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Saturday, 13 December 2008
Internet presents opportunities, potential dilemmas for Beijing
Official statistics suggest that only 19.1 per cent of the mainland’s population has access to the internet, lower than the world’s average of 21.1 per cent. The figure for South Korea and Japan is about 70 per cent.
Internet presents opportunities, potential dilemmas for Beijing
Ng Tze-wei 12 December 2008
Li Zhuoheng got hooked on the internet in 1997, when he started university at Tsinghua.
He joined the IT industry after graduation, and last year founded Jiwai, the Chinese version of Twitter, a popular internet platform in the United States that allows users to post instant mini-blogs through various mediums from mobile phones to MSN and Facebook.
“I was amazed the first time I used the internet at how quick it was to gain access to such a wealth of information,” Mr. Li said.
“From sex to government policies, it also provides a platform for open discussions. The more people know, the wiser they can be.”
Meanwhile, Zhou Shuguang , the son of a Hunan coal miner, quit school after middle school and became a self-taught internet technician.
He began blogging in 2005, and his coverage entered the mainstream media last year when he reported daily on the Chongqing “nail house”, a lone household holding out against government eviction.
Mr. Zhou’s subsequent reporting on several high-profile riots around the country earned him the title of “China’s only citizen reporter”.
“On the internet, every man can put on his one-man show,” the 27-year-old said.
Since the mainland plugged into the World Wide Web in 1994, internet usage has exploded across the country. By the end of June, the mainland registered 253 million users, exceeding the US for the first time.
And this high-speed connection to the world has affected people on the mainland in almost every aspect, from economics to politics and culture, according to Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications internet law professor Liu Deliang .
“If there is one technological innovation that contributed to the huge success of China’s opening up and reform, it must be the internet. The internet sped up China’s globalisation,” Professor Liu said.
The west has Facebook, YouTube and eBay; the Chinese have Kaixinwang (Happy Net), Tudou (Potato) and Taobao (Treasure Hunt).
In no time there were free music and movie downloads, social networking sites, customer-to- customer trading platforms, IT start-ups and e-commerce ventures.
The anonymity and openness of the internet also encouraged mainlanders to participate and speak up in ways previously impossible, Professor Liu said. In the past, it was very difficult to express opinions in a newspaper or other forms of media due to the government’s tight control, but the internet was open to all.
From QQ instant messenger groups to chat rooms and personal blogs, mainland netizens’ voices are becoming louder on current affairs.
Even the nation’s top leaders bestowed netizens with unprecedented recognition this year. President Hu Jintao spent five minutes answering questions from netizens in June, an act hailed by state media as another sign of the central government’s openness.
Media analyst Michael Anti said the internet provided a platform for civil society to grow in China.
His own blog was closed down in 2005 after calling for freedom of the press. However, Mr. Anti said, “citizen journalism” had not yet taken root on the mainland because of its absorption by traditional media and the lack of independent funds.
People power on the internet is also becoming a cause of worry in some instances, such as the controversial “human flesh search engines”, or renrou.
These online mechanisms enable netizens to use group efforts to dig up “wanted” information on others. Most of the targets are people accused of having affairs or “stealing” someone’s wife or husband.
The moral blame is immediate, and online verbal assaults have translated into real life assaults, job losses, relationship breakdowns and even mental instability for the wanted.
But legal procedures offer little redress since it is almost impossible to pinpoint someone to sue.
The destructive force and mob-like behaviour fostered by the internet’s anonymity have also fed swelling nationalist sentiment among netizens. Boycotts of Japanese goods in 2005 and French goods this year were both initiated online.
Chinese student Grace Wang of Duke University in the United States, who tried to calm conflict between Tibetan and Chinese students during the San Francisco leg of the Olympic torch relay, was branded a traitor, received death threats, and her parents were forced to go into hiding.
“Traditionally, Chinese people are not used to voicing their opinions due to cultural or other restrictions. But online, they can say whatever they want. This results in a very different way of thinking and the display of an almost different Chinese culture online,” Professor Liu said.
Like most other areas of publication, the mainland censors internet content, using a rumoured 30,000 internet police.
Anything violent and pornographic is supposedly forbidden by “The Great Firewall”, which blocks out the most sensitive foreign media and human rights websites.
From Yahoo to Sina, website operators are also frequently asked to take down sensitive postings in chat rooms or blogs spotted by the police.
“They cannot take down postings immediately, or take down all the postings. There will still be a gap in time,” Mr. Anti said. But he was less optimistic about whether the internet could be a catalyst for bringing democracy to the mainland.
