How to Dodge the Chinese Internet Censor

eweekhickins writes "A report written by a tech worker in China describes the pervasive censorship, abetted by ample manpower and funding estimated at $27 billion in US dollars. The author, who calls himself Mr. Tao, also writes that plenty of Chinese are finding ways to resist censorship, and offers tips on how to keep evading Big GeGe (that's Older Brother). Not surprisingly, self-censorship is very prevalent. Also not surprisingly, the authorities are starting to catch on to things like RSS feeds. It's another race for survival between the tiny mammals and the lumbering dinosaurs." Here's Mr. Tao's report (PDF), written under the auspices of Reporters Without Borders.

Comments

Where are all the English teachers?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

What I really don't get is how we always hear about Chinese people trying to break through their Great Firewall and avoid government censorship in order to tell us how it really goes down inside the country, but we hardly ever hear about these atrocities from American, English, and Australian English teachers who go over there for a few years to teach. They come back and tell us about all the fun they had and the great experiences they enjoyed while over there, but never how the government was always breathing down their neck or how they were forced to censor themselves.

It makes me wonder who those people are who are complaining the loudest (you know: the ones who aren't getting heard). While I have no doubt that there is a significant amount of pro-government propaganda, I wonder if all this bellowing isn't just a bit overly melodramatic.

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[Echnin]

Well, we laowai (foreigners) here in China are granted more leeway, and the worst thing that can happen is that you're deported. Torbjørn Færøvik, a Norwegian author who wrote a fairly successful travelogue about a trip he took through China with a lot of commentary on Chinese politics and history comes to mind. I heard him speak at a small lecture in Oslo last year, and he mentioned that the last time he tried to go to China they wouldn't let him in because of what he'd written about the country. Of course they aren't going to do anything to me, a white, foreign student, for talking to someone about Tibetan independence, but if Tibetan monks make a peaceful protest saying the same, they get shot down with AK-47s. Really, an English teacher's experience in Beijing is not exemplary of how the average Chinese person has it. The CCP would never dare doing anything to a laowai.

But really, most Chinese are pretty much politically apathetic. The common worker has no time to even think about politics, having to work 14 hours a day just to feed their family. The bloggers are a minority, and the democracy movement here is just too small and unorganized to do anything. But people are in fact scared of saying anything bad about the CCP - every time I try to bring politics up with a taxi driver or whoever they just stop speaking to me. This lack of freedom of speech contributes to make people more complacent, as they don't even know about the Tiananmen protests or the truth of China's role in Tibet.

But hey, it's damn fun being here as a student!

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[arivanov]

Err...

Is it me being daft, or this is the same region where all of the so called "dissidents" dwell? So I do not quite see your argument.

You do not get to hear "cittizen journalism" from Li Average (assuming he is the counterpart of Joe Average) from a village on the outskirts of the Inner Mongolia deserts where 30%+ of the population has AIDS from selling their blood to dodgy companies for a living 5-10 years ago. You do not get to hear "cittizen journalism" from Chang "Average" from a village downwind of Harbin where 10%+ of the newborn are born with deformities from the uncontrolled pollution blown on top of them from the big metropolis and the poisoned water they have to drink. You do not get...

Frankly, as someone who has lived behind the Iron Curtain in the days when it was still up and someone who was involved in some of the unrest which followed for the next 5 or so years I can tell you this for sure: half of the so called dissidents are on the payroll of the west, the other half are on the payroll of the local KGB/KDS/Stazi equivalent. The ones that actually do that because of their ideas, beliefs and morals are a minority. Probably less than 10% and they do not tend to last. Sooner or later they have to chose which briefcase with cash to take unless they want to walk the plank.

Little Sisters are Watching You

[r6144]

In China, we sometimes use "little sister" to refer to the people hired by the authorities to check posts on Internet forums for political correctness. Of course this is sort of a parody to "Big Brother", but indeed most such people are just young, politically unmotivated university students, frequently female, that are looking for some pocket money.