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Deng Xiaoping
Many of China's actions concerning the internet have sprouted when Xiaoping, a former chairmen of China, stated that " If you open a window for fresh air for longer than 10 hours, you have to expect some flies to blow in." Essentially, Xiaoping is suggesting that letting the people get a taste of democracy or other political ideas can create a reform or unfavourable opinions towards the Chinese government. -
Deng Xiaoping Part 2
Additionally, Xiaoping mentioned other ideologies on "swatting the flies." His ideas have contributed to the development of the internet censorship which can be considered as "swatting flies" in the words of Xiaoping -
Tiananmen Massacre Part 2
Furthermore, the massacre caused China to be extremely sensitive to any protests in the future. Finally, because of the sensitivity to reform and the incident itself, this event would contribute to the censorship in China today. -
Tiananmen Massacre
In this stage in time, much of Beijing created a protest that would cause the Beijing government to impose martial law. After the thousands of protestors prevented the government from moving any further towards the demonstrations of the protest, soldiers were ordered to shoot their own civilians. An estimated 5000 citizens were shot and killed. Because of how brutal this massacre was, China did its best to keep it under the radar. -
Introduction to The Internet
The internet was introduced in China inevitably due to its economy. Next, the internet was a great tool to organize events, share ideas, locate information, and communicate information. -
Introduction to the Internet Part 2
However, the Chinese government realized the dangers of the internet as the government also did not particularly enjoy the chance that information regarding Tiananmen Square would leak. -
The Temporary Regulation for the Management of Computer Information Network International Connection.
This regulation is the first of three other regulations that were created on the internet, and immediately, this regulation mandates that internet traffic must be given to a state run service provider. -
Regulations Part 2
Additionally, if any of the information that is viewed promotes opinions against communism or public assembly, then those comments or articles will be blocked and there is a chance that the creator will be arrested based on the severity of the situation. -
The Golden Shield Project
This "project" was a major feat of computer science as it took eight years to complete. The GSP is a database(sometimes referred to as The Great Firewall of China) which is able to process mounds of data on the internet even if the information is private. -
The Golden Shield Project Part 2
It then uses this data by passing it through a filter and through the "internet police" to find any anti-communist comments or articles and block them from reaching the internet. As a result of the golden shield project, China prevented the Democratic Party from protesting or creating opinionated articles. -
Government Restrictions and Wang Xiaoning
In 2000, the first restrictions were set to what was allowed to be published online, for example, publishing sites that were not directly connected to the state were prohibited from publishing news stories ahead of official companies and releasing it on the internet. Unfortunately, information which crosses the seas are highly regulated, therefore, any major events that occurred in China was manipulated by officials. -
Government Restrictions and Wang Xiaoning
The year after the restrictions were set, a writer by the name of Wang released his negative opinions on communism through yahoo. Regardless of the fact that Wang's emails were private, the Golden Shield still picked up the emails and alerted the police. Wang then spent 10 years in jail, and was released in 2012. -
Harvard Studies
In 2012, Harvard conducted some research on Chinese internet censorship and they found that 13% of all websites were blocked by the Golden Shield Project. As a result, Chinese citizens were highly limited to what they could do on the internet. -
The Present Situation
Many people of China have tried their best to protest against the government regarding pollution and other issues, however, due to internet censorship, these opinions cannot be expressed. Additionally, public reforms are much more difficult to organize as any private communication regarding reform is automatically deleted.
