Great summary of everything. Good to know that these is some freedom to discuss this online. I have had many thoughts on this topic. I think its so bizzarre for a government in the modern age to believe that supressing something will make it disappear. Quite the opposite!

Your response to my question was puzzling. You said that facebook is completely inaccessible, but you obviously have access to it. Do you proxy to get access, or did you mean to write that facebook was inaccessible for a long time, until Google agreed to censor itself and was given permission to operate in China. Since they got permission, now facebook, twitter, and youtube are all accessible. Is that right?

My question was primarily about access to google.com vs access to google.cn and what “censoring” really means. When I was there, I took time to do some web browsing, and I found that I could access google.com as well as google.cn. I thought it was strange that China would let google.com be accessed from within China if they are worried about censoring. I mean, from google.com, I searched for “Tiananmen” and several photos of soldiers attacking students were returned, and I was able to visit those websites and see pictures that the Chinese government didn’t want me seeing. Then, I searched for 天安门 and only pictures of government officials and sunny days were returned. I got the impression from this that the “censoring” is more just about censoring the search results of searches done in Chinese. Is that right? Or was there some crack in the filter that the Chinese government doesn’t know about?

That was my main curiosity. I figure the Chinese government has got to loosen up eventually, and I am hoping that the one party system will give way and you guys will be able to choose your leaders from amongst citizens. I know the US doesn’t do that exactly either, but we claim that we do, and that’s something. And really, ordinary people can become national leaders… but usually only if they impress/please/obey people with lots of money and power.

Oh, one of the thoughts I had on this issue was when I was trying to justify the censoring of the search results. I started to wonder what exactly a search result is, and I recalled that Google’s algorithm is based on how popular a certain link is for the search terms that you typed in, and it tracks that popularity with the number of times people click on it, or link to it, or whatever. So, I realized that if we’re just counting the number of things, and if during the 1990’s and early 2000’s there were 3 times as many internet users in America than there were in China, then there would be a whole lot more links and clicks based on America’s opinion of what a good website is for a certain search term, and thus when Google’s algorithm returns something to a Chinese user, it would really just be returning what most American’s would want to see based on the search terms. Ultimately, its the perfect way for a technologically advanced nation (America) to infuse their culture into a nation that is starting to use a similar technology (China). So, maybe filtering isn’t so bad. However, what should probably be done is China should force Google to use a new database for searches done in China, and that database should only include clicks and links done by Chinese citizens/computers.

What do you think? I know its not exactly this simple, but seems like this is a slightly different perspective, and could be valid.

John

I really like your questions and opinions, but before digging into this, I’d like to start with solving your “puzzle”.

As you guessed, I actually access facebook and youtube through proxies. In China, we call the method “getting across the wall” 翻墙. The serious restriction led to the results that more and more people have to learn the skill of “翻墙” so that they could get information they need. Those information are not necessarily political.

You mentioned twitter, yes, it is sure the most popular and hottest tools in the world. And it is not popular in China for the obvious reason. However, because of the powerful API, people are easily accessing it from plenty of 3rd party applications. That’s why I saw more and more Chinese young people and famous influencers join in. I do believe these techniques that support information sharing will eventually change China in near future. But that is the last thing that the party wants to see – people getting united. Hope that can help you to understand the government’s behaviors: they might be tolerant to criticize and negative opinions, but they must control the channels with which people are able to get united and actually do something.

The Hillary’s speech on internet freedom was not allowed to be published in Chinese Medias. Instead, the news said that it is a reflection of hegemonism. Few people know exactly what it about and its meaning. We always say that Americans know nothing about China, while it turns out to be that we are the last one who sees how the world looks like. When I was a little child, I was told that I should learn English to see the real external world, but now, I found the meaning of studying English is to see China more clearly. I doubt if any person will insist in supporting the one-party system after understanding the political system of US. The fact is: people are getting seriously misled far from the truth.

For the search algorithm, I do not agree that it should be an excuse of the filtering. I suppose this is more of a “contrification” issue than a culture aggression. Chinese culture is abandoned by us ourselves, not anyone from external. You can easily draw this conclusion from the long, long Chinese history. The latest event was the well-known “culture revolution”. Who else can protect your culture if you do not treasure it yourself? Like you said, putting more weight on the local data in results might be an easy solution. I don’t know. But I do not think filtering is good in anyway. We are trained to get opinions from the authorities instead of our own judgment for centuries. And that led to the lack of creativity and innovation, which is one of the key of competencies in modern age.

I am worried about the future of China, because more people are starting to get freed on mind in a remarkable speed, but the government no longer has effective ways to get them back to the age of ignorance and blindness.

Leo