Conversation
09.25.20
Technical Difficulties
Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration announced...
Books
06.13.18
Censored
As authoritarian governments around the world develop sophisticated technologies for controlling information, many observers have predicted that these controls would be ineffective because they are easily thwarted and evaded by savvy Internet users. Margaret Roberts demonstrates that even censorship that is easy to circumvent can still be enormously effective. Taking advantage of digital data harvested from the Chinese Internet and leaks from China’s Propaganda Department, this book sheds light on how and when censorship influences the Chinese public.
Will Tech Firms Challenge China’s ‘Open’ Internet?
China has been smart and ruthless in its control of the internet within its borders. It blocks some foreign sites altogether and it censors - heavily - what Chinese are allowed to see.
China Communist Party Youth Twitter Account Prompts Abuse
Setting up a Twitter account may seem a fairly obvious thing for a political party to do, but the step has not so far worked out too well for China’s Communist Party.
Sinica Podcast
09.11.17
China’s Tightening Grip on Cyberspace
from Sinica PodcastAdam Segal returns to Sinica to comment on China’s recent cybersecurity law—where it came from, how it changed as it was being drafted, and how it may shape the flow of information in China in the future. Other issues discussed include the...
Google Continues to Hire in China Even as Search Remains Blocked
Google’s search service may be banned in China but parent Alphabet Inc. is hunting for workers in a further sign it has ambitions in the world’s biggest internet market.
In China, Facebook Tests the Waters with a Stealth App
Facebook and many of its apps have been blocked in China for years. To change that, Mark Zuckerberg has made a big point of meeting with Chinese politicians, reading stodgy Communist Party propaganda, studying Mandarin and—perhaps more daunting—...
Facebook’s Secret Chinese App Is a Dud in China So Far
Over the weekend the New York Times reported (paywall) that Facebook had stealthily released a photo-sharing app in the Chinese iOS App Store translated as “Colorful Balloons.” The news spread rapidly around English-language media, as it marked...
Holes close in China’s ’Great Firewall’ as Apple and Amazon snub apps to bypass censors
Moves by business giants Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to stop people from using censorship-skirting apps in China have renewed questions about the extent to which U.S. companies are willing to work with authorities to operate in the vast but...
Apple’s Decision to Remove VPN Apps from the App Store in China Explained by Tim Cook
Tim Cook has responded to criticisms that Apple is quietly removing apps from the App Store for the Chinese government.
Joining Apple, Amazon’s China Cloud Service Bows to Censors
Days after Apple yanked anti-censorship tools off its app store in China, another major American technology company is moving to implement the country’s tough restrictions on online content.
A Crackdown on Unfettered Internet Access Is Jeopardizing China’s Pro-Business Credentials
Another big political meeting, another crackdown on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—the location-shifting software many in China use to access websites banned by its government, such as Facebook, YouTube and Google.
Apple ‘Pulls 60 VPNs from China App Store’
The BBC understands that as many as 60 VPNs were pulled over the weekend. Apple said it was legally required to remove them because they did not comply with new regulations. It refused to confirm the exact number of apps withdrawn, but did not...
China Clamping down on Use of VPNs to Evade Great Firewall
China is tightening control over foreign companies’ internet use in a move some worry might disrupt their operations or jeopardize trade secrets as part of a crackdown on technology that allows web surfers to evade Beijing’s online censorship....
The New York Times vs. the ‘Great Firewall’ of China
The problem in China is that you never really know who is behind such decisions. Chinese bureaucracy is like a series of Chinese boxes that are harder and harder to open as you move toward the center.
American Unrest Proves China Got the Internet Right
Beijing has been criticized for its Great Firewall and online censorship. Now it's looking prescient.
Facebook Is Trying Everything to Re-Enter China—and It’s Not Working
Since regulators blocked the service in 2009, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hired well-connected executives, developed censorship tools and taken a ‘smog jog’ in Beijing—but the company has made no visible headway.
Forget Xi’s ‘Defense’ of Globalization. China Just Fortified the Great Firewall.
