Internet Censorship and China

860 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Debates about censorship

The Politics of Censorship – Bryan Thetford
Such an enormous investment is, out of necessity, coupled with legislation and bureaucracy. In 2010 the People's Republic of China released a white-paper via their Information Office detailing its policies for implementing and regulating the Internet (Xu). Delegating control to over a dozen government organizations and detailing 18 specific laws or decisions regarding China's Internet, the document is nothing if not thorough (Dance to The Revolution). Despite this, it is largely seen as a propaganda piece, prompting one American writer, Rebecca MacKinnon, to compare the reading of the white-paper to perusing an article in The Onion. The comparison of a legislative document to a publication known for witty and scathing parody arises from the stark contrast between the spirit of the Chinese laws regarding Internet Censorship and their practical, day to day implementation (MacKinnon). For example, the 2010 white-paper states:
“Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the Internet. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China confers on Chinese citizens the right to free speech. With their right to freedom of speech on the Internet protected by the law, they can voice their opinions in various ways on the Internet.”(Information Office, PRC)
However, less than a year after the white-paper was released, over 200 people were held in “soft-detention” and 26 arrested in connection with an online call by activists for a “jasmine revolution” similar to uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East (Richburg). Among those arrested was Ai WeiWei, a prominent Chines artist. Ai WeiWei, an active Twitter user adept at bypassing China's blocking of the popular social networking site via...

... middle of paper ...

...oyama, Kentaro. "How Internet Censorship Actually Works in China." The Atlantic. Atlantic
Desai, Rajiv. "Dr Rajiv Desai Blog." Dr Rajiv Desai Blog. N.p., Qw Jan. 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. .
Mack, Lauren. "Internet Censorship in China." Internet Censorship in China. About.com, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. .
Wiseman, Paul. "Cracking the 'Great Firewall' of China's Web Censorship." ABC News. USA Today, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. .
Rininsland, Edrew. "Internet Censorship Listed: How Does Each Country Compare?"Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 16 Apr. 2012. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. .

Show More
Related

  • Ai Weiwei Never Sorry

    502 Words  | 2 Pages

    The film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is in part about how the government responds to Ai Weiwei’s controversial artwork. Over the course of the film, he is beaten, watched, and arrested because his art goes against the Chinese government. The government tries to censor any content that may show them in a bad light, which prevents revolts from taking place in China since they never hear about the injustices that have occurred. Ai Weiwei, however, utilizes technology to spread information about what is going on: he uses blogging and recording as ways to make sure the government can’t hide what has happened. This Communist government, however, wants sole control over the economy and the politics of the country, but much of Ai Weiwei’s artwork fights against what the government is trying to force onto its’ people through the spread of information. With the technology Ai Weiwei uses, he is able to display the evidence of the injustices that are occurring in China, including posting the names of Sichuan earthquake victims on his blog and recording the police assaulting him. This way he can spread the information

    Read More

  • Censorship in Lord of The Flies by William Golding

    1329 Words  | 3 Pages

    "A Global History of Censorship." Guarding Public Morality: A Global History of Censorship. N p.g., 20 Mar. 2010. Web. 03 Nov. 2013.

    Read More

  • Ai Weiwei´s Art and Censorship

    1742 Words  | 4 Pages

    “I don’t want to be part of this kind of denying reality. We live in this time. We have to speak out” (Klayman). Ai Weiwei is an internationally known Chinese artist as well as activist, and his motivation and determination can be summed up by this quote. In all of his pieces, Weiwei critically examines the social and administrative issues facing China today. Many of his works exhibit multiple themes that can be interpreted in various different ways. This lends itself to the universal appeal of his art and makes it a more effective medium of conveying his messages to viewers. Ai Weiwei’s activist artwork—and activist artwork in general—is important to society because it effectively forces the viewer to engage in a self-reflective process that makes the viewer critically examine his or her own beliefs and world. Nevertheless, censorship greatly hinders the dissemination of the critical and thought provoking messages of Ai Weiwei’s art and makes his artwork less effective. In order to gain a better understanding of the relationship of Ai Weiwei’s activist art and the Communist Party’s subsequent censorship, I will examine Ai Weiwei’s influential childhood, his specific brand of activist artwork, the censorship of the Chinese government and the effects of censorship on the effectiveness of Ai Weiwei’s art.

    Read More

  • America's Decline of Freedom of Speech

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mintcheva, Svetlana. "Land of the free?." Index on censorship 42.2 (2013):70-73. Web. 11 November 2013.

    Read More

  • Censorship is Not an Effective Way to Protect Children

    1912 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...Kids Points of View: Internet Censorship." 2011. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 21 March 2012.

