Following on from The Great Firewall Of China -there have been some recent developments in the country which are interesting. BBC
China approves tighter rules on internet Hundreds of millions of people in China use the internet, although its content is closely monitored by the authorities
China has tightened its rules on internet usage to enforce a previous requirement that users fully identify themselves to service providers.The move is part of a package of measures which state-run Xinhua news agency said would protect personal information.
But critics believe the government is trying to limit freedom of speech.
The announcement will be seen as evidence China’s new leadership views the internet as a threat.
The Chinese authorities closely monitor internet content that crosses its borders and regularly block sensitive stories through use of what is known as the Great Firewall of China.
However, it has not stopped hundreds of millions of Chinese using the internet, many of them using micro-blogging sites to expose, debate and campaign on issues of national interest.
In recent months, the internet and social media have been used to orchestrate mass protests and a number of corrupt Communist Party officials have been exposed by individuals posting criticisms on the internet.
Internet v officialdom
Organisation of mass protests via social media forced officials to scrap environmentally-questionable projects in Shifang and Qidong
Shaanxi official Yang Daca sacked after internet campaign exposed his many expensive watches, deemed unaffordable on a provincial official’s salary
District-level Party boss Lei Zhengfu sacked after a video clip of him having sex with an 18-year-old girl appears on the internetThe new measures come a month after a new leadership, led by Xi Jinping, was installed by the ruling Communist Party.
The new man in charge of the internet, Liu Qibao, has a reputation for taking a hard line on media control. He recently called for “more research on how to strengthen the construction, operation and management of the Internet and promote mainstream online themes”.
‘Safeguards’
The new measures now formally require anyone signing agreements to access the internet, fixed-line telephone and mobile devices to provide network service operators with “genuine identification information”, known as real-name registration, Xinhua reports.
Real-name registration was supposed to be have been implemented in 2011 but was not widely enforced.
China’s biggest internet firm, Sina Corp, warned earlier this year in a public document that such a move would “severely reduce” traffic to its hugely-successful micro-blogging site Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter with more than 300 million users.
Under the new rules, network service providers will also be required to “instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted” by deleting the posts and saving the records “before reporting to supervisory authorities”.
The measures are designed to “ensure internet information security, safeguard the lawful rights and interests of citizens… and safeguard national security and social public interests”, and were approved by China’s top legislature at the closing session of a five-day meeting on Friday, Xinhua reports.
The calls for tighter controls of the internet have been led by state media, which said that rumours spread on the web could harm the public and sow chaos and confusion.
The government has said officially that it welcomes the exposure of official abuses, but a new generation of ever bolder bloggers and commentators pose a threat that the leadership seems determined to counter, the BBC’s Charles Scanlon reports.
Online protests after Chinese Twitter user arrested The tweet was posted just days before the Chinese leadership handover.
Hundreds of web users have signed a petition demanding the release of a Beijing man accused of criticising China’s authorities on Twitter.
Zhai Xiaobing, who is being linked to Twitter name @Stariver, was stopped by police days before the new Chinese leaders were confirmed on 15 November.
In a tweet, the account compared the Communist Party 18th National Congress to horror film Final Destination.
In it, characters at first escape death but still end up dying one by one.
The tweet, posted on 4 November, read, as translated from Chinese: “#SpoilerTweet# #EnterAtYourPeril# Final Destination 6 to arrive soon.
“The Great Hall of the People suddenly collapses, only seven of more than 2,000 people inside survive.
“Later, one-by-one the survivors die in strange ways. Is it the game of God, or the Devil venting his wrath?
“What does the mysterious number 18 have to do with opening the gate to Hell? A shocking global premiere on 8 November!”
All the numbers mentioned in the tweet make reference to the leadership handover – the 18th Congress began at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on 8 November, and the new leadership consists of seven members, one of whom is the newly appointed Communist Party chief Xi Jinping.
“The story is significant on a whole other level because he used Twitter and not Sina”
Duncan Clark
BDA China
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Miyun detention centre has confirmed Mr Zhai was there, having been arrested because “he wrote a micro-blog post containing false information on the internet”.
‘Significant case’
Chinese authorities closely monitor domestic social-media sites, including the Twitter equivalent, micro-blog Sina Weibo.
One analyst said that Mr Zhai’s arrest was significant because it had happened after a post on Twitter – which is officially blocked in China – and not on Weibo.
“It did surprise me at first – it’s a white-collar guy that seemed to have a misfortune to be arrested and made an example of, as there were many posts on Weibo worse than his,” Duncan Clark, chairman of consultancy BDA China, told the BBC.
“But the story is significant on a whole other level because he used Twitter and not Sina.”
Some 35 million people access Twitter from inside China, using a proxy or VPN (virtual private network) that allows users to penetrate the country’s “great firewall”.
Although the authorities are unable to censor content posted on Twitter, they monitor what Chinese users write.
“In China, domestic sites have to hand over the IP address of a user when demanded to do so by the authorities, but with a foreign site there’s no such jurisdiction – so the Chinese government must have used other means to identify this person,” said Mr Clark.
It is not clear how Mr Zhai was identified.
Chinese authorities have arrested people for their Twitter posts before.
In 2010, human rights activist Cheng Jianping was sentenced to a year in a labour camp after repeating a Twitter comment urging nationalist protesters to smash Japan’s pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.
At the time, China and Japan were embroiled in a diplomatic row over a group of uninhabited, but disputed, islands in the East China Sea.
Groups of young Chinese were demonstrating against Japan, publicly smashing Japanese products.
BBC
China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion
BEIJING | Fri Dec 28, 2012 4:32am EST(Reuters) – China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain “illegal” information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.
The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.
The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.
Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.
“Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities,” the rules state.
The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users, something the government has said it is trying to encourage.
Li Fei, deputy head of parliament’s legislative affairs committee, said the new rules did not mean people needed to worry about being unable to report corruption online. But he added a warning too.
“When people exercise their rights, including the right to use the Internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution, and not harm the legal rights of the state, society … or other citizens,” he told a news conference.
Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.
Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina’s wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.
The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users.
“So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities. Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?” complained one user.
“We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom,” wrote another.
The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumors, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.
Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.
(Reuters – Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sally Huang; Editing by Nick Macfie)
China steps up Internet controls in Tibet
HX media 