How to Dodge the Chinese Internet Censor

eweekhickins writes "A report written by a tech worker in China describes the pervasive censorship, abetted by ample manpower and funding estimated at $27 billion in US dollars. The author, who calls himself Mr. Tao, also writes that plenty of Chinese are finding ways to resist censorship, and offers tips on how to keep evading Big GeGe (that's Older Brother). Not surprisingly, self-censorship is very prevalent. Also not surprisingly, the authorities are starting to catch on to things like RSS feeds. It's another race for survival between the tiny mammals and the lumbering dinosaurs." Here's Mr. Tao's report (PDF), written under the auspices of Reporters Without Borders.

Where are all the English teachers?

[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

What I really don't get is how we always hear about Chinese people trying to break through their Great Firewall and avoid government censorship in order to tell us how it really goes down inside the country, but we hardly ever hear about these atrocities from American, English, and Australian English teachers who go over there for a few years to teach. They come back and tell us about all the fun they had and the great experiences they enjoyed while over there, but never how the government was always breathing down their neck or how they were forced to censor themselves.

It makes me wonder who those people are who are complaining the loudest (you know: the ones who aren't getting heard). While I have no doubt that there is a significant amount of pro-government propaganda, I wonder if all this bellowing isn't just a bit overly melodramatic.

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

It's like the people who bitch at how bad customs are in the states or how it's nearly a "police state." Yet, every time I fly to the states customs is a breeze, and when I get where I'm going people are not mean or out to get me or whatever.

Personally I'm not against going to China because of the government. Mostly, I'd be afraid of getting lost in the noise. So many people, where English isn't a dominant or common language. Would be a hell of an experience trying to get around.

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[flyingfsck (986395)]

If you are paid enough, then any country is pleasant. The locals may have a much tougher time time though: Small living quarters, not enough money for utilities, food, clothing, just scraping by. If you don't have enough money, living is tough everywhere, even in Europe, Canada, USA, Russia, it doen't matter where.

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[mikael (484)]

Usually in the poorest areas, people complain about the lack of police presence, that the government officials don't care, and the only time they ever appear is when some new construction work is about to be started or has been completed. Then they completely disappear again.

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[jamar0303 (896820)]

In the case of the technology director at my school (in Shanghai), he learned to do things the local way; the school gets unfiltered access and the telecom company gets a little extra income.

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[Xest (935314)]

I think you have to remember China is a pretty big country with a whole lot of people.

Most English teachers probably end up in the well populated large cities, where life is a whole lot more westernized whereas I'd imagine a lot of the oppression, human rights violations and such occur more in the outer regions where the sweat shops are and where the Chinese goverment isn't willing to invest in learning English as it is in the major business centres. As you quite rightly point out, plenty of people go to China and come back as English teacher but not only that, think of all the business people and tourists that also go and come back without these tails.

I could be completely wrong, but again I'd guess it's because the China Westerners see and experience isn't the China that the majority of the Chinese population experience. Beijing is probably the most commonly visited and heard of part of China for Westerners yet it only holds around 13 million of China's 1.3 billion people.

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[Notquitecajun (1073646)]

I concur, it's probably not too dissimilar from Cuba and other authoritarian-driven countries; the established powers DON'T want outsiders - particularly those with high standards of human rights - to see the ugly underbelly of their country. There are places in China where Westerners cannot get access...it actually makes for an easy form of travel. Go somewhere you're not supposed to, act like you're lost, and tell the guys with the guns that you were coming from where you were actually going and they're sometimes get you there.

If you're paranoid about the "evil bushies" in DC and their hold on power, keep in mind that it's easy to get out the message and disillusionment found here to other countries. Not so much in places like China, North Korea, Russia (Soviet or not)...simply because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it isn't going on.

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[Notquitecajun (1073646)]

I had a friend who had the experience I was describing along the southwestern border...he was working as a missionary among some muslim populations there.

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[arivanov (12034)]

Err...

Is it me being daft, or this is the same region where all of the so called "dissidents" dwell? So I do not quite see your argument.

