[For years, the United States and others saw this sort of heavy-handed censorship as a sign of political vulnerability and a barrier to China’s economic development. But as countries in the West discuss potential internet restrictions and wring their hands over fake news, hacking and foreign meddling, some in China see a powerful affirmation of the country’s vision for the internet.]
By
Steven Lee Myers and Sui-Lee Wee
 |
| An internet cafe in Beijng |
HULUNBUIR, China — In the United States, some
of the world’s most powerful technology companies face rising pressure to do
more to fight false information and stop foreign infiltration.
China, however, has watchdogs like Zhao Jinxu.
From his small town on the windswept
grasslands of the Inner Mongolia region of China, Mr. Zhao, 27, scours the
internet for calls to violence, fake news and pornography. He is one of a
battalion of online “supervisors” whom Weibo, one of China’s biggest social
media platforms, announced last month it would hire to help enforce China’s
stringent limits on online content.
For years, the United States and others saw
this sort of heavy-handed censorship as a sign of political vulnerability and a
barrier to China’s economic development. But as countries in the West discuss
potential internet restrictions and wring their hands over fake news, hacking
and foreign meddling, some in China see a powerful affirmation of the country’s
vision for the internet.
“This kind of thing would not happen here,”
Mr. Zhao said of the controversy over Russia’s influence in the American
presidential election last year.
Besides Communist Party loyalists, few would
argue that China’s internet control serves as a model for democratic societies.
China squelches online dissent and imprisons many of those who practice it. It
blocks foreign news and information, including the website of The New York
Times, and promotes homegrown technology companies while banning global
services like Facebook and Twitter.
At the same time, China anticipated many of
the questions now flummoxing governments from the United States to Germany to
Indonesia. Where the Russians have turned the internet into a political weapon,
China has used it as a shield.
In fact, when it comes to technology, China
has prospered. It has a booming technology culture. Its internet companies
rival Facebook and Amazon in heft. To other countries, China may offer an
enticing top-down model that suggests that technology can thrive even under the
government’s thumb.
“It doesn’t matter how efficient the internet
is,” said Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communications Law Research Center at
the China University of Political Science and Law, which advises the government
on internet laws. “It won’t work without security.”
China is not resting on its laurels.
In the weeks leading up to the major party congress
that opens in Beijing on Wednesday, the country’s internet regulator, the
Cyberspace Administration of China, has issued a raft of new regulations.
One, which took effect last week, holds the
creators of online forums or group chats responsible for their users’ comments.
Another bans anonymous users, a blow at the
bots and deceptive accounts — like those on Facebook and Twitter — that
distributed false stories aimed at American voters.
“If our party cannot traverse the hurdle
presented by the internet, it cannot traverse the hurdle of remaining in
power,” a department of the cyberspace administration wrote in a top party
journal last month.
The article was in keeping with President Xi
Jinping’s early recognition of the power of the internet. Mr. Xi created and
empowered the cyberspace administration, which has subsumed many of the
overlapping agencies that once governed content in cyberspace.
The administration is now seen as an
institution as important as the defense ministry. Since last year, it has been
led by Xu Lin, 54, a party technocrat and former propaganda official, who, like
other influential officials who previously worked beside Mr. Xi in Shanghai,
has soared through the ranks.
Samm Sacks, a senior fellow with the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, said the cyberspace administration was
a core part of Mr. Xi’s vow to make China a cyber superpower, on par with the
United States.
“There’s a recognition that technology has
advanced more quickly than the government’s ability to control it,” Ms. Sacks
said. Russia’s interference with Facebook, to cite only one example, was
“justification for exactly what they are doing here.”
China’s homegrown internet companies are key
to its top-down approach. Tech firms are expected to keep content on file for
60 days and report to the police any forbidden content. The government is
acquiring small equity stakes in some tech companies in exchange for board
seats, giving it a direct role in the governance of new internet titans.
The tech firms also face tight penalties if
they fail to keep users in line. In September, the cybersecurity administration
imposed fines on social media platforms owned wholly or in part by three of
China’s biggest internet companies — Tencent Holdings, the Alibaba Group and
Baidu — for failing to stop the circulation of fabricated rumors, violence and
pornography. (Companies can be fined up to $76,000 per offense, and have their
business licenses canceled, if they cannot prevent the transmission of banned
content.)
Human rights observers worry that the
crackdown may have a chilling effect on political speech that is already
tightly curbed. Last month, for example, the police raided the home of a
university professor, Liu Pengfei, who had hosted a current-affairs forum on
Tencent’s WeChat software, one of the world’s most popular messaging apps.
In exchange for accepting tight controls,
China internet companies have been allowed to grow while their foreign rivals
were shut out of the country. They can now claim their own technology
successes. Tencent’s WeChat has transformed social life in China: People use it
to chat, pay bills, transfer money, book a cab and hook up romantically.
China is now embarking on an ambitious
project to dominate fields like artificial intelligence, and some say China
could be at an advantage. It has more than 700 million internet users, and it
doesn’t have a robust legal framework to deal with data privacy intrusions.
That makes it easier for companies to harness user data — which is core to
developing A.I. technology.
Still, China’s advantage could be
double-edged. Chinese internet companies have struggled to expand abroad, which
experts say stems in part from their dependence on their government.
“To a large extent, the competitive advantage
is the political relationship they have with the government there and that’s
not something you can carry across borders,” said Lokman Tsui, an assistant
professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Moreover, not all of the new restrictions
have been welcomed here. Some of the companies — and internet users — balked at
tightened enforcement of rules requiring users of social media platforms to
provide their real identities to the companies (although they may still use
online pseudonyms). Weibo’s announcement that it was seeking 1,000 recruits to
become supervisors to report illegal content online — the definitions of which
can be expansive — was met by derision on its own site.
“Online and offline, Big Brother is
watching,” wrote one user, who used the handle mingxinjianxing.
But when it comes to the controversy over
Russia’s intervention, there has been little discussion here. Among the few who
are discussing it on Weibo, some expressed shock that the United States does
not censor information shared on social media platforms.
Mr. Zhao, the young volunteer on Weibo, is
typical of those here who believe government control is justified.
In a restaurant called Europa, Mr. Zhao — who
declined to disclose details of where and how he works — described China’s
system not as “Big Brother” so much as a younger brother, which he is, protecting
children, like those of his sister, from harmful material.
“Even though the internet is virtual, it is
still part of society,” he added. “So in any space I feel no one should create
pornographic, illegal or violent posts.”
In his new capacity, he scours Weibo in
search of the lurid and illicit. Some posts, he explained, are thinly veiled
solicitations for pornography or prostitution, including one message he
reported to the police the other day for using what he said was a euphemism for
selling sex.
When he reports abuse, it is the police that
follow up. He excitedly displayed his smartphone to show the latest of his more
than 3,000 followers on Weibo: the division of the Beijing police that monitors
the internet.
“Normally, if you don’t do bad things, you
don’t get followed by the police,” he said. “I think this — for someone who has
been online for so many years — is really special.”
Follow Steven Lee Myers @stevenleemyers and
Sui-Lee Wee @suilee on Twitter.
Steven Lee Myers reported from Hulunbuir and
Beijing, and Sui-Lee Wee from Beijing. Olivia Mitchell Ryan, Cao Li and Zhang
Tiantian contributed research from Beijing.
