Assignment:
Respond to the post by reading the article used on the post and then answer the question made. If you don't agree with your any part of your classmate's post, create a counterargument and offer evidence to support your opinion.
The article argues that the Chinese government's internet censorship is due to the fear of the spread of collective social movement which would be damaging to the Party. Even though Chinese Internet is praised, behind the praises as the article states are "thongs of specialized police officers, fate commentators and ever-changing technologies" (Hvistendahl, 2014).
The Chinese government uses strategies to censor certain subject that deemed threatening to the regime. Meanwhile non-threatening or inferior posts are left untouched. To test the extent to which the Chinese government censors information a team of social scientist began to examine Chinese censorship. To test this, the researcher downloaded social media post from more than 1300 site over a period of seven months. Ove time, they watched as the Chinese government took down the posts.
As the article suggests, the researcher found that the post that they "themselves" assume or classify as sensitive were only slightly more likely than average to be deleted 24 % versus 13 % overall. This was a surprise since the Chinese government had a different standard of censorship. The next category that the researchers examined were posted that pertained to significant events. The finding as the article articulates was that regardless of whether the post supported or criticized the state, they were censored.
The researcher took a step further to have a better understanding of Chinese censorship. Thus, over a period of 3 weeks, they opened 200 user accounts, 100 sites and authored 120 unique posts. These posts varied from the subject such as collective action, demonstration and government land grabs in Fujian, (Hvistendahl, 2014). These posts were not exclusively antigovernment; they were a mixture of both pro and anti-government.
The results were astounding. The researcher found that the post advocating for collective action were 20 to 40 percent more likely to be censored. whereas, post that criticized the government and even called out officials by their specific name was a less likely to be censored. This finding further emphasizes what we have discussed through this semester.
The Chinese government, whether at the national level or local level views stability as it's their main priority especially in maintaining the CCP regime. Obvious, collective action or social movement posts are censored because it could essentially result in the takedown of the CCP regimes as it has been the case in authoritarian regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. Conclusively, the Chinese government fears a strong civil society because it would mean that it would have to be held accountable.
Question:
Given the measures that the Chinese government has taken on censoring information on the internet and social media, do you think that Chinese citizens will eventually find their around the censorship?
References
Hvistendahl, M. ( August 21, 2014). " Study of Internet Reveals the deepest Fear if China's government".