You do not get to hear "cittizen journalism" from Li Average (assuming he is the counterpart of Joe Average) from a village on the outskirts of the Inner Mongolia deserts where 30%+ of the population has AIDS from selling their blood to dodgy companies for a living 5-10 years ago. You do not get to hear "cittizen journalism" from Chang "Average" from a village downwind of Harbin where 10%+ of the newborn are born with deformities from the uncontrolled pollution blown on top of them from the big metropolis and the poisoned water they have to drink. You do not get...

Frankly, as someone who has lived behind the Iron Curtain in the days when it was still up and someone who was involved in some of the unrest which followed for the next 5 or so years I can tell you this for sure: half of the so called dissidents are on the payroll of the west, the other half are on the payroll of the local KGB/KDS/Stazi equivalent. The ones that actually do that because of their ideas, beliefs and morals are a minority. Probably less than 10% and they do not tend to last. Sooner or later they have to chose which briefcase with cash to take unless they want to walk the plank.

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[r6144 (544027)]

My English teacher has probably signed some sort of agreement that prohibits him from talking about some political or religious topics in classes. Maybe the agreement also asks him not to badmouth the government even after he goes back.

Anyway, in the excitement of visiting a whole new country for the first time, censorship issues may well appear unimportant to most of these teachers.

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[Echnin (607099)]

Of course it is - everyone outside of China already knows how conditions are, they just need to keep the majority of Chinese from finding out. Of course, people here of course know that they themselves and everyone else are being censored. A classmate of mine here at the Peking University Chinese language course has a girlfriend who is working as an English teacher - it'll be interesting to ask if the contract she has signed has anything like that in it.

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[Echnin (607099)]

No, the problem isn't in information getting in. The thing that they try to control is interaction between Chinese people. Discussion of democracy, the Tiananmen massacre, and everything else the CCP doesn't want people to talk about. Most Chinese can't read English, even university students, so there's a very small audience for Chinese if they want to discuss on English-language websites. There are of course Chinese who know about Tiananmen and support democracy, for example, but if they can't propogate th

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

The Chinese know better than to allow foreigners to see what is really happening. The oldest trick in the dictator book is that, when you are doing something that looks bad in terms of international politics, you don't let people who you don't have jurisdiction over (or won't have jurisdiction over after some period of time) see anything other than smiles. Westerners see advanced technology, clean, white offices, and citizens living normal lives, but ask those English teachers and engineers where they went, and you'll hear the same few locations over and over. Now, examine the rest of the country, and a different picture is painted. It's not just China; the USSR, Nazi Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Iran, various African nations, etc. Foreign visitors don't see prisons or torture, nor do they see the fearful citizens. They see universities, computer centers, engineering design labs, and so on.

Helps to look in a mirror once in a while.

[Venik (915777)]

I wonder how many tourists coming to the US get to see the Guantanamo concentration camp. Do you suppose a lot of visitors to Poland get to see the secret CIA prisons where innocent people are being tortured? I don't think so (but feel free to disagree). So before we expend to much energy criticizing the Chinese or the USSR - may it rest in peace - lets look closer to home.

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[nyekulturniy (413420)]

No. Guantanamo is closer to Colditz than Dachau. Besides, you have a better chance of leaving Guantanamo than Dachau.

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[fbjon (692006)]

That sounds like North Korea, but who is preventing tourists from going wherever they please in China?

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[Echnin (607099)]

Well, we laowai (foreigners) here in China are granted more leeway, and the worst thing that can happen is that you're deported. Torbjørn Færøvik, a Norwegian author who wrote a fairly successful travelogue about a trip he took through China with a lot of commentary on Chinese politics and history comes to mind. I heard him speak at a small lecture in Oslo last year, and he mentioned that the last time he tried to go to China they wouldn't let him in because of what he'd written about the country. Of course they aren't going to do anything to me, a white, foreign student, for talking to someone about Tibetan independence, but if Tibetan monks make a peaceful protest saying the same, they get shot down with AK-47s [nytimes.com]. Really, an English teacher's experience in Beijing is not exemplary of how the average Chinese person has it. The CCP would never dare doing anything to a laowai.

