few interviewees reported that in past they used to notice deletions on Weibo more often than they do now. One interviewee commented, that earlier, more people were opened to discuss problems on Weibo, because it was new and seemingly free platform. Now they stopped, because everybody real- ised it is constantly monitored and sensitive posts and comments would get deleted. But, she added, some people who know some sensitive information, information that should not become public, put it
47 Wertime, David. “Surprising Crackdown on China’s Hottest Social Media Platform.” Foreign Policy 13 Mar. 2014. Foreign Policy. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
48 Kuo, Lily. “China’s Crackdown on Prostitution Just Shut down 20 Million WeChat Accounts.” Quartz. N.p. 10 Jun 2014. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
49 Levin, Ned. “China Tightens Restrictions on Messaging Apps.” WSJ. N.p., 7 Aug. 2014. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
33 on Weibo anyway, not thinking about consequences their action could have. She considered it wrong, and agreed with deleting this kind of information. Chinese Edward Snowden will not have it easy with the general public.
On the other hand, the fact that my respondents often perceive the amount of censorship as lower than it used to be, shows that the censorship is getting more and more sophisticated, trying not to interfere with people's daily lives. A recent research conducted by actually setting up a fake social network in China and contracting with Chinese firms to install the same censorship technologies that are in use elsewhere, supports the hypothesis, that “criticism of the state, its leaders, and their policies are routinely published, whereas posts about real world events with collective action potential are cen- sored.”50
When asked “Who do you think decides what will be deleted?” (G04, multiple choice), 76% of re- spondents chose “government”, 20% police, 41% “company running the website” and 7% “other” – where they often expressed that they do not want to answer.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH DELETIONS Almost all interviewees claimed they had a few friends who are “political”, post sensitive stuff online and their posts get deleted from time to time; when asked what do they think about these friends, an- swer would usually be “it is their thing, I don't care.” As for frequency of interviewees noticing something getting deleted, answer ranged from about twice a week to once in two weeks.
Only one of my interviewees had personal experience of her online posts getting deleted. It was in her first year on university; found out that the government was hiding information about Tian'anmen protests and about the 1998 anti-Chinese protests in Indonesia, felt angry about it, and posted the in- formation on Baidu Tieba and QQ Zone. The posts got deleted within a few hours. She felt angry and hopeless about it, but according to her own words, she found out that “to calm down was the best solu- tion.”
19% of online survey respondents claim that something that they posted online got deleted (G05, yes/no). In that case they were asked to describe what kind of information it was (G05a, free text). 54% of answers can be classified as political or commentaries about current affairs (1989, Jasmine revolu-
50 Blackwell, Matthew et al. “Reverse Engineering Chinese Censorship through Randomized Experimentation and Participant Observation.” 2014. Google Scholar. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
34 tion, Chen Guangcheng, chengguang beating people); 10% was pirated video or books, 5% erotics, 7% some “normal” stuff and 21% do not remember or refused to answer.
SELF-CENSORSHIP
Among my interviewees, the stance on self-censorship was quite unanimous: Some topics should not be discussed online. You can never know if you are really right, and “launching” (spreading) sensitive information online can cause you troubles. If you want to talk about it, talk to your friends or your fam- ily when having dinner. “Everybody should know which topics can be spoken out and which don't be- long to public space.”
The way I asked this question in the online survey was: “Have you ever wanted to post something, but in the end you decided not to do it?” (H01, yes/no). The 27% of respondents who answered they did were asked about what information was it (H01a, free text).
52% of the answers were related to politics, sensitive news and other unspecified “sensitive informa- tion – examples can be “Nobel prize – Liu Xiaobo”, “commemoration to 6/4 I saw on Twitter”, “gos- sip about government”, “cursing about government”, “my thoughts on anti-corruption campaign” or even “sentence containing sensitive words” or “things I knew would get deleted”. The rest of the an- swers could be classified as personal information (26%), copyrighted material (9%) and cursing (9%). 35% of respondents refused to answer.
35 BLOCKED WEBSITES
The topic of blocked websites was indirectly present in many intervew and online survey questions – people mentioned them when asked about things they could not find online, about what bothers them on the Internet, or even when just asked about what websites they use.
In the interviews, the most often mentioned blocked services were Facebook and YouTube – all re- spondents were aware of the fact that these are blocked, and expressed annoyance about not being able to use them. Especially YouTube was surprising for me – Chinese cyberspace has several similar video streaming services (youku.com, tudou.com, …). The reason given to me was that there is still a lot more content on YouTube that can not be found on its Chinese equvivalents; and there is much less ad- vertising. Less insane amount of advertising was generally appreciated on foreign websites.
On the other hand, despite Facebook being usually the first blocked website mentioned, most of inter- viewees admitted that they do not really have need to use it, mentioning large userbase and good enough functionality of Chinese social networks. They said that Facebook blockage is annoying mainly for their friends who lived abroad and came back to China – it is hard for them to stay in touch with their foreign friends. Nevertheless, one of my interviewees concluded this topic with “Nowadays more and more foreigners use WeChat anyway, so it is not that big deal.”
Google was mentioned by about half of interviewees , who need it mostly for their work. They said that they will continue to use it by circumventing the Great Firewall; they were annoyed by the seal-off, but not especially. I expected rage, as the blocking took place not even two months before I was conducting the interviews, but did not get any. Among my interviewees, this blocking has not caused many emo- tions. Just as if it was something expectable, natural, a part of everyday life.
