How Censorship in China Silences Collective Action

May 3, 2013 8:38 AM

How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression Researchers at Harvard University (Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret Roberts) have conducted the first large scale analysis of internet censorship in China. Their findings? Criticism of the state is not censored. What is censored, however, are any comments that support collective action or social mobilization.

The abstract:

We offer the first large scale, multiple source analysis of the outcome of what may be the most extensive effort to selectively censor human expression ever implemented. To do this, we have devised a system to locate, download, and analyze the content of millions of social media posts originating from nearly 1,400 different social media services all over China before the Chinese government is able to find, evaluate, and censor (i.e., remove from the Internet) the subset they deem objectionable. Using modern computer-assisted text analytic methods that we adapt to and validate in the Chinese language, we compare the substantive content of posts censored to those not censored over
time in each of 85 topic areas. Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content. Censorship is oriented toward attempting To forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future—and, as such, seem to clearly expose government intent.

posted by MisantropicPainforest (24 comments total)

Chinese censorship previously:

• Blocked on Weibo: Censored Searches of China's Largest Microblogging Service
• "Governments should be afraid of their people." (V for Vendetta aired, unedited, by state broadcaster CCTV, after searches for the film were blocked in China)
• Watching the watchmen (By observing the time taken for censored posts to disappear, researchers have exposed some of the the working patterns and methods of the censors)

posted by filthy light thief at 9:06 AM on May 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

Note: the OP link is to a PDF, which appears to be 1.7mb.

Here's a 148 slide PPT-as-PDF of a December 2012 presentation on the topic, which was also given in Feb. 2013.

Here's a earlier paper, with the same title and by the same authors, presented online through DocumentCloud (a Scribd-like service, it seems).
posted by filthy light thief at 9:10 AM on May 3, 2013

What is censored, however, are any comments that support collective action or social mobilization.

Which kind of proves that China is authoritarian, not socialist, pretty much by definition.
posted by DU at 9:31 AM on May 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

The very definition of ironic, for a so-called Communist nation. Also, how is anyone surprised by this?
posted by gsh at 9:31 AM on May 3, 2013

zakaria:

If people complain about pollution or the environment, it increasingly has begun to make some concessions, but protests over economic policy produce less change. And demands for political liberalization are met with a very different kind of response.

Also, many of these decisions are actually taking place at the local and provincial levels, where governors have significant powers and independence. So sometimes these provinces will tolerate demonstrations as a pressure valve to let off steam.

In other cases, most cases they crack down. The key is whether protests in one place build momentum to a regional or national level, and that's what Beijing works very hard to prevent. But about four in ten Chinese now have access to the Internet. As China advances, that ratio will grow and grow. In the past, Beijing could contain the flow of information from one part of the country to another. But that might prove increasingly difficult as the Chinese people get more and more connected. The Internet will not make China free. That will take actual Chinese reformers and revolutionaries and organized movements...

the economist recently had a special report on the great firewall: "The internet was expected to help democratise China. Instead, it has enabled the authoritarian state to get a firmer grip, says Gady Epstein. But for how long?"

also btw...

• The sprawling Chinese police state - "In recent years the amount spent on internal security – police, courts, paramilitary forces, riot squads, secret agents, informants, surveillance, internet censorship and the like – has soared. At about Rmb624.4bn for 2011, it now exceeds the country's publicly stated military budget, according to finance ministry figures. Put another way, China spends more on the surveillance, repression and prosecution of its own people than on guarding against any external threat."
• The impact of China's anti-corruption drive - "This anti-corruption directive has become more of a campaign against hedonism by public officials - and often less about the actual corruption... With a weak court system that is often no more than a puppet of the Communist Party, it seems that officials continue to enrich themselves at public's expense. Only now they are being asked not to flaunt their wealth... In fact activists who are pushing for disclosure of public officials' finances are being muzzled."
• Where the Chinese credit is going - "Another piece of evidence comes from a recent government policy announcement. According to a Chinese newspaper, First Financial Daily, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued a policy notice at the end of March to ensure the funds raised for public housing construction in the bond market are not used for other purposes. We believe this policy may be triggered by cases where some funds were misused. Indeed, risks of such events have been mentioned repeatedly in government documents."
• Consumer Loans Surge Across Asia - "Lenders world-wide are fueling a boom in short-term loans to Asia's growing middle class, helping push debt to record levels."

one parallel to domestic security i find interesting is corporate surveillance: "Acxiom is preparing to step out of the shadows. The consumer data broker, which tracks everything from a person's estimated income to his political leanings, shopping patterns and exercise habits, is readying a service that will reveal to people what it knows about them. New York-listed Acxiom, which has a market capitalisation of $1.4bn, collects details about more than 700m consumers across the globe and sells them to more than 7,000 clients."
posted by kliuless at 9:40 AM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, how is anyone surprised by this?

