Privacy
The protection of privacy for Chinese citizens who use the Internet is currently almost non-existent. Currently there does not exist any concrete laws to protect the privacy of Chinese citizens (Cheung, 279). This unfortunately leaves Chinese citizens vulnerable. Experts have identified an example of what can happen with poor privacy protection, the “human flesh search engine”. This term refers to the use of Internet mobs of Chinese citizens who seek to expose details of an individual, with the overall aim to ruin their lives, in extreme cases they have even led to the death of innocent people (Cheung, 276).
Internet Filtering
Not everything is filtered on the Internet in China; the government chooses what it wants to filter out and what it wants to let in. The government pushes to remove any political threats to their monopoly on power, but they allow anything that boosts the Chinese economy (Goldsmith, 89). To do this the Chinese government employs a firewall system similar to what is found in corporations, there are a limited number of entry/exit points for data to pass through which are filtered for any terms, IP addresses or domains which the Chinese government deems to stimulate a rebellion against their monopoly (Goldsmith, 92-96).
There has always been a set of policies that restrict the exposure to information that citizens have, these have been transferred to the Internet (Zittrain, 70). China’s Internet filtering efforts remain opaque, and in the absence of government cooperation or admission of filtering methods, data probing of the sort used in our study is intended to help determine the scope of filtering (Zittrain, 75). The Chinese government and associated network authorities are clearly continuing to experiment with different forms of blocking, indicating that Chinese network filtering is an important instrument of state Internet policy, and one to which significant technical and human resources continue to be devoted (Zittrain, 75).
Internet Access
The majority of the Chinese population still does not use the Internet, the reasons being a lack of computer skills, facilities, time, and interest (Zhu, 50). In terms of the demographic of Internet users in China, the majority of users are young single males who are well educated (Wei, 210-211). Most users utilize the Internet primarily as an interpersonal communication medium and as an information medium; most of this information is domestic as opposed to global (Zhu, 51).
One major demographic who is overlooked by the Internet boom in China is that of the elderly population. The main reasons the older Chinese population are not adopting the Internet as much as the younger population is that they don’t have the economic support, and they do not possess the knowledge necessary to operate a computer (Yao, 375). For those older citizens who do use the Internet, they are similar to the young demographic in the sense that they are well-educated individuals (Yao, 380). In order to reach out to the older population which will be rapidly joining the Internet community experts have identified that the government must address a set of barriers: health (radiation), circumstances (access to computers), internet design (webpage layout and design), knowledge (ability to use computers), economic (funds to purchase computers), and psychological (accepting what is found on the Internet) (Yao, 382).
Political Aspect of Chinese Cyberspace
The laws that regulate the Internet in China are largely based on laws that pre-dated its existence – publication laws (Hughes, 61). However, in 2002 new regulations were introduced on top of the existing regulations, these new regulations are said to be the most intrusive on a Chinese citizens Internet usage (Hughes, 64). These recent regulations constitute an effort by the Chinese government to make a more proactive Internet policy and to provide itself with better instruments for influencing activities in cyberspace (Hughes, 65). Chinese Internet users can and do find ways to outsmart government blockades and restrictions through methods such as using proxy-servers outside China to access banned addresses, however the state has so far almost proved resourceful in its attempts to close such gaps (Hughes, 71). The Chinese government, “…continues to inform how, by whom, and what kind of political news should be presented to the public” (Tai, 30). With regard to the sensitive political news or foreign policy issues, the government still keeps a close eye on cyber sphere (Wu, 140). There have been efforts made by activist groups in North America to try and combat the censorship created by the Chinese government (MacKinnon, 36), an example being the Citizen’s Lab headed by Ron Deibert, a professor at the University of Toronto.
Works Cited
Cheung, Anne S. Y. “China Internet Going Wild: Cyber-Hunting Versus Privacy Protection.” Computer Law & Security Review 25.3 (2009): 275-279. Web. 25 Jan 2012.
Goldsmith, Jack L, and Tim Wu. Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.
Hughes, Christopher R, and Gudrun Wacker. China and the Internet: Politics of the Digital Leap Forward. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Print.
Rebecca MacKinnon. “China’s “Networked Authoritarianism”.” Journal of Democracy 22.2 (2011): 32-46. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.
Tai, Zixue. The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Wei, Lu, et. al. “Internet Development in China.” Journal of Information Science 28.3 (2002): 207-223. Web. 25 Jan 2012.
Wu, Xu. Chinese Cyber Nationalism: Evolution, Characteristics, and Implications. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2007. Print.
Yao, Dengfeng, et. al. “A Survey of Technology Accessibility Problems Faced by Older Users in China” Univ Access Inf Soc 10.4 (2011):373–390. Web. 25 Jan 2012.
Zhu, Jonathan J.H., and Wang Enhai. “Diffusion, Use and Effect of the Internet in China.” Communications of the ACM 48.4 (2005): 49-53. Web. 25 Jan 2012.
Zittrain, Jonathan, and Benjamin Edelman. “Internet Filtering in China.” IEEE Computer Society 7.2 (2003): 70-77. Web. 25 Jan 2012.