WHY? NECESSARY? The common answer about why some foreign websites are blocked would be “because the Chinese government can not control them” – respondents were clearly aware of this fact. When asked for more details, there were answers like “Dalai Lama spreads his information there”, “It was used when or- ganising riots in Xinjiang in 2009” (that there are people with this knowledge came as a surprise to me; this was indeed the incident, after which Facebook and Youtube got blocked51)
51 Deibert, Ronald et al. Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace. MIT Press, 2012. Google Scholar. Web. 29 Aug. 2014. Pages 273-274.
36 When asked about whether blocking of foreign websites was necessary or not, the prevailing answer was not. Respondents (even these who don't use a VPN!) claimed, that people who really want to ac- cess the blocked websites can do so already now, and therefore it would not be a big problem or change if these were unblocked – clearly missing the point that the usual user does not “really want” to use them (even some survey participants said that she does not need to circumvent the GFW, because she does not know many foreign websites) and will most probably give up before even starting to search for a circumvention tool.
There is notion that blocking is useless because it is not perfect (people can still access the blocked content if they really want).
My feeling from responses here was, that my interviewees, most of which use a VPN on a fairly regular basis, think that free information is only for these, who fight for it, that it is not a commonplace. Free information is for the elite, and that is the way it is supposed to be.
37 CIRCUMVENTING THE GREAT FIREWALL
As mentioned earlier, the colloquial term used for the Great Firewall circumvention is “to climb over the wall” (fānqiáng 翻墙). All of my interviewees knew the meaning of this phrase, but suggested, that this might not be the case for everybody I will be asking; indeed, a friend of mine asked me whether she could access the Internet on her smartphone free of charge if she used a VPN. Therefore the first question in this section of the online survey was “Do you know what “fanqiang” means?” (F00, yes/no)
85% of online survey participants claimed they knew what the phrase means, and these were asked to describe the meaning (F001, free text). Most of the descriptions talked about circumventing the Great Firewall to see foreign websites – very often omitting the word “blocked” – simply “foreign websites”. There were almost on misconceptions, typical answer would be “to circumvent the Great Firewall and access blocked websites.”
Following “word cloud” illustratively visualizes frequency of words used in respondents' answers.
38 Picture 2: Visualization of words used in answer to question What does it mean to "climb the wall"? Out of respondents who said they know what “climbing over the wall” means, 63% answered that they do use a circumvention tool, which effectively means that 50% of all survey respondents do circumvent the Great Firewall. Unfortunately the survey did not include a question about how often they do so, but good information about this group of users can be found in an excellent paper Collateral Freedom52, which focuses on most common ways in which users circumvent the Great Firewall, their most com- mon problems, and tries to find out which ways of circumvention are currently most effective; conclud- ing that circumvention tools built on platforms with significant business importance (like Amazon cloud services) are least likely to get blocked.
WHY CIRCUMVENTING Survey participants who claimed they do “climb over the wall” were asked for the main reasons why (F02, multiple choice). With 78%, using Google or other search engines was the most popular reason, followed by using foreign social networks like Facebook or Twitter (67%), and to access YouTube (59%). Reading news from foreign media was with 37% one of the least popular reasons; 34% of re- spondents claim to use VPN in order to communicate with their foreign friends.
Figure 14: Why do you bypass the Great Firewall?
52 Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, An, Anne. “Collateral Freedom: A Snapshot of Chinese Internet Users Circumventing Censorship.” Open Internet Tools Project. April 2013. PDF. Aug 26 2014.
39 Accessing pornography was with 11% one of the least popular choices. Almost nobody uses a circum- vention tool to communicate with their Chinese friends (2%), which shows that screening of instant messages is not a big concern for my respondents.
My conclusion on these results stands mainly on the low percentage of interest in foreign news, which illustrates the utilitarian nature of circumventing the GFW: Most users are not looking for any sensitive material, are not really interested in foreign news reporting, they circumvent mostly for practical reas- ons and for entertainment.
The previous question was inspired by a largely similar one in previously mentioned Collateral Free- dom research. Results were quite similar, with quite a big difference in amount of respondents who use a circumvention tool to read foreign news: In their case it was 59% (only 37% among my survey re- spondents); on the other hand my respondents claim to use YouTube much more than their (59% vs. 28%). The reason of this difference is most probably that their research was aimed at more technically skilled respondents who use a circumvention tool on a regular basis.
Out of users who do use a circumvention tool (VPN, proxy, …), only 15% are satisfied with it. 58% of respondents say their tool is not reliable, 48% say it makes Internet connection too slow, 20% say it is too expensive. In comments, users were mostly complaining about unreliability of the tools (getting disconnected very often or can not connect at all).
Figure 15: Are you satisfied with your current tool to bypass the Great Firewall?
40 WHY NOT CIRCUMVENTING Respondents who said they do not circumvent the Great Firewall were asked for the reason why (F04, multiple choice). The largest group (46%) think it is too hard or expensive to do, which was supported with comments in the “Other” option: Users complain that they can not find a suitable software, do not know at all how to circumvent the firewall, or find current tools too hard or annoying to use. 36% of re- spondents say they don't need it, 23% think it could bring them problems with the authorities and 14% say circumventing the Great Firewall is illegal.
Figure 16: Why do you not bypass the Great Firewall?
Reasons given in interviews were largely similar: Interviewees who said they do not circumvent the firewall or stopped to do so either said that it is too hard to do, unless using paid tools – which they thought were too expensive, or their interest in blocked websites was not strong enough to make them pay for the access.
