Researching “Great Firewalls” to see Chinese censorship

People are called security systems that monitor and control internet traffic that China enters and leaves “China’s great firewall.”

But firewalls are just the beginning of communist censorship systems, a new study from Northeastern University has found.

“The image people have now – the ‘great firewall’ is very exciting, but it’s not very accurate anymore,” says Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science in Northeastern. “There are absolutely no systems that just keep out foreign information, but in itself, that system is not very effective. There are other layers of these systems.”

So, instead of a great firewall, Edelson calls a framework to understand Chinese censorship, and is similar to a water lock that allows or stops the flow of information domestically and within the country.

“I think of it like an artificial lake in the middle of the ocean,” explains Edelson. “In most cases, the systems are strengthened against each other and they can maintain this small separate body of water, but it’s connected and sometimes “locknet” leaks, just as a big internet falls. ”

Edelson, like all countries, is no secret that China is considering the Internet. But many Western democracies have clear laws outlining what is banned online, but they outline exactly how Chinese censorship works, its effectiveness, and how much that censorship will change the internet in other parts of the world.

Edelson and Chinese governance and society researchers in the online magazine Chinafile tried to answer these and other questions in a year-long survey.

They discovered that China has a dynamic, adaptive, multi-layered self-enhancing censorship system.

The system operates at three main levels:

Network-level censorship is what is called a great firewall, blocking foreign content from entering China at country’s borders. Service-level censorship resides on any platform or service offered within the country. All of these must comply with China’s censorship regulations. Finally, self-censorship occurs at the individual level as citizens censor what they place online to comply with the state.

However, there are some important aspects of censorship systems that are effective.

First, three levels of censorship are strengthened against each other.

For example, service-level censorship bans certain apps, such as VPNs, META, and services, limits foreign information reaching Chinese users and enhances network-level censorship.

Second, execution is “intentionally intermittent” but consequential.

You can access prohibited content and post criticisms of the government, but Edelson explains that users are always “invited for tea.” Here, users are taken to the police station, questioned for hours, sign confessions, and sent to prison if the tea party happens frequently enough.

This, as Edelson puts it, encourages people to self-censor or “stay within the line,” and compares this intermittent but consequential enforcement to follow the speed limits of Western democracy.

“Sometimes you go down the highway and violate speed limits, drive 100 mph and you won’t be pulled,” Edelson says. “But not because most people know that if you drive 100 mph on the highway, you’ll end up getting caught and always get caught.”

It generally occurs in a population that remains within range (e.g., speed limits above 5 mph), but technically you can pull it anytime.

Moreover, enforcement is often contracted to individual companies that rely on successful success in staying in Beijing’s good bounty.

“They are being guided by the federal government, but they have a lot of room for how to implement those censorship rules,” Edelson says. “So businesses are really forced to follow these rules, otherwise those companies will no longer exist and executives will go to prison.”

It leads to the third point. Although censored, the rules and regulations are vast, but ambiguous and flexible.

“What’s prohibited changes every day,” Edelson says. “There are a few things that say, ‘These things are forbidden,’ but all the categories in this other category have disappeared, there is no public visibility and no transparency. ”

Again, this ambiguity promotes self-censorship, and enhances censorship at the company or service provider level (excludes it if you suspect it), and at the network level.

But using the global internet, Edelson says Locknet doesn’t just affect Chinese users.

“For systems manufacturers, creating platforms and services that can be offered in both China and outside of China is very appealing, and if they do that, they need to be subject to Chinese censorship,” Edelson says.

Edelson also cites examples of Chinese AI systems and tools. This could be cheaper, more efficient and publicly available.

And while the internet was created by Westerners with Western democratic ideals in mind, it does not mean that future developments will.

“The thing to remember is that you can create standards that are easier to serve, easier to censor, and more efficient,” Edelson says. “Chinese engineers are moving forward with standards that raise privacy costs that most Americans believe are unacceptable, and are simply unacceptable in China, and in fact, it’s a benefit to the Chinese government.”

This story has been republished courtesy of Northeastern Global News news.northeastern.edu.