NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- Even as China dealt with the aftermath of deadly 7.9-magnitude earthquake earlier this month that killed more than 55,000 people, the Chinese government's internet censors were on the job.
"Reporters rushed to the scene, and there was general feeling that the government had lifted the restrictions on reporters," said Robert Dietz, the Asia program coordinator for the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. "But the central propaganda department never stopped handing down directives, never stopped telling people how much to report."
When forum posters criticize the response to this month's earthquake in China, Jing Jing and Cha Cha pop up to remind them to "advance harmony."
Courtesy the Committee to Protect Journalists
That China's response to a massive natural disaster included censorship is no surprise to Dietz, or other panelists speaking about the state of global internet freedom at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference here Friday. China pioneered draconian internet controls with its "Golden Shield" program in 1998 -- better known in the West as the "great firewall."
What's disturbing, they say, is how many countries have followed China's lead in filtering the net. In its latest survey of censorship in 195 nations, the nonprofit Freedom House found that 64 percent were "not free." As a percentage of the global population, "only 18 percent of the world live in a country with free media," said Karin Karlekar, the report's editor.
"In 2002, China and Saudi Arabia were filtering the internet," said Rob Faris, an economist with the Open Net Initiative. "Here we are in the 2008, not many years later, and we're seeing dozens of countries around the world (censoring). We're seeing concentrations in the Middle East, but we're also seeing other countries where you wouldn't necessarily expect this."
A bill under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives would make it a crime for U.S. technology companies doing business overseas to turn over their customers' personal information to repressive governments.
Many recent entrants into internet repression show signs of mission creep; governments start with one purported motive for filtering the net, then stray into others. In Vietnam, for example, censorship is allegedly aimed at blocking pornography. "The fact is they're blocking political material, and much of the pornography is still available there," says Faris.
Following the May 12 earthquake in China's Sichuan province, the news coverage was naturally empathetic, making the censorship regime redundant. But as Chinese citizens began criticizing the response to the earthquake online, the government's internet police made their presence known.
On one message board, posters started criticizing large China-based corporations for not contributing enough to the relief effort. The thread grew heated this week, forcing an appearance from Jing Jing and Cha Cha -- those two adorable animated characters that China began deploying on online forums last year, whenever the conversation strays too close to discouraged topics or sentiments.
"Don't accept vulgar content," advised the smiling cartoon cops overlaid on the post. "Advance harmony."
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