41 DEVELOPMENT OF CENSORSHIP
As described earlier in the introduction, situation in the Chinese cyberspace has tightened up noticeably since the start of current establishment anti-corruption campaign in 2013. Several microblogs with mil- lions of followers have been closed down, the law which enables prosecution of authors of “500 times reposted or 5000 times read rumours” has come into effect, many WeChat accounts have been closed down and real name registration for its public accounts has become compulsory. The government or- gans are clearly sending a signal for everyone to watch their mouths and keyboards.
But how is the situation perceived by Chinese netizens? Has anything changed for them and have they even noticed?
I asked my interviewees how do they feel the situation on the Internet has changed since Xi Jinping be- came president; if there are more or less sensitive topics; if the general atmosphere changed or not, if there are more or less deletions. The answers were distributed almost evenly: Four interviewees said that the atmosphere is getting more free, that they can now access more information than ever before, and more and more people have access to the Internet. Two said that it is about the same – no strong feeling of any development and not very strong interest in the situation. And four claimed the control is now stricter than it used to be; two of them think it is because there are now more and more people who can access the Internet and “write anything they want” – there should be strong control of their voices; two think, that government's technique and censorship skills got much better and it can now control the public opinion much more precisely than it used to – leading to stricter control.
In the online survey, the question asked specifically about the amount of sensitive topics (H03, choose one); maybe it would have been better to ask about the mood, atmosphere. But anyway, 18% feel the amount has decreased; 44% think it is about the same; and 30% feel it has increased. 8% in the “Other” option mostly expressed, that they do not pay attention to this.
42 GENERAL FEELING
The last question in the online survey asked directly about “What is your opinion about the censorship on Chinese Internet?” (H04, multiple choice).
Figure 17: What is your opinion about cenzorship on the Chinese Internet? 43 Data gained in this question turned out to be a bit difficult to analyse, because every group of respond- ents found their option and there are not many outstandingly popular ones. What we can see is that opinions are quite evenly distributed.
The most popular choice shows that 40% of respondents agree that censorship makes some important voices in the society not being heard. This could show that even though most of respondents believe, that censorship is necessary for some reasons, they are also aware of the damage it causes to the soci- ety.
Second most popular choice was with 29% “It slows down China's modernization.” This is a bit on the contrary to many respondents' idea that it helps maintaining social stability, which is necessary for China's development. On the other hand, I suppose that the meaning here is closer to not having con- venient access to latest information and thus not being able to catch up with scientific development.
Third most popular choice was “I don't think it is necessary” with 27%. Interestingly enough, none of my interviewees has expressed this opinion. It seems that respondents in the online survey were more critical than when interviewed.
The least popular choice was “There is no censorship” with 2%. Clearly enough, everybody is aware of the censorship, and it seems to be accepted as natural part of life.
The second least popular one was “I don't mind, because I can circumvent the Great Firewall” with only 7% of respondents choosing it. I expected this choice to be more popular, as it seemed to me that respondents who can circumvent take it as a bit of personal advantage they have. Low popularity of this choice could mean that people who circumvent the GF actually do mind the censorship.
And, the third least popular option was “It stops me from expressing my opinion online”, which could mean, that respondents do not see themselves as targets of the censorship. They are, after all, usually not very interested in politics and in “sensitive information”, and they are not the ones who spread ru- mours.
44 To find groups of answers that are related to each other in some way, I have performed factor analysis of the data. Groups identified are as follows:
1. Causes some ideas not being heard, Slows down China's modernization, Supports corruption, Stops me from expressing my opinions online, I think it is wrong/immoral and the opposite of option “It is necessary and I don't mind”.
2. I don't think it is necessary and the opposite of “It is necessary and it annoys me”.
3. I don't mind, because I'm not interested in sensitive stuff and I don't mind, because I can cir- cumvent the Great Firewall
Next I took a look what choices were most popular among respondents, whose posts on social networks got deleted in the past. None of them chose “It is necessary and I don't mind” or “I don't mind, because I am not interested in sensitive topics; 30% think censorship is necessary, but it bothers them; 10% don't mind, because they can circumvent the GF. 18% think it is not necessary and 26% think it is im- moral. Interestingly only 25% of them said that it would stop them from expressing their opinion on- line. 44% think it stops some voices from being heard. Generally this group is slightly more critical to censorship, but not especially.
THE GREAT FIREWALL Most participants displayed great level of annoyance about the great firewall, because they feel it inter- feres with their daily lives way too often. People who rely on foreign websites (the most mentioned one being Google) in their professional lives, like IT specialists looking for technical information, English teachers looking for teaching materials, artists and designers looking for inspirational pictures, scholars looking for research materials in foreign languages, all expressed dissatisfaction with Baidu, as these are areas , in which Baidu doesn't really excel.53
Another reason was simply the feeling that foreign websites are cool; respondents would like to stay in touch with people on Facebook or watch videos with less advertisements on YouTube. All the reasons mentioned were of practical character. Nobody has ever mentioned an ideological or moral issue with blocking of foreign websites.
53 http://qz.com/239810/frustrated-chinese-web-users-bemoan-baidu-and-pine-for-the-days-of-google/
45 DOMESTIC CENSORSHIP Respondents were significantly less bothered with censorship on Chinese websites. They are annoyed, that some information can not be found, but the idea of censorship as a tool necessary to keep the Chinese cyberspace in order, clean of rumours fabricated by anti-Chinese subversives and careless sen- sationalists, and en masse reposted by uneducated online newbies not capable to independently evalu- ate truthfulness of the information, prevails massively.
