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A Detailed Dive Into China's Information Underground
eldavojohn writes "MIT's Tech Review has an article on the current state of Internet censorship in China. We've read the stories about Green Dam and the Great Firewall, but this article relates the story of one of the many ways around these tools and how they're little more than an added complexity to getting what you want from the Internet in China. The article starts out with an aliased user named Xiaomi who wakes up and utilizes Google Docs to collaborate with other Mandarin-English speakers so they can translate the day's news. Once it's there she makes it public and sends out a note on Twitter and Buzz to her followers, who copy the document to their blogs and link back to the public Google Document. The blogs survive for various lengths of time, but while they are up more people read and publish to their blogs, and the pyramid branches out." (Read more, below.)
The article explains the complicated chain of tools she employs to avoid being invited down to a police station to "drink tea" (interrogation and imprisonment). Although anonymous and unrewarded, Xiaomi's work is crucial to China. An MIT expert on China claims, "The Internet has empowered the Chinese people more than the combined effects of 30 years of [economic] growth, urbanization, exports, and investments by foreign firms." By the time all is said and done, Chinese censorship is little more than mocked by thousands of people like Xiaomi. The cofounder of Global Voices explains, "We assume censored means 'Dead. Lifeless. Artificial.' What 'censored' actually means is 'really, really complicated.'" Despite our dire view of Chinese censorship, the article presents comprehensive evidence of people not only avoiding it altogether but successfully anonymously working together to avoid it, as well as protests going viral on the Internet in China. On the Internet, where there's a will there's a way.
little more than an added complexity to getting what you want from the internet in China
Basic communication shouldn't take heroic levels of bravery. People have been imprisoned in China for doing less than what she is doing.
If you accept that postulate, I've got a corollary: On the internet, whoever has the strongest will gets his way. The "evade content censorship" goal has no inherent superiority over the "censor content" goal. Whichever goal has the most (or most potent) resources applied can still win out.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
then you end up wiith better lock pickers.
We might see some 'revolutionary' developments in collaboration come from this, hopefully we can all learn from it.
Wherever You Go, There You Are
"By the time all is said and done, Chinese censorship is little more than mocked by thousands of people like Xiaomi"
Now, let's put that number, "thousands", into perspective: China has a population of about 1.3 billion.
The Internet has empowered the Chinese people more than the combined effects of 30 years of [economic] growth, urbanization, exports, and investments by foreign firms.
This, along with their human rights violations & lack of good global citizenship sounds like a really good reason to cut them off to me.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Sure, while people who have the expertise, time, and desire to circumvent "censorship" may just view censorship as a mere "complication", for the rest of the population who are work hard all day and lack both the energy and prowess and are afraid of being arrested, it's still censorship.
And it's more than just censorship, it's stuff that fills the void of truth like propaganda and disinformation. Just mix it all together and you have most of the populace which is misinformed and under, for lack of better terms, a soft form of mind control.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." ... even in a country under the control of the Red Dynasty.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You have to wonder how this is changing the psychology of the standard citizen. The more people need to rely on each other to circumvent the government restrictions, the less strength the government itself has as a controlling body; ironically enough, i wonder if the additional reliance on your neighbor would create a tighter knit, more ready to challenge the government community.
Salusa Secundus