#8 Global Social Media // The Great Firewall of China
Chinaâs online population of 731 million receives a highly restricted internet. Protecting Chinaâs internet from foreign influence and securing their âcyber sovereigntyâ has led to the Great Firewall of China (GTW). GTW is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the Peopleâs Republic of China to regulate internet domestically. Itâs role in the Internet censorship in China is to block access to foreign websites and to slow down cross-border internet traffic. (Wikipedia)
This means, people living in China donât have access to Google, Facebook YouTube or the New York Times. Skype is the most recent service to be removed from the App Store with Winnie The Pooh being temporarily banned as well. According to research done by Freedom House, China has the least online freedom, closely followed by Syria and Cuba.
China hasnât always had restrictions in regard to the internet, when the internet came about in 1994 it was fairly free. However, as its popularity grew, in 2000 the government put in place new laws and rules surrounding internet use and what people would have access to. This is when the Golden Shield Project was introduced. This was a database driven surveillance system that had capabilities of accessing every citizenâs record, and created the foundations for the Great Firewall of China.
Currently, the government employs about 50,000 people to enforce censorship. This role entails banning websites that are disapproved and forcing search engines to filter out certain content. There are also social media influencers that are required to post pro-government comments on social media sites, with an estimated 500 million comments per year.
With more than half of Chinaâs population online, the government argues that the restrictions are about maintaining social order and safeguarding national security. They believe that news exerted by online platforms such as Google and Facebook is not necessary information to be consumed by the people of China, hence why they have put these security measures in place. Several people do actually agree with Chinaâs security around the internet, Zuo Aining, a senior credit risk associate has said, âI personally think that for the Internet, as a very open platform, certain strategies for oversight are very necessary⊠what Iâm concerned about are things like terrorist attacks.â
Critics say that this is obstructing freedom of speech in the country and that the approach constrains China economically. They say that this is prevalent because they are stifling innovation, preventing the exchange of important ideas and cutting access to services used by businesses like Google Cloud. They fear that if other countries like Russia follow in Chinaâs footsteps, in relation to internet security, that the vision behind the internet could be seriously compromised. (Bloomberg News)
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewallhttps://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-chinahttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-congress-classof2012-internet/internet-living-with-the-great-firewall-of-china-idUSKBN1CM1FRhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/14/truth-behind-great-firewall-of-china-headlines
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