Censorship enforcement regimes on the Chinese Internet

Anders PedersenThesis Abstract16. April 2009

anderspeders@gmail.com

What they used to think• “In the new century, liberty will spread by cell phone and cable modem … Now, there’s no

question China has been trying to crack down on the internet --- good luck. That’s sort of like trying to nail Jello to the wall.”1 (former President of the United States Bill Clinton, 8 March 2000)

Premises

• Hangovers following the wave of Internet optimism The Chinese state has succeeded in imposing censorship on the Internet (The Great Firewall, blocking of Youtube and filtering Google.cn)

• Tradeoff of China as an authoritarian regime: Economic growth or political control

Challenges from current research

• Overwhelming empirical documentation on freedom of expression violations

• Still little transparency from what the Chinese state does and doesn’t

• Growing mapping of Chinas governance structures on the Internet

Where it leaves this study

• An institutional framework around “enforcement regimes” allows a focus on “how by who” rather than “how much” censorship

• In other words: “Which institutional regimes assisted the Chinese state in reaching comprehensive and efficient censorship”

Problem formulering

• What tools have the Chinese role Chinese state manage to censor the Internet and

• In what way does the censorship-tools applied on the Chinese Internet constitute different enforcement regimes and ?

• The Great Firewall: the inside-outside dimension

• The public private regime:• The private networks: QQ

Key theoretical perceptions

• The Internet is a constructed space

• Internet users can be regulated by the architecture itself or by intimidations…

• Institutions act within structures, but can leverage agency

• Private agencies and the state are separate, are driven by separate incentives and act accordingly

Limitations

• Self-censorship and panoptical reflections about the Chinese police state

• Circumvention: political dissidents on Youtube and the use of proxy-servers

• No extensive disucssion of institutional analysis’ place in authoritarian states

• The Chinese Internet as an unbalanced public sphere and the idea of authoritarian deliberation

• The role of the media is not included

Normative approach

• China doesn’t recognize freedom of expression as defined by the ICCPR, but this this study use it as point of departure

• Freedom of expression within the Internet:• Freedom to hold opinions (free to produce content) • Freedom to impart information and ideas (access to

producing and sharing content)• Freedom to receive information which includes the right to

gather information (ie. access to unedited search engines)• Transparency of censorship regulation (ie. the need for

explicit information for users, when material is filtered)

Internet as theoretical field

• Constructed (Lessig)

• Generative – it inherently generates wealth, innovation and information (Zittrain and Benkler)

• The end-to-end principle (Zittrain)

• Can be regulated at the points-of-control

• Constitutes a legal territory for regulation

Structures

• The socio-economic dynamics of the generative net (incentive for the state)

• The architecture of the Internet (complex regulatory field)

• The law (some presence of rule of law)

Agency and agents

• Gatekeepers at the points of control

• State institutions (enforcement agencies and regulatory boards)

• Private agencies (Google, Yahoo, Baidu)

• Users (will seek information and has the right to do so)

Mechanisms (operationalizing censorship on the Internet)

• Logging (surveillance of users): privacy

• Filtering and blocking websites: access to information and free speech

• Intimidations such as arrests: free speech

• The campaign

Enforcement regimes

• An ideal type to understand institutional dynamics and public-private relations

• Three levels of enforcement:• Law and regulation• Oversight• Execution

Three enforcement regimes

• The Great Firewall: • Measure: Filtering inside outside going content• Command and control, pure public regime from

regulation to execution• Shaping policy on Internet freedom (regulation)• Managing a complete list of blocked websites

(oversight)• Implementing the Great Firewall (execution)

Private-public co-regulation regimewithin China

• The state: • Drafting voluntary “public pledge” (regulation)• Monitoring the field (oversight)• Arresting users (execution)

• Private agencies: • Managing list of key-words to filter content

(oversight)• Implementing the actual filtering (execution)• Sharing information about users with the state

(execution)

Private regime with state influence

• Filtering of content within private networks such as QQ and Sina

• Managing list of filtered key words (oversight)• Formulating terms-of-use agreements with users

under private legal frameworks• Executing filtering and sharing information with the

state (execution)

Conclusions

• The Chinese state applies a varied strategy to reach efficient censorship

• The Chinese state initiates enforcement at all points of control

• The private agencies plays an individual role a should therefore be held accountable

• The more points of control on the Internet, the more censorship (Search engines)

Consequences for human rights strategies

• CSR offers a framework for challenging the actions of private agencies

• CSR attempts to moderate behavior of private agencies

• CSR frameworks like the Global Network Initiative is currently including enteties like Yahoo!, Google, but no Chinese. Another West><East. CSR thereby continues the dichotomy of current HR discussions of cultural differences and universality.

A role model for other states?

• Will the enforcement regimes shaped in China be brought to other countries?

Questions:

• Is enforcement regimes too static a model?

• Is the private-public distinction meaningful in an authoritarian regime like the Chinese?

• What is effective censorship? Currently China is blocking up to 10% op global websites and 20-30% on sensitive words. Is that really a success?