Some opinions about people who may not be able to express their opinion were pretty extreme: “If you don't like the government, you should emigrate. Even if you are poor, there is always a way.” This opinion has to be taken as a bit extreme one; the same person has expressed opinion on self-immolat- ors: “It is so useless to protest by self-immolation. There are so many people in China, you will cause no damage.”
Other opinions suggested, that the government is the one who knows the best what is right and what not, and people should just accept it; this seems to be a much more widespread opinion: “The govern- ment is not afraid, they just want to calm people down. Not everything people say is true; politics are very complex, there are different opinions, fake news. People are too lazy to think and their opinion is easily controlled by others. They read online that the government is useless and stupid, and then they think so – because they don't know anything else to compare with, they will take this opinion as a fact. Most people are not very clever, so the government has to control what they will read.
If the government does something bad, maybe they had to do it, maybe it was necessary; they have all the necessary information, they have good teams to watch what is truth and what is not. Take the forced relocation: Maybe it is bad for the one person who doesn't want to move, but good for the whole country. But it is true that it depends, and they might have very strange ways to get you out of the house. Or in the 1989 protests, maybe they killed some students, but they had to do it for the countr
For most people, the best solution is to calm down. But some guys are very interested in the politics, they want to change something, so they are looking for the truth and try to fight for it. There are not many people like this, normal people like me can't change the country or people around me, so best is to calm down and not think too much.”
Another opinion: “I hate the government, but in most cases they seem to make the best choice. Look how China has developed in last 30 years.”
46 People who dare to talk about sensitive topics online and have anti-government ideas were often la- belled as “angry youth” (fènqīng 愤青) – “people who are not satisfied with the government and soci- ety.” Most of my interviewees claimed to have a few friends like that, but did not have strong feeling about them: “It is their thing.” On one hand they are perceived as useful, because by pointing out prob- lems they help to make the government more efficient and transparent. On the other hand, there is strong belief that these people can not change much.
One interviewee, who used to post information that later got deleted, said: “I used to be “angry youth”
(fènqīng 愤青), but I calmed down. You can not change anything.”
When I asked why are there not more people discussing politics, the answer would be “Talking about politics causes trouble”. None of the people I interviewed were interested in politics. One of my inter- viewees even told me “I had a look at your WeChat moments, you are very political. Why are you so interested in these things? Does politics make you happy?”
POLICY PREFERENCES One of survey questions in the earlier mentioned paper Collateral freedom, focused on Chinese Internet users who circumvent the Great Firewall, asked the participants: Of the following three policies, which option would you most agree with? (select one)
1. Keep filtering on domestic sites, but remove the Great Firewall
2. Keep the Great Firewall, but remove filtering on domestic sites
3. Keep current Internet regulations the same
The results were unambiguous: 74.6% of respondents would prefer an end to the blocking of foreign websites, rather than abolishing the censorship in domestic media. Only 12.9% of their respondents would prefer the opposite.
I was astonished with this result, as I believed it illustrates how vast of Chinese Internet users do not care about (or do not want) social changes that relaxing the domestic censorship could bring; it is enough for them when they as a person can visit the websites they are interested in.
So I decided to incorporate this question into my survey as well. Not surprisingly, the results were in of the same nature: 58% would keep domestic censorship, but remove the GFW; 8% would do the oppos-
47 ite (even less than in the Collateral freedom research); 6% would keep current regulations the same and 29% did not answer.
I assume the high percentage of respondents who did not answer is caused by two reasons:
1. This question was not mandatory and its text was longer than average. Many respondents did not check any choice, because they wanted to finish the survey as fast as possible. This pre- sumption is supported by relatively short average time respondents took to finish the survey (9 minutes).
2. Respondents were not satisfied with offered options; missed the option to abolish both. This is supported by the experience of the Collateral freedom research, as it was “the only one on which we received significant feedback outside of the survey” – their participants were com- plaining too that there was no option to abolish both forms of censorship.
My conclusion on these results is similar to the second possible conclusion in the Collateral freedom paper: “Perhaps Chinese users of circumvention tools do not want domestic controls removed.” It in- deed seems so, especially when looking at the responses of my participants: Respondents mostly agree, that some degree of what westerners label as censorship is necessary. According to my research results, it does not seem that my respondents would be advocates of free information for everyone, it almost seems there is a notion that free information is only for those who deserve it, who fight for it.
There is no notion that if foreign social networks were unblocked, the Chinese diaspora would grow in much faster pace and would get into much higher numbers, and the government would have no way to control it; to delete the dangerous information that everybody is so afraid of and agrees with it being censored. It seems my respondents simply do not see this problem.
48 5 CONCLUSION
Censorship is perceived as something natural in China's cyberspace. Almost all respondents agree with censorship as a tool to refine the society, as it in the Chinese euphemism for censorship, “harmoniza- tion” (héxié 和谐). The main purpose of censorship is not perceived as to suppress information and dis- sent, but to set borders and rules about what can be expressed online and what does not belong to the public space; to guide and civilize the public discourse. Therefore a very common criticism is that cen- sorship is not transparent enough; people believe, that some amount of censorship is necessary, but do not agree with its secretive form and blurred borders.
