The GREAT Firewall of China
Yay. We have come to the final weekly blog of the Digital Communities. It’s been an interesting learning experience for me to write blogs and to familiarise with new social media platform, Tumblr. Now come to the last topic of weekly blog, The GREAT Firewall of China. What’s good about China? China is the biggest and largest economy perspective and human population in Asia as well as the whole world.
The Great Firewall of China
China’s online population of 731 million gets a highly restricted internet, one that doesn’t include access to Google, Facebook, YouTube or the New York Times. There’s little coverage of the 1989 student protests in Tiananmen Square. China is able to control such a vast ocean of content through the largest system of censorship in the world, aptly known as the Great Firewall of China. It’s a joint effort between government monitors and the technology and telecommunications companies that are compelled to enforce the state’s rules. The stakes go beyond China, which is setting an example that other authoritarian countries can imitate. (Bloomberg 2017).
How is it without Facebook, Google, YouTube?
Netizens all over the world were sent into a frenzy when it was reported that the Chinese government had blocked WhatsApp around September 25 this year. Many were quick to decry the move as just another way for the government to strengthen it’s “Great Firewall of China”, an amalgamation of legislation and technology that blocks most the country’s population from “Western ideologies”, including US-based companies such as Facebook and Google. In doing so, detractors of the move argue, the government is continuing to stifle the creativity and innovation of the people, as well flouting more fundamental principles such as freedom of speech, or even democracy. (Kannan 2017) However, it is no surprise that the government has taken this step, and, in fact, it’s part of a greater strategy that is much worthiness.
Oh well
China is a huge economic success story. Even now when GDP growth is expected to drop to 7% or less, with all that that implies for unemployment and social unrest, it is still expanding far faster than nearly all competing economies. But with success comes responsibility. Chinese President Hu Jintao marked 30 years of national reform last week by announcing: "There's no way for us to turn back." The BBC and the other news organisations should be used as a litmus test of China's ambitions to carry on going forward. The trading of words is even more important than the trading of goods.