But really, most Chinese are pretty much politically apathetic. The common worker has no time to even think about politics, having to work 14 hours a day just to feed their family. The bloggers are a minority, and the democracy movement here is just too small and unorganized to do anything. But people are in fact scared of saying anything bad about the CCP - every time I try to bring politics up with a taxi driver or whoever they just stop speaking to me. This lack of freedom of speech contributes to make people more complacent, as they don't even know about the Tiananmen protests or the truth of China's role in Tibet.

But hey, it's damn fun being here as a student!

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[p0tat03 (985078)]

But really, most Chinese are pretty much politically apathetic.

So sad, and so true. My girlfriend spent most of her childhood in China, and just now am I starting to get her interested in politics and social issues again. There is so much fear that's been instilled to them since childhood regarding politics that most stay apathetic to it out of fear for reprisal, not actual apathy, and the educational system doesn't help either. I've actually heard claims that the Chinese get democratic elections (via electing their local CCP representative!)... which is just a plain lie.

The worst part is, many see political victims as not their problem. As in, when Li Average gets dragged off to the gulag for making a stray negative comment about the government, his neighbours do not respond in fear for themselves, nor do they think less of their government for such a transgression, but rather blame Li Average for being as careless and stupid as to let those words out of his mouth in the first place (despite the fact that everyone is thinking it). You have to give the CCP some credit here, they've successfully molded a society where getting jailed for free thought is now the thinker's own damned fault. There is absolutely no sympathy in the general population for the people who speak out against oppression, and it's hard to have hope for the political future of China because of this.

Keep in mind also that the level of repression differs from area to area. Generally speaking cities are extremely free-thought-repressed, and voluntarily so. These people are making too much money, and having too good of a life from the newfound Chinese prosperity, to risk it all to talk smack about the government. As you go out to the rural areas and to industrial cities, though, the gloves come off a bit. Nothing truly revolution in nature, still, but at least you've got people who are at least willing to bitch about policies and procedure.

That is perhaps the saddest part. Instead of merely a ruling elite oppressing everyone, China is rapidly evolving into a system where the rich will gladly support the government's atrocities to ensure that they stay wealthy. That is probably sadder than just a bunch of egomaniacal politicians ruling with an iron fist.

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[p0tat03 (985078)]

Absolutely. In urban areas the one child policy is enforced fairly stringently, but usually with economic consequences for defiance, not jail nor murder.

In rural farming areas, though, it is rarely enforced at all. The local officials understand the need for a family to have a large number of hands to help out on the farm, so generally they turn a blind eye to it. That being said, though, in the few rural areas where this IS enforced, the results are spectacularly brutal. Forced abortions, destruction of

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[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

The CCP would never dare doing anything to a laowai.

Like get you wet or feed you after midnight?

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[Heir Of The Mess (939658)]

What about talking about Taiwan independence? I think the people around you probably sensor you...but I don't really know. When I was in Australia the Chinese students there seemed to get pretty fired up saying that Taiwan should be part of China.

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[Echnin (607099)]

Actually, when we learned the word for "independent" (), and the teacher asked me to make an example sentence, I said "Taiwan independence", and then she just looked at me with a look that said "oh, this naughty little kid" and then said something which I can't quite remember. Actually, though, I and my classmates always tease the teachers talking about Tibet and Taiwan and stuff and while they don't really take us quite seriously they aren't horrified or anything. Also, last Friday I was out drinking and

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[Echnin (607099)]

I guess I'll have to bow down to your experience, having been here for 12 times as long as I have. I still haven't had the experience of hearing anyone say very nasty things about the government, though, but that might be because my Chinese is still pretty bad. Or it might be a Beijing thing, I don't know. Most of what I've heard taxi drivers complain about boils down to having to work too long, migrant workers pushing wages down (though only Beijing residents can drive cabs fortunately yada yada), their bo

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[cryfreedomlove (929828)]

BadAnalogyGuy,

You can dismiss it as overly melodramatic. That's easy for you but you might want to ask The Tank Man [wikipedia.org] if he was just being melodramatic that day.

Re:Where are all the English teachers?

[BobGregg (89162)]

>> It makes me wonder who those people are who are complaining the loudest
>> ...While I have no doubt that there is a significant amount of pro-government
>> propaganda, I wonder if all this bellowing isn't just a bit overly melodramatic.

