interner in China

China's 162 million Web users, surfing the Internet can be like
running an obstacle course with blocked Web sites, partial search
results, and posts disappearing at every turn.
Blog entries like Liu's, which mused on sensitive topics such as the
death penalty, corruption and legal reform, are often automatically
rejected if they trigger a keyword filter. Sometimes, they're deleted
by human censors employed by Internet companies.
In the lead-up to the sensitive Communist Party Congress, which
convenes Monday to approve top leaders who will serve under President
Hu Jintao through 2012, authorities have been casting an even wider
net than usual in their search for Web content they deem to be
politically threatening or potentially destabilizing.
"What you see now is unprecedented," said Xiao Qiang, director of the
China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley.
"They are forcing most of the interactive sites to simply close down
and have unplugged Internet data centers. These are things they
haven't done before."
Thousands of sites suddenly went offline in August and September when
Internet data centers, which host Web servers, were shut down. In
three cities, some services were temporarily cut off, while some
interactive Web sites remain unplugged _ until after the congress.
It's not uncommon for authorities to crack down on public opinion
before party congresses, which are held every five years.
In an increasingly wired China, political rumors and speculation that
used to end up in Hong Kong's more liberal media are now often found
circulating first in Chinese cyberspace.
At the party congress, there's plenty of opportunity for commentary,
speculation and gossip. "Who's going to be up and who's going to be
down? Who's going to retire and who's going to be in the Politburo?
The losers in the Internet age aren't necessarily going to go down
quietly," said Xiao.
The government has built a patchwork system of controls that include
software to root out offensive keywords and block blacklisted web
sites. Government censors, known as Net nannies, surf the web looking
for pornography, subversive political content or other illegal
material. Major Internet portals like Sohu.com Inc. and Sina Corp.
employ their own censors to make sure nothing runs afoul of government
restrictions.
China is among a handful of countries that have extensive filters for
political sites. Iran, Myanmar, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam also
strictly block political content, according to the OpenNet Initiative,
a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge, the University of
Oxford, Harvard University and the University of Toronto.
In a report this week, Reporters Without Borders said China's Internet
censorship system "is unparalleled anywhere in the world and is an
insult to the spirit of online freedom."
Commercial sites that don't comply with censorship orders are
criticized, fined, forced to fire the employee responsible for the
error, or closed down, the Paris-based group said. A point system is
also used to keep track of compliance, with sites that rack up a
certain number of demerits at risk of losing their business licenses,
it said.
To underscore its determination, the government also imprisons people
who mail, post online, or access politically sensitive content within
China. Reporters Without Borders says 50 Chinese "cyber dissidents"
are currently in prison.
All the controls reinforce a climate of fear and obedience that keep
most Internet users in line, experts said.
But if self-censorship fails, "Sohu will protect you from yourself,"
said Rebecca MacKinnon, a new media expert at Hong Kong University.
Liu, the Beijing lawyer, did not want to be protected. He has tried to
sue Sohu for breach of contract for blocking nine of his blog entries.
Yang Bei, a Sohu spokeswoman in Beijing, said the company had no
comment on the case.
Liu insists the postings conformed with Sohu's user guidelines as well
as Chinese law. He said that identical material posted to his Sina
blog was not blocked. He is not asking for compensation, only to have
his entries restored.
A Beijing district court dismissed his suit in August, saying that it
did not meet unspecified criteria. His appeal is pending with the
Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court.
Despite the controls, Chinese cyberspace is also a surprisingly
dynamic environment with online auctions, film and music downloads,
social networks, huge virtual gaming populations and even spirited
debate on social and political issues _ though often conducted in
protective double speak.
"You don't say 'tanks in Tiananmen,'" explains Xiao, referring to the
1989 military crackdown on democracy protesters. "You say 'the
tractors that came into the city.' You don't say 'press freedom,' you
say 'press professionalism.'"
Anxiety over such veiled conversations likely prompted the closure of
several data centers last month, a move that affected thousands of
small personal and commercial sites and warned millions of others. The
centers were told the shutdown was part of a larger campaign to clean
up the Web ahead of the congress.
MacKinnon said the government appears afraid that something from one
of those smaller sites will "jump out and bite the regime."
An employee with the Zitian Internet Data Center in the central city
of Luoyang who would only give his surname, Feng, said its servers
were unplugged on Aug. 23 and resumed on Sept. 5. But interactive
sites, such as bulletin boards and blogs, were closed until after the
congress, which is expected to last about 10 days, on orders from
state-run China Telecom, he said.
Shanghai's Waigaoqiao Internet Data Center was shut down Sept. 3-14 on
orders from a China Telecom subsidiary, said an employee named Tang.
Again, customers were told their interactive sites could reopen after
the congress. Another in the southeastern city of Shantou was also
shuttered around the same time.
A Chinese blogger writing in English under the name Moonlight,
catalogued the shutdowns in a post titled "Chinese Internet censorship
goes crazy."
Xiao from Berkeley said the measures were intentionally heavy-handed.
"It's overkill to scare other people. Now the other IDCs are shaking," he said.
China's Ministry of Information Industry, which is the main government
body in charge of the Internet, and China Telecom did not respond to a
request for comment about the Internet data center shut downs.
Meanwhile, Chinese bloggers who have been censored say they've been
"harmonized," a nod to President Hu's goal of creating a "harmonious
society."
One sarcastic Chinese blogger called Xiucai _ or the Scholar _
mockingly posted a banner to his or her site on Sept. 4 saying:
"Joyfully welcome the 17th Party Congress, building a harmonious
society together. The Scholar is a good comrade. This site has
temporarily shut down comments and forum features."
Within two weeks, Xiucai took the banner down too.

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