According to a Reuters article posted on CNN.com, China uses an elaborate system of filters and a legion of more than 10,000 human surveyors to monitor the web-surfing habits of the country’s 140 million Internet users and prevent them from viewing sensitive content. Known as “the Great Firewall,” the government says this surveillance is necessary in order to promote a “healthy” online environment and “harmonious” society.
In April, XBIZ reported on a six-month anti-Internet porn campaign launched by China’s Ministry of Public Security and nine other government departments, focused on heightened filtering techniques and escalating governmental control over the Internet.
Internet porn is illegal in China and in November 2006, a Chinese webmaster was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of running a site that featured more than 9 million pornographic images.
In May, another XBIZ story reported that a blogger in China had been arrested for posting sexually explicit stories to his website, featuring topics that ranged from masturbation and consensual sex to rape, incest and pedophilia.
“The boom of pornographic content on the Internet has contaminated cyberspace and perverted China’s young minds,” deputy public security minister Zhang Xinfeng said in April. “The inflow of pornographic materials from abroad and lax domestic control is to blame for the existing problems in China’s cyberspace.”
However, Chinese citizens quoted in the Reuters story voiced their discontent over not being able to view content as seemingly innocent as family photos.
“I just want to look at some photos! What's wrong with that?” said Yang, a 24 year-old accountant in Beijing who tried to view his friend’s vacation pictures on Flickr.
"Once you've complained all you can to your friends, what more can you do? What else is there but anger and disillusionment?" Yang said.
Nicholas Bequelin from Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch said that growing public sentiments against the government’s attempts to restrict the Internet are symptomatic of the population’s greater economic status. Privacy, a rare commodity in China, is becoming more desirable for middle-class citizens.
“Of course, it's the first thing people seek when they have the economic resources," Bequelin said. "We see this growing in China in the wake of ideas of ownership and property.”
Meanwhile, citizens can air their grievances by using the relative anonymity of blogs and chat rooms. Within days of Flickr being restricted, several boards posted links to plug-ins and how-to explanations with instructions on subverting the government’s filters.
One blogger had posted the image of a voodoo doll, called “the Great Firewall,” and asked viewers to stick it with digital pins.