This Chart Explains Everything You Need to Know About Chinese Internet Censorship

What goes through a Chinese web user’s head the moment before he or she hits the “publish” button? Pundits, scholars, and everyday netizens have spent years trying to parse the (ever-shifting) rules of the Chinese Internet. Although Chinese authorities have been putting ever more Internet rules and regulations on the books—one famously creates criminal liability for a “harmful” rumor shared more than 500 times—the line between what’s allowed and what isn’t, and the consequences that flow from the latter, remains strategically fuzzy. And that’s just how Chinese authorities like it.

But a discerning observer can still sketch out the shadowy form of the (often unwritten) rules that govern the Chinese web. Before posting, a Chinese web user is likely to consider basic questions about how likely a post is to travel, whether it runs counter to government priorities, and whether it calls for action or is likely to engender it. Those answers help determine whether a post can be published without incident—as it is somewhere around 84 percent or 87 percent of the time—or is instead likely to lead to a spectrum of negative consequences varying from censorship to the deletion of a user’s account to his or her detention, or even arrest and conviction. The flowchart below, based on my years following developments in Chinese cyberspace, provides a glimpse into the web of considerations that may determine the fate of a post—or its author.

Graphic by David Wertime, Shujie Leng, & Josef Reyes—Foreign Policy

A few nodes on this chart merit particular explanation:

  • Being famous on the Chinese Internet isn’t necessarily desirable. So-called “Big Vs,” or well-known social media commenters, are more likely to be scrutinized, censored, and jailed. They are thus likely to think extra hard before sharing anything on an open platform.
  • Posts that don’t criticize the government can be censored if they seem likely to spur private action on a major public issue. For example, in early March authorities quashed discussion of seemingly government-approved environmental documentary “Under the Dome” after it triggered a nationwide discussion on pollution.
  • Posts that get people to hit the streets are likely to get the axe, even if they aren’t political. In March 2011, authorities censored posts spreading the rumor that salt could stave off radiation poisoning from the recently ruptured Fukushima reactor in neighboring Japan, because the rumor had led to a run on the commodity.
  • The Chinese government wants web users to call out specific instances of corruption in the Communist Party—just not publicly. That’s why the website for the country’s top corruption watchdog allows citizens to report graft directly to government authorities.
  • Posts that criticize the government aren’t automatically censored. General grousing about the government by a small-time user isn’t going to topple the ruling party, which means the censors are unlikely to care.

There is much, of course, the above graphic does not and cannot capture. A user, for example, may have a powerful backer that allows him or her to push the envelope—or conversely, a history of activism that makes any post suspect. And the consequences beyond censorship are too uncertain and multifarious to be visually represented.

It’s also worth emphasizing that most posts are left alone. But that’s only after each survives a gauntlet of possible pitfalls, managing not only to obey laws as written but also to avoid contravening the interests or sensibilities of the central government and relevant local officials. That’s led to endemic self-censorship, particularly when the topic hits at anything even approaching politics. In turn, that makes Chinese cyberspace less likely to host the kind of raucous (and, to the government, potentially destabilizing) national debates and movements that used to spring up without warning before authorities tightened the screws on online speech starting in late 2013. China’s web users now have a strong incentive to stick to entertainment and e-commerce, rather than using the web as a platform for speech and debate on the major issues shaping their country’s future.

Online and Off, Social Media Users Go to War for Freedom of Press in China | Tea Leaf Nation

Clipped from: http://www.tealeafnation.com/2013/01/online-and-off-social-media-users-go-to-war-for-freedom-of-press-in-china/
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January 7, 2013 | by Rachel

Online and Off, Social Media Users Go to War for Freedom of Press in China

    When Mr. Tuo Zhen, the propaganda chief of Guangdong province, rewrote and replaced the New Year editorial of the Southern Weekend weekly newspaper without the consent of its editors, he probably did not think it would make much of a splash. Indeed, Mr. Tuo might have believed that it was a natural extension of his job, which involved issuing censorship directives to newspaper editors, approving story ideas and having the final say on whether an article is put to ink.

    He could not have been more wrong.

    In China, where journalists usually accept censorship of the print press as a fact of life, Mr. Tuo’s presumptuous move somehow touched a raw nerve. Through China’s social media, in particular its Twitter-like microblog platforms, the editors of Southern Weekend released statements about the incident. And almost overnight, “Southern Weekend” became the rallying cry of users longing for freedom of press in China.

    And these include some of Chinese social media’s most high profile users from all walks of life. Celebrities such as actress Yao Chen (with 31 million followers) and actor Chen Kui (with 27 million followers) tweeted explicit messages of support on Sina Weibo, a microblog platform. Yao quoted the 1970 Nobel lecture of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author and dissident, along with a logo of Southern Weekend. Chen was more direct: “I am not that deep, and I don’t play word games; I support the friends at Southern Weekend.”

    Active censorship of this topic on social media, including the deletion of Weibo accounts of several outspoken commentators, have not dampened users’ determination to keep the cause alive.

    Ren Zhiqiang (@任志强), one of the most outspoken businessmen in China with almost 13 million followers, tweeted on Sina Weibo, “Freedom of press and freedom of speech are rights given to the society and the people by the constitution; they are also symbols of human rights and freedom. Yet they have become pipe dreams without the rule of law, being seriously distorted and restricted. If truth is not allowed to be spoken, would truth disappear?”

    Li Chengpeng and Han Han, China’s two most famous bloggers, both wrote articles in support of Southern Weekend. Li wrote, “We don’t need tall buildings, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth. We don’t need the second highest GDP in the world, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth. We don’t need a fleet of aircraft carriers, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth.”

    Even the web editors of China’s biggest Internet portals, including Sina, Sohu and Netease, showed their support with a little subversive game. For example, when read vertically, the first characters of seemingly unrelated headlines on a Sina news page delivered the hidden message “Go Southern Weekend!”

    Online action has translated into real-life protest. On Monday, hundreds of supporters held rallies outside of Southern Weekend’s headquarter in Guangzhou, many bearing chrysanthemums, a flower believed to be able to endure harsh climates. Many were not afraid to show their faces while holding up signs and placards calling for freedom of press. Indeed, one girl held up two fingers in a victory sign as the police took photos of her, presumably as evidence for potential prosecution in the future:

    One woman looked fear in the eye, and said, “cheese.” (Via Weibo)

    User @吖小寒 reported from the front lines, “I have to say that the rally today was quite orderly. Some volunteers picked up trash at the scene. The police were quite patient too–they kept order without resorting to violence and did not take away anyone’s placards. Even when everyone started shouting slogans about constitutionalism and democracy, the police just watched on the sidelines. Thousands of cell phones broadcast information from the scene in real time. I think we can definitely have democracy if everyone behaves like this!”

    Lin Tianhong (@林天宏), a magazine editor, penned a Sina Weibo post that seemed to capture the sense that a tipping point may have been reached. He wrote,

    Over the years, we journalists have been censored and silenced.  We are used to it. We started to compromise and self-comfort. We became familiar with the explicit and not-so-explicit boundaries of our work, and we began to self-censor. We were like frogs being cooked in tepid water… We have gone too far, as if we have forgotten why we chose this profession to begin with. Why are we trying to protect our colleagues at Southern Weekend? For me there is only one reason, life is just a few decades long, how can you forget your innocence?