Blocked China Web users rage against Great Firewall
Pastor Dale Morgan
Blocked China Web users rage against Great Firewall*
Reuters
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; 9:10 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Yang Zhou is no cyberdissident, but recent curbs on
his Web surfing habits by China's censors have him fomenting discontent
about China's "Great Firewall."
Yang's fury erupted a few days ago when he found he could not browse his
friend's holiday snaps on Flickr.com, due to access restrictions by
censors after images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were posted
on the photo-sharing Web site."
"Once you've complained all you can to your friends, what more can you
do? What else is there but anger and disillusionment?" Yang said after
venting his anger with friends at a hot-pot restaurant in Beijing.
The blocking of Flickr is the latest casualty of China's ongoing battle
to control its sprawling Internet. Wikipedia, and a raft of other
popular Web sites, discussion boards and blogs have already fallen
victim to the country's censors.
China employs a complex system of filters and an army of tens of
thousands of human monitors to survey the country's 140 million Internet
users' surfing habits and surgically clip sensitive content from in
front of their eyes.
Its stability-obsessed government says the surveillance machinery,
commonly known as the "Great Firewall," is necessary to let Internet
users enjoy a "healthy" online environment and build a "harmonious" society.
Yang just thinks it's a pain.
"I just want to look at some photos! What's wrong with that?" said the
24-year-old accountant, typical of millions of young urban-dwelling
professionals who are increasingly aware of and fed up with state
intrusions into their private life.
Privacy, once regarded with suspicion in pre-reform China, has become a
sought-after commodity among China's burgeoning middle class, according
to Nicholas Bequelin from Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch.
"Of course, it's the first thing people seek when they have the economic
resources," Bequelin said. "We see this growing in China in the wake of
ideas of ownership and property."
PRIVACY BATTLES
Away from cyberspace, the battle for privacy between China's secretive
government and its increasingly active citizens has turned violent in
recent months.
In Bobai county, in the southern region of Guangxi, hundreds of farmers
smashed government offices and burnt cars after local officials imposed
punitive fines on residents who had defied family planning laws and had
too many children.
The battle for control of China's Internet, however, will remain much
more covert than confrontational, according to Liu Bin, an IT consultant
with Beijing-based consulting firm BDA.
He believes it will take a long time before the government loosens
control over web content, especially because the Internet-savvy middle
class is unlikely to take to the streets -- like the farmers of Bobai
county -- over lack of web access.
"Many educated people feel they can accept the current status quo
because it doesn't have much impact on their daily lives ... They have
been living with government propaganda for over 1,000 years," Liu said.
Such an attitude grates on Du Dongjin, a 40 year-old IT worker in Shanghai.
Du has decided to sue his Internet service provider, the Shanghai branch
of state-owned behemoth China Telecom, who he said had blocked a Web
site that had carried financial software he hoped to market.
"If the court authorities aren't influenced and they can hear the case
fairly, I will win," Du said.
ANONYMOUS GRIEVANCES
Most frustrated Web surfers, however, would rather air their grievances
in the relatively safe realms of Internet anonymity.
They still have their anonymity because a state push to have China's
millions of bloggers register with their real names to ensure they only
posted "responsible" Web content was abandoned after an outcry from the
Internet industry and due to the impossible task of keeping lists of
exploding numbers of users.
"The thirst for information in China is so strong, it is very difficult
for the (Communist) Party to stay ahead of the curve," Bequelin explained.
Within days of the blocking of Flickr, links to browser plug-ins and
how-to explanations to subvert the filters and see Flickr photos were
gleefully posted on blogs and in chat-rooms.
Many posts were preceded by tirades against the censors for
"harmonizing" Flickr.
One blogger posted an image of a voodoo doll, calling it the Great
Firewall and inviting users to -- digitally -- stick pins in it.
Yang said restrictions on Flickr probably wouldn't motivate him to write
a blog, much less push him down the road of "potentially dangerous"
activism.
But he liked the idea of the Great Firewall voodoo doll.
"Have you got the link? Maybe I'll go stick a pin in it," he said.