It's not. Sorry. My wife (who is from Beijing) has taken me back over there twice, and we've spent time with a lot of her friends, most of whom are fairly well to-do (relatively speaking), and/or have connections in the government. The adults all recognize, and talk about (in hushed tones), the current state of things. Though things have opened up somewhat, there's still no way to talk openly about the government. Even doing so in your own home, at your own table, makes people distinctly uncomfortable.

Go to a magazine or newspaper stand in Beijing (or any major city in China); the difference is immediately obvious. There are *no* political or public affairs publications. At all. None. All the magazines are about fashion, tourism, whatever else. Nobody talks about the government, unless they're prepared to go to jail.

The censorship is real, the political repression is real, the impact on the real, day-to-day life of the citizens, even in Beijing, is real. Things are way better than they used to be (for some), but there is still a long way to go.

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[rtb61 (674572)]

Getting past Chinese censorship is also more than just a game, on one side is the pursuit of freedom and democracy that many of us in the west take for granted and on the other side are extremely harsh penalties for getting caught.

What is really odd from a western point of view is that the majority of citizens in the west support the Chinese people in their pursuit of freedom and democracy up until the point they become greed obsessed corporate executives then the support the Chinese government in maintai

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[jank1887 (815982)]

I've been watching Survivor all season, and I have yet to see any of these so called 'atrocities'. It must be fake. Now, back to the immunity challenge!!!

When Big Brother is your neighbor

[wsanders (114993)]

We hear about the well-publicized cases but not the pervasiveness of day to day censorship. Imagine your local school board in charge, not some abstract federal agency like the CIA that one has contact with. Look at all the emails in TFA - they come from a real person with a real email address. not an anonymous entity.

In westernized, urban area, all this gets done "automatically" - like /. moderation almost. The "silent majority" goes about their business, a hole in the wall internet cafe gets closed down,

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[superpulpsicle (533373)]

Can you expand on what you mean by real Proletarian revolution? As if the first one wasn't real.

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[wsanders (114993)]

Well, yes, the first was real, no doubt about that. But they're backsliding.

Look at the much-balloyhooed WHO health study that recently put the US barely ahead of Cuba, at 37 and 39 respectively. Health care is a good example of how a government treats its people.
China in WAY down the list, at 144. If you get cancer in China, and have no money, you die. That's not exactly the system the revolutionaries of the 40s envisioned.

To their credit, the Chinese gov't and intellectuals of every political persuasion k

self censorship

[carndearg (696084)]

I was going to make a really witty comment, but I'd better not...

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[robot_love (1089921)]

Well, mission accomplished.

Baaazzing!! :)

Sure hope they're not using Google

[speaker of the truth (1112181)]

I sure hope they're not using Google or Yahoo in their illegal activities, or else Big GeGe just might knock on their door tomorrow night.

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[smilindog2000 (907665)]

I wrote a rare letter to my congressman, suggesting that he propose a law that would ban US companies from working with foreign governments to sensor political content on the Internet. It would mean that Google and Yahoo would make less money, and they would create an opening for a strong competitor to be born... but what about "Do no evil"? I can't believe Americans willingly help destroy our most valued right: freedom of speech. It's just wrong, and should be illegal.

Little Sisters are Watching You

[r6144 (544027)]

In China, we sometimes use "little sister" to refer to the people hired by the authorities to check posts on Internet forums for political correctness. Of course this is sort of a parody to "Big Brother", but indeed most such people are just young, politically unmotivated university students, frequently female, that are looking for some pocket money.

Eluding censorship

[QuietLagoon (813062)]

Well, this section of the report is not too smart.

Let's tell the powers that be all the ways in which we bypass their censorship so they can close the loopholes.

What was he thinking?

Re:Eluding censorship

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

Hardly matters. If the Chinese government had a real need to block those techniques, they wouldn't need that report to discover them. A well-rounded programmer or IT pro. could tell them the weaknesses of whatever system is in place. What it really boils down to is that there are not enough people employing these "under the radar" methods for the Chinese government to care. If 50% of the population was using steganography to sneak forbidden messages around, you can bet that with or without this sort of report, the Chinese government would be scrutinizing every image, audio, and video file transferred over their piece of the Internet.