    Read More

  • Social Injustice In China Essay

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    Everyday people in China are suffering from their government. From being wrongly accused to being executed for petty crimes. In a country where you cannot speak your opinions, talk poorly about government officials, speak about Chinese communist failures, or even browse the internet freely. China has kept its citizens in the void. One example is the great firewall of china, which sensors most social media and other sites. This essay will go into some individual stories of the Chinese government's unfair social injustices towards its people.

    Read More

  • Censorship In China Essay

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    China is a communist country, whose citizens faced many difficult situations while trying to fight for their human rights. According to the “Freedom Rankings” from the database CountryWatch China is not a free country. Specifically the Political Rights and Civil Liberties are in their maximum numbers; this means that these rights are confiscated from the people. Therefore freedoms of press, expression, speech, religion, and movement are all severely limited in China. The government has also kept a close watch on art in China; Chinese art went through many different stages starting from the year 1842. But the massacre of Tiananmen Square in the year 1989 was a turning point in the political life of China and on the country's art. Until the year 1992 art in china was underground, but it kept expanding. As a result of that some Chinese artists started to do art works that rebel against their government and express their feelings towards China. One of these artist is the famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei who expressed in each piece of art he did, his feelings that China should let its people break away from the rotten traditional, in order to express their thoughts freely.

    Read More

  • Google And The Government Of China

    1782 Words  | 4 Pages

    Interests: China’s leaders desire to improve their nation’s economy while preserving political stability. They want to censor political discussions to prevent “westernization” of China,

    Read More

  • Cyber Warfare

    1748 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gorman, Siobhan. "China Singled Out for Cyberspying." The Wall Street Journal 4 Nov. 2011. Print. (Source E)

    Read More

  • Democracy in China

    3306 Words  | 7 Pages

    Thornton, P., (ed.) (2010), ‘Censorship and Surveillance in Chinese Cyberspace: Beyond the Great Firewall’ In Gries, P. H., and Rosen, S., (eds) Chinese Politics (London and New York: Routledge).

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Internet Censorship

    1557 Words  | 4 Pages

    Internet is a powerful tool that allows users to collaborate and interact with others all over the world conveniently and relatively safely. It has allowed education and trade to be accessed easily and quickly, but all these benefits do not come without very taxing costs. This is especially true when dealing with the likes of the Internet. Countries in the European Union and Asia have realized this and have taken action against the threat of net neutrality to protect their citizens, even at the cost of online privacy. Internet censorship is required to protect us from our opinions and vices. Every country should adopt Internet censorship and regulation since it improves society by reducing pornography, racism/prejudice, and online identity theft.

    Read More

  • Censorship in the Media and Entertainment

    1172 Words  | 3 Pages

    Xu, Beina. "Media Censorship in China." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .

    Read More

  • Censorship In China

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    Every child from teenagers and teenagers from adult uses internet like Wikipedia, YouTube and various type of social media among many other sites in everyday life in most of the countries. The internet is open to everyone except parental control. The Internet, global network is being the important part of our life these days. Just imagine that you heard the notification sound in your phone and run to the phone to check your message or important email. You are expecting an email or message from your dream University, where you are trying and trying to get enroll in and they are the one who is sending you some important information on your admission and on your acceptant, but when you check your inbox there is a message from the server instead. Which says the message cannot open or Error because it contained some indecent material and this page is not available. Does this sound silly or ridiculous to you? It is the reality and this is the very similar situation in china. As you can see, the problem with the internet censorship is that it takes away your rights, freedom of speech and the chance of gaining useful information.

    Read More

  • The Internet in China

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    Early off, Internet in China was imaged as an information highway which leapfrogged China into modern times (Guobin 51). Today a majority (49%) US blogs are political whereas a majority of blogs in China are more "personal,” where they may post diaries of their personal life. Otherwise they also like to read news, research, communicate via chat/email/social networking sites, entertainment purposes, e-business, e-banking, and e-education (Jiang 23-25) Some have even gone to say that China’s internet is large part of their culture like TV is to America (Guobin 49).

    Read More

  • Media Control and Censorship

    1483 Words  | 3 Pages

    Censorship is the suppression of media or public communication deemed disagreeable or even dangerous, by the government or some sort of group in control. Even though the freedom of speech, opinion, information and press are considered individual human rights and are rooted in democratic ideology, media censorship is not uncommon in the world, and has been popular with authoritarian regimes such as the Soviet Union. However, how has censorship changed from the Soviet Union to the modern world? Compared to censorship in the past, modern censorship has become more difficult due to Internet and the media is mostly now controlled by a group of individuals rather than the government.. The countries we will reflect on for our topic are Turkmenistan, China and the United States.

    Read More

More about Internet Censorship and China

Open Document