China and the Digital Revolution

Rebecca Mackinnon , former CNN Beijing Correspondent and a fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society who now writes the blog Global Voices Online , was online Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the digital revolution's presence in China, the government's efforts to censor Internet content and the rise of blogging.

The transcript follows.

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Washington, D.C.: Phil Pan mentioned earlier in his discussion that only a minority of blogs are political. Are there many blogs that are anti-American? Does the Chinese government censor such blogs, especially in cases where the blogs may be critical of issues sensitive to the improvement of U.S.-China relations? If yes, for what reasons do you think they might do so?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Greetings!! Great to see so many questions already lined up!!

Yes I think Phil is absolutely right, only a small minority of Chinese blogs are political. Yes, some blogs are anti-American, or more accurately, some bloggers often post opinions on their blogs that are extremely critical of the United States and its motives. I haven't heard of any cases of anti-American blog posts being censored or bloggers encountering consequences for anti-American speech on the web in China.

Right after September 11, 2001, there weren't really any blogs in China but there were a lot of Chinese chatrooms- and there were a lot of conversations in which Chinese netizens were saying things like "served them right." That was definitely not the official Chinese government policy - which condemned the terrorists. Also, after the Spyplane incident in May 2001, people in Chinese chatrooms were very critical of their government for having handed back the U.S. crew and plane, and saw their government as having been too compromising with the U.S.

So there are definitely parts of Chinese cyberspace that take a much harder line towards the U.S. than the Chinese government does, and it does not appear that these conversations are censored - at least I haven't heard of them being censored.

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Washington, D.C.: How many bloggers is there in China today, by your estimate?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Good question. Different people have different answers. Some reports go as high as 30 million, though I think 5-10 million is more realistic.

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Marietta, Ga.: Hi Rebecca, it's Leonard Witt from the Public Journalism Network . I got so mad at Yahoo! that I uninstalled all its programs from my computer. I also tried to boycott them, but that is not 100 percent successful. It seems like such meager protest, that Yahoo! can just brush off as nothing compared to the upside of doing business with China. What effective actions can lowly users like me do that might actually matter in the worldwide battle against not only censorship but also against aiding the jailing of dissidents?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Hi Leonard! I think it's important for us as consumers to show these companies how their actions in places like China impact our own ability to trust them with our data and our creative works.

Aside from choosing your products and services in accordance with your values, you may also note that some socially responsible investment funds who are starting to ask these companies some tough questions about their behavior. SRI funds have had an impact on company behavior when it comes to environmental practices and labor rights. They're just starting to wake up to the human rights implications of technology investments, but I think they'll have an increasing impact in this area too.

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Arlington, Va.: I don't quite understand why the US Congress is all up in arms about Google, et al. censoring Internet content in China yet they can't get all worked up over all the companies that deal with China's manufacturers who abuse their workers by paying them slave wages and expose them to awful sweatshop working conditions. Why no condemnation for Wal-Mart but all of this hue and cry for Google?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Good question. I get the impression that there is quite a lot of political pressure on these companies for their outsourcing and labor practices. However these things are not lumped together in the same hearings.

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Riffa, Bahrain: Hi Rebecca!

Deku - a blogger has begun to auto-redirect all of Yahoo's search traffic using some javascript to point to a blog hosted on Google's blogger which forwards the surfer on to the Amnesty International campaign page on protecting freedom of expression online in China. ( digg.com )

On April 27, 2005, Shi Tao (a Chinese journalist) received a ten-year prison term for sending information about a Communist Party decision through his Yahoo email account to a Web site based in the United States. Jim - another blogger in California has been tracking the folks being convicted in China (including Shi Tao) as a result of Yahoo's testimony and breach of information at his blog - booyahoo.com

In your opinion, is this the best way to create awareness about Internet censorship in China and could you please suggest other ways by which bloggers can raise awareness online about the ongoing Internet censorhip policies being practiced by the Big 3 - Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in China?

Thanks.

Rebecca Mackinnon: Hello Rifa! Please say hello to all the Bahraini bloggers for me. You've got a great blogging community over there.