Censorship, which many still consider too strict and disrupting in everyday life, seems to be perceived as a part of current stage of society development, as a temporary means that will be gradually lifted and dismantled. On the other hand, what we currently see is that the whole apparatus is getting stronger and more effective, there are no signs of relaxing anything.
The perceived and desired “main goal” in managing the information society is not freedom of informa- tion, but stability. Stability is valued as the largest benefit that censorship brings. If looked at from the ruling elites point of view, we can see this struggle to maintain stability simply as the struggle to stay in power. This was not criticised by any of my respondents; censorship is not seen as a tool of the rul- ing elites to stay at power and silence dissent, it is accepted as a necessary tool to civilize the society and keep away the negative elements that are present at the current state of its development.
The censorship machinery seems to be largely effective. Self-censorship is perceived as natural part of life; everybody is aware of the fact that there are topics which should probably not be discussed online and can bring troubles. The ruling elite is seen as powerful, wise and united (unanimous? cohesive?) entity, which gives it moral authority to be the one who decides what is right and what wrong; when the rights of an individual should be sacrificed for the good of the society.
There is criticism of the censorship, sometimes very strong. However, it is not criticism of its morality, but of its practical impacts on the respondent's everyday life and on the ability of Chinese information society to keep up with the rest of the world. It is usually not expressed as criticism of the system as a whole, but of the system not being smart enough and interfering with “harmless” activities. Strongest annoyance seems to be brought by blocking of foreign sites, which some of the respondents rely on with their professional or academic work. The government is aware of that; they too do not want an in-
49 formational isolation, especially for the society elites, and this may as well be the reason why there is not an absolute ban on circumvention tools, both legally and technically. One of my interviewees has stated, that “Allowing people to circumvent the Great Firewall is also a form of harmonization [héxié
河蟹].”
Censorship on Chinese websites bothered respondents much less; large part think that it is necessary, especially on social networks, because of rumours; it is taken as a means to civilize the online environ- ment. There was no notion that deleting rumours could be used as a pretext to delete anti-government posts, which large part of respondents think should not be deleted.
There was a strong sense of informational elitism. Almost everybody would agree that who wants to have free information has to fight for it. There was no desire for free and unrestricted information avail- able to everyone, and on the contrary there was belief that “dangerous” information should be filtered out for those who are not able to interpret them properly.
I believe that even though the research was conducted on a rather small group of Shanghai residents, its conclusions can be applied to most of young Chinese urban educated citizens.
50 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blackwell, Matthew et al. “Reverse Engineering Chinese Censorship through Randomized Experiment- ation and Participant Observation.” 2014. Google Scholar. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
Caso, Frank, Censorship, New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008.
“Constitution of the People's Republic of China.” The National People's Congress of the People's Re- public of China. Mar. 14, 2004. Web. Sep. 1, 2014.
China Internet Network Information Center. 33rd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China. 2014. PDF. Aug 28 2014.
Deibert, Ronald et al. Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace. MIT Press, 2012. Google Scholar. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
Epstein, Gady. “China and the Internet: A giant cage.” The Economist Apr 6th 2013. PDF.
FreeWeibo.org. GreatFire.org, Oct 11, 2012. Aug 20, 2014.
Goldkorn, Jeremy. “Behind the Great Firewall.” China Story Yearbook 2012. Ed. Geremie Barmé. Aus- tralian National University - Australian Centre on China in the World., 2012. 170-194. PDF.
Goldkorn, Jeremy. “China’s Internet – a Civilising Process.” China Story Yearbook 2013. Ed. Barmé, Geremie R., Goldkorn, Jeremy. 2013.
“Google disrupted prior to Tiananmen Anniversary.” GreatFire.org. n.p. 2 Jun. 2014. Web. 19. Aug. 2014.
51 GreatFire.org. GreatFire.org. Aug 20, 2014.
Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, chapter 5, “The Internet in China“, june 2010.
Kuo, Lily. “China’s Crackdown on Prostitution Just Shut down 20 Million WeChat Accounts.” Quartz. N.p. 10 Jun 2014. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
Lu, Rachel. “The Chinese Communist Party Just Opened a WeChat Account.” Foreign Policy 25 Aug. 2014. Foreign Policy. Web. 26 Aug. 2014.
MacKinnon, Rebecca, „Flatter World and Thicker Walls? Blogs, Censorship and Civic Discourse in China“, Public Choice, Vol. 134, 2008.
Mueller, Milton, Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010.
“Provisions on Management of Instant Messaging Services.” China Law Translate. N.p., 8 Aug. 2014. Web. 19 Aug. 2014.
Qiang Zhang. “Microblogging the Trial: Transparency or Theatre?” BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Sept. 2014.
Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, An, Anne. “Collateral Freedom: A Snapshot of Chinese Internet Users Circumventing Censorship.” Open Internet Tools Project. April 2013. PDF. Aug 26 2014.
State Council Order No. 292, Laws and Regulations of the People's Republic of China, Peking, Zhong- guo fazhi chubanshe, 2001.
Taubman, G., „A not-so world wide web: the Internet, China, and the challenges to non- democratic rule.“, Political Communication 15 (1998): 255–272.
52 Wertime, David. “Surprising Crackdown on China’s Hottest Social Media Platform.” Foreign Policy 13 Mar. 2014. Foreign Policy. Web. 29 Aug. 2014.