Did anyone predict this?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:54 AM on May 3, 2013

It's incredibly clever - allowing people to criticize the government gives the population a constant pressure-release valve so that the will to organize and participate in mass action never materializes. After all, you can express yourself and be critical - how bad could it be? It also feels incredibly familiar.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:13 AM on May 3, 2013 [10 favorites]

Also, how is anyone surprised by this?

I think you are a classical victim of hindsight here.
If the outcome had been the opposite, namely that the Chinese government will censor *any* criticism of the state including that not calling for collective action, would you have been surprised? Or would you have said the same thing, i.e. "how is anyone surprised by this?"
posted by sour cream at 11:05 AM on May 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Moreover, FTA:

"Our central theoretical finding is that, contrary to much research and commentary, the purpose of the censorship program is not to suppress criticism of
the state or the Communist Party. Indeed, despite widespread censorship of social media, we find that when the Chinese people write scathing criticisms of their government and its leaders, the probability that their post will be censored does not increase."

I mean, their findings are directly opposite of what every else thought about Chinese censorship. This is very very surprising research. There is no need to be dismissive.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:10 AM on May 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Were posts that were critical of the government or Communist party censored before and they only recently let them fly, or has this always been the way it is?
posted by gucci mane at 11:25 AM on May 3, 2013

I second The Economist's special report on the Chinese internet. Its author, Gady Epstein, was also on the Sinica podcast recently to talk about his report and gave a quick whirlwind tour of his piece, including some stuff that got cut.

----

What is censored, however, are any comments that support collective action or social mobilization.

Which kind of proves that China is authoritarian, not socialist, pretty much by definition.

Why not both? A paranoid, authoritarian government hell bent on stability managing a socialist economy.
posted by tksh at 12:11 PM on May 3, 2013

...or has this always been the way it is?

My impression from speaking to Chinese friends is that Hu Jintao's "Harmonious Society" amped up the censorship of political and cultural topics, so this may reflect some relaxation of censorship.

IMHO, it's not actually too different from the U.S. law enforcement tactic of coralling protesters into "free speech zones" to reduce the visibility and impact of protests.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:15 PM on May 3, 2013

> The very definition of ironic, for a so-called Communist nation.

Not at all. How familiar are you with communism? It's not anarchism, the whole point is that decisions are made by the Central Committee of the party and implemented top-down. All governments are made uneasy by collective activity they do not control, but communist ones especially so.
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posted by homunculus at 1:08 PM on May 3, 2013

There's this trope in scifi where you have authoritarian societies that are really elaborate, they do all this stuff and mobilise technology and secret police and everything, but the results are surprisingly close to home. Think about Brave New World where you need this vast infrastructure of alcohol-poisoned embryos and children sleeping in bunks listening to subliminal messaging telling them to consume, all to create a class-ridden consumer society exactly like mid-century Britain. I'm just saying, seems like maybe you don't need a Great Firewall and loads of overt crackdowns to create a world where people constantly let off steam complaining about the government and the way things work but all attempts to suggest collective solutions fizzle into nothing.
posted by Acheman at 2:02 PM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

So, a lot like America.
posted by zardoz at 2:12 PM on May 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, in Iran: To Free Iran's Internet, Hacktivists Are Taking On the Supreme Council of Cyberspace
posted by homunculus at 8:17 PM on May 3, 2013

"I am not sure about the impact on China. It is still a political society, so the impact could be very great. I mean I often say that censorship is always cause for celebration. It is always an opportunity, because it reveals fear of reform. It means that the power position is so weak that you have got to care about what people think."

—Julian Assange during a meeting in June, 2011.
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