Probably the best way to raise awareness is to... yes.. BLOG! Let your readers know what these various companies are and aren't doing - while making it clear what the distinctions are between their behavior. Maybe talk about what the implications of their actions in China might eventually be for censorship and free speech in the Middle East.

Also I think its good for bloggers to help spread the word about tools people can use to get around censorship, like the ones Phil pointed to in the sidebar of his story today. Bloggers can also do a great service by spreading the word about online security: if you're writing politically sensitive emails, for instance, you may want to consider not using a commercial web-based e-mail service like yahoo or gmail, but rather use something secure like hushmail. These companies have a responsibility to act more ethically but we can all get smarter about protecting ourselves as well.

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Knoxville, Tenn.: My contention is that China takes it current course of "Totalitarianism Lite" because it resembles regimes in the semi-free world. If corporations like Microsoft participate in massive censorship campaigns against consumers as the state of China does against its citizens, how alien from the world can China feel? Comment?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Good question. In fact a Chinese government spokesman was saying the other day that Chinese censorship and surveillance is not very different from any other country's... comments that were met with great sarcasm by some Chinese bloggers, I must point out.

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New York, N.Y.: Google's "don't be evil" mantra appears to have become a rod with which to whack the media giant for its China policy but it has been an important factor in building brand loyalty - particularly in the early days. In my sector, energy, China appears to be creating (and imposing on the rest of us) new business models in bidding for energy assets. As an energy colleague Besife Tonwe keeps reminding me the competition of ideas never ends. "Don't be complacent".

Rebecca Mackinnon: Absolutely. China is creating new business models for censorship and surveillance too, with help from certain companies.

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Reston, Va.: Do any governments sponsor Internet sites or other digital media to influence foreign opinion? We all know about Voice of America radio and I wonder if the U.S. or others have something similar in the digital world? This would seem to be an opportunity to get messages across easier than over traditional radio, although we need to keep the radio going for the vast numbers of people not having access to the Internet. Thank you.

Rebecca Mackinnon: Yes, the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia both have extensive Chinese-language Web sites. They are of course blocked in China, though people are certainly accessing them. In fact I was on a VofA Chinese language TV show last week, and people were calling in from all over China. Some of them were watching or listening to it on the Internet.

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Anonymous: The United States is the nation which respects and always promotes democracy to the whole world while faces a problem with four major Internet companies which put business above the value of democracy. These companies have disgraced the image of their own nation as the U.S.! As a U.S. citizen, I feel ridiculed myself as seeing these companies have intended to accept the wrongful and evil ways of dominating their own Chinese citizens by the group of deceiving Chinese regimes. These folks never ever fail to do wrong things to their own citizens and continue to do harmful things to other countries such as dominating Tibet, stealing islands of Vietnam, occupying lands of India, and intending destroying the world economies with cheap products of China! The devastations from China to U.S. and other nations seem never fail to grow! The U.S. has to stop doing business with China and ban all forms of technical exchange with this growing evil empire to reduce future risks can be delivered by dangerous communist China! China is a riskiest nation of the world to deal with! Why can the U.S. afford to do business with China? A growing danger of the whole world and especially with U.S.?China has sent thousands of spies into the U.S. to spy technologies at so many companies in U.S. and why does the U.S. leave them alone? And why they are allowed to be in the U.S. until this time? How many companies in the U.S. are at risks with Chinese spying activities? How many technologies have been lost into Chinese spying activities?Please do not allow potential Chinese spies into the U.S. to protect our nation and its people from harms! Thank you for your concern.

Rebecca Mackinnon: Thanks. I can see why you're angry but actually I don't think U.S. businesses should pull out of China - including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and Cisco. They just need to find a way to do business more ethically, and think through what kinds of business they choose to do or not do, after considering the human rights consequences.

I lived in China for 9 years straight. I saw how my Chinese friends benefited and gained much more freedom to determine the course of their lives, their jobs, their creative works, and their identities over the course of a decade. Much of this increased freedom is thanks to economic engagement by the West. People don't have to work for a government agency. They can work for a foreign company or get venture capital money and start their own business. They can go abroad. They have choices. This is a fabulous thing.