53 7 ONLINE SURVEY QUESTIONS AND RESPONSE SUMMARY
Question A01: Sex / 性别 Female / 女 154 48.88% Male / 男 160 51.12%
Question A02: Age / 年龄 18-19 19 6.1% 20-24 115 36.6% 25-29 117 37.3% 30-34 43 13.7% 35-39 12 3.8% 40-50 8 2.5% Total 314 100%
Question A03: Where in China are you from? / 你来自中国的哪里？ Shanghai 171 54.63% Shaanxi 4 1.28%
Jiangsu 18 5.75% Inner Mongolia 3 0.96%
Anhui 12 3.83% Heilongjiang 3 0.96%
Beijing 11 3.51% Sichuan 3 0.96%
Hubei 10 3.19% Chongqing 2 0.64%
Zhejiang 8 2.56% Xinjiang 2 0.64%
Fujian 8 2.56% Jilin 1 0.32%
Henan 8 2.56% Guizhou 1 0.32%
Liaoning 7 2.24% Gansu 1 0.32%
Jiangxi 7 2.24% Qinghai 1 0.32%
Shandong 7 2.24% Tianjin 0 0.00%
Hebei 5 1.60% Hainan 0 0.00%
Shanxi 5 1.60% Yunnan 0 0.00%
Hunan 5 1.60% Tibet 0 0.00%
Guangdong 5 1.60% Ningxia 0 0.00%
Guangxi 5 1.60%
54 Question A04: How long have you been living in Shanghai? / 你在上海生活了多长时间？ 1 年 70 22.36% 27 年 6 1.92% 2 年 23 7.35% 28 年 6 1.92% 3 年 20 6.39% 29 年 6 1.92% 4 年 23 7.35% 30 年 2 0.64% 5 年 12 3.83% 31 年 2 0.64% 6 年 9 2.88% 32 年 1 0.32% 7 年 11 3.51% 33 年 1 0.32% 8 年 8 2.56% 34 年 1 0.32% 9 年 7 2.24% 35 年 2 0.64% 10 年 14 4.47% 36 年 0 0.00% 11 年 3 0.96% 37 年 0 0.00% 12 年 1 0.32% 38 年 0 0.00% 13 年 3 0.96% 39 年 1 0.32% 14 年 2 0.64% 40 年 1 0.32% 15 年 1 0.32% 41 年 1 0.32% 16 年 3 0.96% 42 年 0 0.00% 17 年 2 0.64% 43 年 0 0.00% 18 年 10 3.19% 44 年 1 0.32% 19 年 1 0.32% 45 年 0 0.00% 20 年 4 1.28% 46 年 0 0.00% 21 年 6 1.92% 47 年 0 0.00% 22 年 10 3.19% 48 年 0 0.00% 23 年 6 1.92% 49 年 0 0.00% 24 年 5 1.60% 50 年 2 0.64% 25 年 5 1.60% No answer 13 4.15% 26 年 8 2.56%
Question A05: University / 大学 (choose one) Already graduated / 已经毕业了 241 77.00% Attending university now / 正在念大学 57 18.21% Didn't attend an university (yet) / 没有上大学 15 4.79%
Question A06: Occupation / 职业 (free text)
55 Question A07: Have you been abroad? / 你曾经到过国外吗？(choose one) Haven't been abroad yet / 没有 145 46.33% Went travelling or for a business trip / 短期出国旅游、出差 104 33.23% Lived longer than half a year / 国外生活半年以上 50 15.97% No answer 14 4.47%
Question D01: Are you interested in news? / 你对新闻报导关注吗？ Yes 261 83.39% No 36 11.50% No answer 16 5.11%
Question D02 (only if D01 answered with no): Why are you not interested in news? / 为 什么不感兴趣？(free text, voluntary)
Question D03: What are your usual news sources? / 通常你关注哪些渠道的新闻报导？ (multiple choice) Social networks (Weibo, WeChat Moments, QQ 空间, …) 223 71.25% / 社交网络 (诸如：微博、微信朋友圈、QQ 空间、... Chinese news portals (Baidu news, Tencent news, 163.com, …) 212 67.73% / 国内新闻网站 (诸如：百度新闻、腾讯网新闻、网易、... News that "pop-up" in chat applications like WeChat or QQ 197 62.94% / 微信或者 QQ 中的弹出消息 TV / 电视 165 52.72% Foreign news portals (BBC, CNN, …) 95 30.35% / 国外新闻网站 (诸如：BBC、CNN、... Newspapers / 报纸 71 22.68% Radio / 电台广播 46 14.70% Other 15 4.79%
Question D04: How satisfied are you with quality of news? (1 = worst, 5 = best) / 你对日常 新闻报导的内容满意吗？ (1 = 非常的不满意， 5 = 非常的满意） 1 24 7.69% 2 56 17.95% 3 161 51.60% 4 58 18.59% 5 13 4.17% Sum 312 100.00% Number of cases 313 100.00% Arithmetic mean 2.94
56 D05: Would you say that news have one or more of following problems? / 对于新闻报导内 容，你是否觉得有以下问题：(multiple choice) Domestic media don't report on some topics 226 72.20% / 某些内容不被国内新闻报导 Some news are blocked / censored / 一些新闻被屏蔽 207 66.13% News are overly positive / 只择取正面内容的新闻报导 142 45.37% Reporting rumors / fake news / 新闻报导不属实 141 45.05% Too much gossip / sensational news / 花边新闻太多 129 41.21% Reporting is biased, leaves out some facts / 报导内容重心偏离 119 38.02% Too many negative news / 负能量的新闻太多 90 28.75% Too many news criticising the government / 批评政府的新闻太多 18 5.75% Other 11 3.51% There are no problems / 没有任何问题 5 1.60%
Question D061 (Only if respondent reads foreign news sources): Why do you read foreign media news? / 为何你会关注国外媒体的新闻报导? (multiple choice) I want to compare more viewpoints 68 71.58% 希望有更全面的观察角度 I want to read more about foreign affairs 61 64.21% / 因为想知道更多国外事件 There are more news about my hobbies and interests 48 50.53% / 因为有更多我感兴趣的内容 I am not satisfied with quality of Chinese news in Chinese media 35 36.84% / 不满意国内媒体对国内事件报导的新闻内容 I am not satisfied with quality of international news in Chinese media 32 33.68% / 不满意国内媒体对国外事件报导的新闻内容 No specific reason / 没有特别的原因 7 7.37% Other 3 3.16%
