Friday 8 December 2017

China Internet Censorship

If you ever visit mainland China (People's Republic of China) and access their Internet services, you will find that many of the websites you probably commonly used returns a page not found error. This happens with all of Google services, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, this site and blogspot. (There's more)
The reason why this happens due to China's Internet censorship laws. China had blocked many foreign social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram as of 2014 and recently WhatsApp in 2017. Google related services and Tumblr (as of 2017) are blocked, and therefore could not be accessed to update the content. This is often knows as the "Great Firewall of China" (GFW).
Previously, foreign publishers were allowed to post directly within country -- albeit with heavy restrictions. Really, they were only allowed operational licenses if they partnered with a local firm. Not anymore. The new law specifies that "Sino-foreign joint ventures, Sino-foreign cooperative ventures and foreign business units shall not engage in online publishing services." That means foreign publications will have to hand off their content to a local service provider who will publish it on their behalf. Source: China tightens its censorship grip on foreign content
Now with China clamping down VPN sites and blocking them by February next year (2018), accessing to a VPN and popular foreign social media sites will be more difficult. Apple has removed all VPN apps in the Chinese App Store, aiding the Chinese government new actions.

Why would Chinese government block websites?

Quoting from http://techxav.com/3-main-reasons-why-the-chinese-government-blocks-popular-social-websites/, there are 3 main reasons: Competition with local services, sensitive content and national security.
China block foreign websites probably for protectionism measures to protect local services like Baidu, Blogcn and Youku from competition with huge foreign sites. The government earns taxes from these local companies and the survival of these businesses are important for the growth China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Second reason is sensitive content on the internet. 
The main reason of blocking Blogger.com is that many people rant and post repugnant comments regarding the China Government on their Blogger hosted blogs. Of course the government does not want more people to know about this, especially readers outside mainland China as it will give them a negative impression about the country. With powers in their hands, they make use of the GFW to block it. In addition, the GFW is extremely sensitive when it comes to pornography contents.
Chinese government is very particular about information of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They want to control the information available to Chinese People to protect the power of the CCP. The internet poses a serious threat to this power and China wants to protect that. Sites that allow people to post freely like YouTube and Blogger (this site) are blocked. Now messaging apps that provides end-to-end encryption are banned as Chinese government cannot control these contents.
The government would not allow people to discuss about the various political parties or the government in those International Websites, because they do not have the ability to control them. Do not think that starting an Internet Company in China and creating websites is an easy task. If your website contains sensitive content, the Chinese authorities will not hesitate and demand you to remove the information at once; otherwise, your server will be confiscated for about 3 months. It is quite easy for them to control the Internet Media in China, but they are not able to touch the social web on an international level such as Facebook and Twitter.
Third reason is national security. Prevent people from talking sensitive content regarding the CCP helps to prevent any opposition about CCP. (It could prevent protests which makes societies unsafe.)

Videos



Articles about VPNs in China for further reading

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