Over the weekend, China announced a new, year-long crackdown on “unauthorized Internet connections.”
China Web Tsar Admits Censorship Troubles
“We have indeed called for reinforcements over prominent online problems, this is the truth.”
China Cuts Mobile Service of Xinjiang Residents Evading Internet Filters
The Chinese government is shutting down the mobile service of residents in Xinjiang.
China Ranks Last of 65 Nations in Internet Freedom
Chinese officials will be able to impose a prison sentence of up to seven years on a person convicted of creating and spreading “false information” online.
Media
08.13.15
Sorry China, the Internet You’re Looking for Does Not Exist
The long arm of China’s massive internal security apparatus just reached further into the heart of the country’s web. On August 4, China’s Ministry of Public Security announced that it would embed law enforcement officers at major...
Want to Circumvent China’s Great Firewall? Learn These 9 Phrases First
A story about the newly updated e-book Decoding the Chinese Internet: A Glossary of Political Slang”
Chinese Authorities Compromise Millions in Cyberattacks
Hijacking the computers of millions of innocent Internet users around the world shows China's disregard for Internet governance norms.
China’s Biggest Anti-Censorship Service is Under Attack
GreatFire.org has been under an unprecedented denial-of-service attack, receiving more than 2 billion requests per hour.
The Constant Adaptations of China’s Great Firewall
Firewall-hopping technologies see activist programmers and Chinese censors engaged in a cat-and-mouse game.
Sobering News Out of China, Part 4 Million
Chronicles of a country walling itself off.
Media
02.23.15
Five Predictions for Chinese Censorship in the Year of the Sheep
Blocked websites, jailed journalists, and nationalist rhetoric have long been features of the Chinese Communist Party’s media control strategy. During the Year of the Horse, which just ended on China’s lunar calendar, President Xi Jinping and his...
Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Make It Clear He's Cool with China
Lu Wei, the Chinese Internet czar who heads a censorship system that keeps many popular American sites—including, of course, Facebook—out of China, was touring American tech companies recently. Chinese media reported that when he arrived at...
China: Facebook Not Banned, but Must Follow the Rules
“Foreign Internet companies entering China must at the base level accord to Chinese laws and regulations,” Lu Wei, the director of China’s State Internet Information Office, said. “First, you can’t damage the national interests of the country....
Media
10.01.14
They Can Take Our Freedom, But They Will Never Take Our Instagram
When thousands of Hong Kong protesters clashed with police on Sunday, September 28, many residents of the city...
Media
03.21.14
“We’ll Know It When We’re There”
Martin Johnson (not his real name), is a co-founder of the China-based Internet freedom advocacy collective GreatFire.org....
Features
03.21.14
Punching a Hole in the Great Firewall
In January, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published its exposé of the use of offshore tax havens by...
How the Chinese Internet Ended Up at a House in Cheyenne, Wyoming
In trying to block Chinese traffic going to Sophidea, the Great Firewall's operators accidentally diverted more traffic there.
Guardian Website Blocked in China
The newspaper said that it may be due to a recently run article about ethnic tensions in the western region of Xinjiang.
China’s Internet: A Giant Cage
Not only has Chinese authoritarian rule survived the internet, but the state has shown great skill in bending the technology to its own purposes, enabling it to exercise better control of its own society and setting an example for other...
Rural Chinese Get Online as Mobile Overtakes Desktop
For the first time, desktop computers are no longer the leading method for the country's 538 million connected citizens to get online. The report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) said over 50% of the year's new internet...
How Chinese Writers Elude Censors
Two months ago at the London Book Fair, where China was this year’s “guest of honor,” Ma Jian, the exiled author of the Tiananmen-era novel “Beijing Coma,” inked a red X across his face in an emotional protest against Chinese censorship. It may...
Google Confronts the Great Firewall
For centuries, the Yangtze River -- the longest in Asia -- has played an important role in China's history, culture, and economy. The Yangtze is as quintessentially Chinese as the Nile is Egyptian or the Rhine is German. Many businesses use its...