The circle of freedoms for the average Chinese has definitely widened thanks to China's economic connection with the rest of the world. Meanwhile, most Chinese people have learned to shut off the political part of their brain and stay away from activities they know will get them in trouble. That does not, however, diminish or excuse the human rights abuses that are committed against people who protest against corruption or who want greater pluralism so that the lives of all Chinese people can be improved through better governance. Censorship helps silence those voices and prevents their countrymen from knowing that they ever existed or have been silenced. That's why U.S. companies, while they certainly should engage, must not aid and abet practices that are stifling the Chinese people from exercising their universally recognized human rights and living up to their full potential.

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Columbus, Ohio: I have long predicted that, as China experiences more and more wealth as a result of its move toward capitalism, its citizens would demand more individual liberties and opportunities. Do you agree with me that, over the long term (e.g. 5-10 years), China will be forced to loosen its censorship of the Internet?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Yes, I agree with you that over the long run things will change and the current system will lose its grip. However, this still doesn't excuse Yahoo helping to jail dissidents or Google and Microsoft helping to build a business model for censorship that will help slow down the process of change.

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Houston, Tex.: As you are now at Harvard Law School, why it is a crime that a U.S. company bribes a foreign government official but It is not a crime (or not made a crime) that a U.S. company helps a communist government to block the information to fool the people in that country?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Great question. That's exactly why Rep Chris Smith in Congress introduced a new bill, the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006. It would do just that. A lot of the bill is pretty controversial and I'm sure it will change a lot before having a chance of passing, but there are certainly lots of people who agree with you.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: What exactly is the Chinese government doing to bloggers? Realizing that the Chinese legal system is different from ours, have there been any arrests, any trials and any convictions of bloggers? Are bloggers harassed or threatened? Exactly what is the situation, and are there fears the Chinese government may implement a worse crackdown?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Good question. This depends in part on how you define "blogger." According to Reporters Without Borders (rsf.org) 49 cyberdissidents and 32 journalists are in prison in China for posting articles and criticism of the authorities on the Internet.

I do not know of a Chinese blogger who has gone to jail, but I know several who have had their blogs shut down. I also know some Chinese bloggers who have received threatening phone calls from police warning them to "be careful." In some cases they stopped blogging for a while.

But for the most part, for people who write regularly on blogging software platforms, it's mainly an issue of censorship, control, and intimidation. Another reason for this is that in order to have a blog in China which other Chinese people can access, you wind up either having to self-censor or subject yourself to censorship by your hosting company. If you set up a blog on your own server and run it yourself, Chinese government regulations now require you to register your site with the government, so they know who you are and know your address. If they don't like what you're doing they'll revoke your license and force your blog off the Internet. Or you can sign up with a commercial blog-hosting service like MSN Spaces, Bokee.com or Blogbus.com who all censor their users' content for politically sensitive material. So your service kind of protects you from yourself, basically. Your third option is to set up a blog that is hosted on a service outside of China, but most of those services are blocked by Chinese censors at the internet service provider level, and so nobody inside China can read them without having the know-how to use special circumvention technologies.

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Washington, D.C.: Hey Rebecca, Great chat! But I take exception to your answer to the question about governments that "influence foreign opinion" through their media.

You included Radio Free Asia in your answer. We do not seek to influence or cater to any particular point of view; Radio Free Asia's mission - different from VOA - is to deliver local news to a local readership in Asian countries whose governments do not tolerate a free press.

Thanks.

Catherine Antoine

Web Managing Editor

Rebecca Mackinnon: Thanks Catherine for the clarification. Point taken.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Ms. Mackinnon, thank you for taking the time to answer some important and fascinating questions. I think the readers all highly appreciate the content and perspectives being offered through this kind of dialogue. While I agree that the majority of blogs - or in any other media format - tend to be apolitical, only a very few of China's citizens are truly content with their political establishment. The vast majority of the people seem to just want to 'get by' in the current situation and hope they get the better end of a tired system. Therefore, China's main threat - at least from a leadership top-down perspective - has always come from within the nation. Does this extended period of mistrust, going both directions between government and its citizens, signal a more fundamental societal challenge that has been instilled into China's culture through its vast history?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Really great question. I agree with you, the authorities see their real threat as coming from within, not without.