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[Hoi Polloi (522990)]

Amazing how much money and effort they are willing to put into this effort. All that to keep a sickly system alive, sort of like painting over rotten wood.

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[QuietLagoon (813062)]

Hardly matters.

Of course it matters. Any information given to the enemy, no matter how trivial it seems, will help the enemy. Beyond the actual information itself, the enemy can also look at the means that were used to discover and develop the weaknesses in the censorship.

an anarchist's cookbook of internet techniques?

[circletimessquare (444983)]

oh wait, that was just banned in britain [slashdot.org]

but seriously, an easy to use, serially updated very small text only guide in every language that would allow your average computer idiot to avoid censorship as quickly and as painlessly as possible. no software, just a simple set of swiss army knife style techniques, everything from as obvious as "safe" sites to visit to low grade OS manipulations to keep yourself anonymous and keep yourself connected to noncensored news

of course, governments would get their hands on this guide too. it would need to be serially updated. but the old problem of the enemy knowing what you know still leaves a niche of techniques that need to remain common knowledge in heavily censored countries, regardless of governmental knowledge that you know those techniques. some techniques and basic network knowledge are just useful to know no matter what

the internet anarchist's cookbook?

From the PDF...

[kilo_foxtrot84 (1016017)]

A South Korean website polled its visitors about their nationalism in August 2006, asking them: "If you were reborn, would you want to be Korean again?" The Culture and Debate sections of the website Netease copied the idea, asking visitors if they would want to be Chinese again. The poll ran from 4 September to 11 October. Of the 10,000 people who participated, 64 per cent said they would not want to be Chinese. The main reasons identified were: "Being Chinese is not honourable," "You cannot buy a house in China, happiness is too inaccessible," "No reason," "You cannot crack jokes in China" and "You cannot see good cartoons in China." Netease had to fire Culture section editor Tang Yan and Debate section editor Liu Xianghui. And the Debate section was closed down.

Thus, the obligatory question: if you were reborn, would you want to join Slashdot again?

My recent experience...

[Brit_in_the_USA (936704)]

I was in Central china a few months ago on business. I was given no information when I landed about Internet policy from the official staff at the airport and nor did the hotel I stayed at provide any.

I got fast Internet in my room and proceed to web browse as normal.I used IM and skype from my local connection too.

I noticed that sometimes the BBC news site would load and sometimes it would not. During those "down" times I simply used hamachi to VPN to my server at home and browse from there via Remote Desktop. I guess this is no different to corporate laptops that proxy though their companies VPN for all web activities.

In short I guess the great firewall was overrated?

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[eht (8912)]

The great firewall acts differently between natives and foreigners, and you likely didn't go to the sites(mainly in Chinese) that are outright banned.

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[Brit_in_the_USA (936704)]

So you think my pc or the hotels connection is flagged as a foreigner and allowed through?

I had no problem researching the local area using Wikipedia, I would have thought that is on the banned list?

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[tnk1 (899206)]

Countries like China are very well aware of where all foreigners are at all times. Its possible that the room you were in has never had a native Chinese person occupy it. If there had been, they were probably either higher Party officials or businessmen who have made the appropriate "donations" to certain officials.

That means that there could be a little switch that the click when you logged in or it is conceivably possible that there really are holes in the Great Firewall, but only in places where the go

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[malloc (30902)]

I got fast Internet in my room and proceed to web browse as normal.I used IM and skype from my local connection too.

For you browsing "as normal" doesn't include Wikipedia? I was in China (South-eastern part) for the last month. I found many sites blocked (besides Wikipedia), especially Chinese-language news sites which the typical westerner will never visit and thus not notice being blocked. Also some religious sites that e.g. host an online Bible were blocked (but others not). If all you're doing is

Freenet

[Pegasus (13291)]

Well someone should localize freenet [freenetproject.org] into Chinese and all the problems will be gone ...

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[faloi (738831)]

I would say that preventing Gigi from being shown is a case of censorship done right.

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[querist (97166)]

Gege (I can't make Slashdot show the Chinese characters for this) means "Older brother", so "Big Gege" is redundant in this context.

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[kilo_foxtrot84 (1016017)]

So what happens if the blocking agent finds that site, and blacklists the whole thing?