Question D062 (Only if respondent does not read foreign news sources): Why do you not read foreing media news? / 为何你不关注国外媒体的新闻报导? (multiple choice) Too hard to access / 找不到渠道接收国外媒体的报导 124 56.88% Language barrier / 语言不通 63 28.90% I am not interested in news / 本身对新闻不感兴趣 45 20.64% Other 21 9.63% I am satisfied with news in Chinese media / 对于中国媒体报道满意 11 5.05%
57 Question E01: Have you ever searched for something on Chinese websites and couldn't find it or couldn't find satisfying results? / 你是否有过在国内网站查找不到信息或者对获取的信 息不满意？ Yes 232 76.57% No 70 23.10% No answer 1 0.33%
Question E02 (Only if E01 answered with yes): What kind of information were you looking for? / 当时你在查找什么内容的信息？(free text)
Question E03 (Only if E01 answered with yes): Why do you think you could not find it? / 你觉得为何你不能找到相关信息? (multiple choice) It is considered sensitive 146 62.93% / 因为此信息比较敏感 Government forbids spreading this kind of information 137 59.05% / 因为政府禁止此类信息发布 Nobody writes about this topic on Chinese websites 59 25.43% / 因为没有人发布此信息到网上 This information could be dangerous for society, could cause troubles 34 14.66% / 因为此信息可能使发布人陷于危险处境 Other 27 11.64%
Question E04 (Only if E01 answered with yes): How did you feel about it, what did you do? / 你对此持有怎样观点，你是如何做的？ (multiple choice) Got the information from different source / 通过其他渠道获取 133 57.33% "Nothing can be done" (meibanfa), did not continue searching 81 34.91% / 没办法，没有继续查找 Annoyed / 觉得很麻烦 69 29.74% I asked my friends about it / 问询朋友获取此信息 44 18.97% Angry / 生气 38 16.38% Other 19 8.19%
Question F00: Do you know what "fanqiang" (to "jump over" the Great Firewall) means? / 你知道“翻墙”是什么意思吗？ Yes 252 84.85% No 45 15.15%
Question F001 (Only if F00 answered with yes): What does "fanqiang" (to jump over the Great Firewall) mean? / “翻墙“是什么意思呢？(free text)
58 Question F01 (Only if F00 answered with yes): Do you "fanqiang" (bypass the Great Firewall)? / 你翻墙吗？ Yes 158 62.70% No 94 37.30%
Question F02 (Only if F01 answered with yes): Why do you bypass the Great Firewall? / 你为什么翻墙？(multiple choice) To use Google, or other search engines 123 77.85% / 为了使用谷歌或者其他类似的搜索引擎 To use Twitter, Facebook, or other social network sites 106 67.09% / 为了使用 Facebook，推特，或者其他社交网站 To use YouTube to access videos and music 93 58.86% 为了使用 Youtube 获取视频或者音乐 To read foreign news, like BBC, CNN, ... 59 37.34% / 为了读取诸如 BBC、CNN 的新闻 To communicate with people outside China 53 33.54% / 为了和国外的人联系 To access adult websites / 为了观看色情网站 18 11.39% Other 9 5.70% To communicate with people inside China 3 1.90% / 为了和国内的人联系
Question F03 (Only if F01 answered with yes): Are you satisfied with your current tool to bypass the Great Firewall? / 你对当前的翻墙工具满意吗？(multiple choice) It is not reliable / 有时不管用 91 57.59% It is slow / 速度慢 76 48.10% It is too expensive / 费用太高 32 20.25% Satisfied / 满意 25 15.82% Other 6 3.80%
Question F04 (Only if F01 answered with no): Why you do not bypass the Great Firewall? / 你为什么不翻墙？ (multiple choice) It is too hard or too expensive to do it / 麻烦或者费用高 44 46.81% I do not need it / 不需要 34 36.17% It could bring me problems / 可能给我带来麻烦 22 23.40% It is illegal / 以为这不合法 13 13.83% Other 13 13.83%
59 Question F05 (Only if F001 answered with yes): Of the following three options, which one would you most agree with? / 以下 3 种选项你最同意哪一项？ (chose one) Keep filtering on domestic sites, but remove 146 57.94% the Great Firewall (blocking of foreign sites) 继续监察过滤国内网站，取消国外网站屏蔽 （继续和谐掉中国网站的信息，但是取消对一些国外网站的屏蔽） Keep the Great Firewall (blocking of foreign sites), 20 7.94% but remove filtering on domestic sites 继续屏蔽一些国外网站，但是不再监察过滤国内网站信息 Keep current Internet regulations the same 14 5.56% 继续当前的网络监控管理手段 No answer 72 28.57%
Question G01: Have you ever noticed that some news were deleted from Weibo, WeChat or other websites? / 你是否发现过有信息从微博，微信或者网页等被删除？ Yes 209 71.09% No 85 28.91%