There are definitely a lot of reports out of China these days that suggest that the groundswell of discontent could be gaining critical mass. However, during my 9 years in China, there were often times when we journalists thought we saw trends that might lead to loss of control by the central government, or to a fundamental reformist shift. Every time we started to predict change was in the air, we were always proven wrong. So I've learned not to get to ahead of myself in predicting change in China. The only thing I'm willing to predict about China is that whatever you least expect to happen will happen at the most improbable time.

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Washington, D.C.: This is YY from Radio Free Asia. Our Web site rfa.org is on top of China's "black list" for blocking. Consequently, no ordinary people inside China can visit out site without using proxy servers. We provide proxy links to people who don't have direct access to our Web site, and we regularly updated them as China would block them regularly, too.

Below are the most current proxy links. Please forward to the people who are participating in this live discussion, as apparently they are a group of people who show concern about China's blocking issues. They may forward these links to blogging communities then eventually they will reach the hands of people inside China. Please mention that for regular updates of proxy links, they just need to send an e-mail to "putonghua-rfa.org." Better yet - they can ask to be put on our newsletter mailing list and receive proxy updates along with news that they cannot read inside China due to the lack of press freedom in China in general.

Radio Free Asia Link , Radio Free Asia Link , Radio Free Asia Link

Many Thanks!

Rebecca Mackinnon: Thanks for the info!

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Washington, D.C.: Following up on your remark:Rebecca Mackinnon: Absolutely. China is creating new business models for censorship and surveillance too, with help from certain companies.

Do you have evidence that China is exporting its Internet censorship technology to other, neighboring countries as well?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Yes, there is evidence that Chinese censorship techniques and technologies are spreading to Vietnam and Iran, and elsewhere. One group that is tracking censorship trends and technologies worldwide is the Open Net Initiative. Check them out, with their global Internet filtering reports, at http://opennet.net/. (Disclosure: ONI is partnered with the Berkman Center, where I am a research fellow.)

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Washington, D.C.: Of the three groups (both internal and external) participating in the discussion about China's future -- the sellouts, the reformers and the revolutionaries ( The Korea Liberator ) -- it seems the greatest dispute is among the reformers and the revolutionaries.

When should the reformers finally cast off the sellouts and join the revolutionaries? Or will the reformers continue to ally with the sellouts, hoping that China would gradually evolve into a democratic-capitalist society?

Rebecca Mackinnon: Hello there! I think you may be implying that I'm a "reformer" and that I should join the "revolutionaries"...

Here's the thing. If there's going to be a revolution, as you hope, it has to come from the Chinese people themselves. It cannot come from some externally-driven "regime change" campaign. The Chinese people are extremely nationalistic and proud. They still have a huge chip on their shoulder about their history of being dominated, occupied, pushed around, and told what to do by foreigners. Successful democracy in China must be a home-grown Chinese democracy, not something imposed on them by Americans or anybody else.

Unfortunately, many Americans who care about human rights issues in China such as myself are seen by people in China as being neo-con regime changers whose hidden agenda is to do an Iraq number on China, or who view China as the inevitable enemy against whom we must ultimately go to war. This is really unfortunate, because it couldn't be further from the case.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Rebecca, Great and timely discussion. I am the Web Editor for Radio Free Asia's Tibetan service. I our Web site is blocked in China. But I am checking a Bulletin Board from Tibet where somebody has been posting rfa.org link there. Is blogging monitored more strictly than BBS?

Thanks/

Rebecca Mackinnon: Actually I think BBS is monitored just as strictly but it's hard to keep on top of them, because there are so many.

Anyway, looks like our time is up! Thanks to everybody for a fabulous discussion!!

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