Question G02 (only if G01 answered with yes): What kind of content was it? / 被删除的是 怎样内容的信息? (multiple choice) Fake news / rumours / 虚假新闻/谣言 119 56.94% News that would cause the government lose face 113 54.07% 使中国政府丢面子的新闻 Could cause public unrest / 引起公众恐慌 100 47.85% Vulgar or obscene material / 内容粗俗下品 94 44.98% Other 16 7.66%
Question G03a (only if fake news / rumours were selected in G02): Do you think that fake news / rumours should be deleted? / 你觉得虚假新闻/谣言是否真的有必要删除？ Yes 88 73.95% No 18 15.13% No answer 13 10.92%
Question G03b (only if news that would cause the government lose face were selected in G02): Do you think that news that would cause the government lose face should be deleted? / 你觉得使中国政府丢面子的新闻是否真的有必要删除？ Yes 2 1.77% No 98 86.73% No answer 13 11.50%
60 Question G03c (only if Could cause public unrest was selected in G02): Do you think that content that could cause public unrest should be deleted? / 你觉得引起公众恐慌是否真 的有必要删除？ Yes 49 49.00% No 33 33.00% No answer 18 18.00%
Question G03d (only if Vulgar or obscene material was selected in G02): Do you think that vulgar or obscene content should be deleted? / 你觉得内容粗俗下品是否真的有必要删除？ Yes 65 69.15% No 19 20.21% No answer 10 10.64%
Question G04 (only if G01answered with yes): Who do you think decides what will be deleted? / 你觉得是谁决定了哪些信息应当删除？ Government / 政府 158 75.60% Police / 警察 43 20.57% Company running the website / 网站运营公司 85 40.67% Other 14 6.70%
Question G05 (only if G01answered with yes): Has something you posted online ever got deleted? / 你是否曾经有过上传的信息遭到删除？ Yes 39 18.66% No 170 81.34%
Question G05a (only if G05 answered with yes): What kind of information was it? / 你那 时候上传的是什么？ (free text)
Question H01: Have you ever wanted to post something, but in the end you decided not to do it? / 你是否有过想上传的信息但是最终决定不去上传？ Yes 79 27.43% No 208 72.22%
Question H01a: (only if H01 answered with yes): What information was it? / 那是什么内 容的信息？ (free text)
61 Question H02: Do you think it is safe to talk about sensitive topics in private chats on WeChat or QQ? / 那些敏感的信息如果只在微信或者 QQ 的聊天中进行，你觉得安全吗？ Yes 41 14.24% No 192 66.67% No answer 55 19.10%
Question H03: After Xi Jinping became president, the amount of topics considered "sensitive" / 习近平掌权后，你觉得敏感的题目数量 (chose one): Is about the same / 差不多一样的 125 43.40% Increased / 比以前多一点 86 29.86% Decreased / 比以前少一点 51 17.71% Other 25 8.68% No answer 1 0.35%
Question H04: What is your opinion about censorship on the Chinese internet? / 你对于中 国网络中存在的 “和谐（审查）”现象怎么看？(multiple choice): Causes some important voices and ideas not being heard 116 40.28% / 使得一些重要言论观点不被聆听到 Slows down China's modernization / 阻挠中国的现代化进程 85 29.51% I don't think it is necessary / 我觉得不必要 77 26.74% Supports corruption / 助长腐败 55 19.10% It is necessary, and I don't mind / 是必需的，我不介意 52 18.06% It is necessary, but it annoys me / 是必需的，但是对我产生麻烦 51 17.71% I think it is wrong, immoral, and should not be happening 50 17.36% / 我觉得不道德，做法错误，不应该这么做 I don't mind, because I am not interested in sensitive topics 48 16.67% / 我不介意，因为我对那些敏感话题不感兴趣 Stops me from expressing my opinions online 41 14.24% 阻挠了我在网上发表个人观点 I don't mind, because I can bypass the Great Firewall 21 7.29% 我不介意，因为我可以翻墙 Other 14 4.86% There is no censorship / 中国的网络没有什么和谐（审查） 6 2.08%
62 Question B03 (voluntary) Which from following services do you use? (data in percent)
PC Smartphone / Tablet Less than before Don't use any more WeChat 29.70 85.34 3.76 1.13 QQ Chat 53.38 45.86 26.69 7.52 QQ Zone 22.93 22.56 12.41 36.47 LINE 3.01 12.78 7.14 27.44 WhatsApp 1.50 10.15 5.64 22.93 Skype 19.92 9.77 11.28 23.68 Weibo 39.85 44.74 19.17 10.53 Renren 16.17 11.28 16.17 37.59 Kaixin 4.51 2.26 4.89 40.98 Douban 38.35 22.56 13.91 12.41 Baidu Tieba 26.32 18.42 16.54 18.05 Facebook 19.92 12.41 12.41 18.05 Twitter 12.03 9.77 10.53 21.43 Instagram 6.77 27.82 5.26 15.04 Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo mail 39.85 28.95 10.90 12.03 Baidu Search 72.93 54.14 4.89 1.13 Google Search 51.88 28.57 16.54 9.40 Youku, Tudou, … 67.29 42.86 6.77 2.26 Youtube 24.81 11.65 9.40 16.17
63