Official statistics suggest that only 19.1 per cent of the mainland’s population has access to the internet, lower than the world’s average of 21.1 per cent. The figure for South Korea and Japan is about 70 per cent.
“Step One and Step Two do not necessarily lead to the final step. I currently do not see that the internet can help push forward democracy. It still requires a change at the political level,” Mr. Anti said.
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Internet presents opportunities, potential dilemmas for Beijing
Ng Tze-wei
12 December 2008
Li Zhuoheng got hooked on the internet in 1997, when he started university at Tsinghua.
He joined the IT industry after graduation, and last year founded Jiwai, the Chinese version of Twitter, a popular internet platform in the United States that allows users to post instant mini-blogs through various mediums from mobile phones to MSN and Facebook.
“I was amazed the first time I used the internet at how quick it was to gain access to such a wealth of information,” Mr. Li said.
“From sex to government policies, it also provides a platform for open discussions. The more people know, the wiser they can be.”
Meanwhile, Zhou Shuguang , the son of a Hunan coal miner, quit school after middle school and became a self-taught internet technician.
He began blogging in 2005, and his coverage entered the mainstream media last year when he reported daily on the Chongqing “nail house”, a lone household holding out against government eviction.
Mr. Zhou’s subsequent reporting on several high-profile riots around the country earned him the title of “China’s only citizen reporter”.
“On the internet, every man can put on his one-man show,” the 27-year-old said.
Since the mainland plugged into the World Wide Web in 1994, internet usage has exploded across the country. By the end of June, the mainland registered 253 million users, exceeding the US for the first time.
And this high-speed connection to the world has affected people on the mainland in almost every aspect, from economics to politics and culture, according to Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications internet law professor Liu Deliang .
“If there is one technological innovation that contributed to the huge success of China’s opening up and reform, it must be the internet. The internet sped up China’s globalisation,” Professor Liu said.
The west has Facebook, YouTube and eBay; the Chinese have Kaixinwang (Happy Net), Tudou (Potato) and Taobao (Treasure Hunt).
In no time there were free music and movie downloads, social networking sites, customer-to- customer trading platforms, IT start-ups and e-commerce ventures.
The anonymity and openness of the internet also encouraged mainlanders to participate and speak up in ways previously impossible, Professor Liu said. In the past, it was very difficult to express opinions in a newspaper or other forms of media due to the government’s tight control, but the internet was open to all.
From QQ instant messenger groups to chat rooms and personal blogs, mainland netizens’ voices are becoming louder on current affairs.
Even the nation’s top leaders bestowed netizens with unprecedented recognition this year. President Hu Jintao spent five minutes answering questions from netizens in June, an act hailed by state media as another sign of the central government’s openness.
Media analyst Michael Anti said the internet provided a platform for civil society to grow in China.
His own blog was closed down in 2005 after calling for freedom of the press. However, Mr. Anti said, “citizen journalism” had not yet taken root on the mainland because of its absorption by traditional media and the lack of independent funds.
People power on the internet is also becoming a cause of worry in some instances, such as the controversial “human flesh search engines”, or renrou.
These online mechanisms enable netizens to use group efforts to dig up “wanted” information on others. Most of the targets are people accused of having affairs or “stealing” someone’s wife or husband.
The moral blame is immediate, and online verbal assaults have translated into real life assaults, job losses, relationship breakdowns and even mental instability for the wanted.
But legal procedures offer little redress since it is almost impossible to pinpoint someone to sue.
The destructive force and mob-like behaviour fostered by the internet’s anonymity have also fed swelling nationalist sentiment among netizens. Boycotts of Japanese goods in 2005 and French goods this year were both initiated online.
Chinese student Grace Wang of Duke University in the United States, who tried to calm conflict between Tibetan and Chinese students during the San Francisco leg of the Olympic torch relay, was branded a traitor, received death threats, and her parents were forced to go into hiding.
“Traditionally, Chinese people are not used to voicing their opinions due to cultural or other restrictions. But online, they can say whatever they want. This results in a very different way of thinking and the display of an almost different Chinese culture online,” Professor Liu said.
Like most other areas of publication, the mainland censors internet content, using a rumoured 30,000 internet police.
Anything violent and pornographic is supposedly forbidden by “The Great Firewall”, which blocks out the most sensitive foreign media and human rights websites.
From Yahoo to Sina, website operators are also frequently asked to take down sensitive postings in chat rooms or blogs spotted by the police.
“They cannot take down postings immediately, or take down all the postings. There will still be a gap in time,” Mr. Anti said. But he was less optimistic about whether the internet could be a catalyst for bringing democracy to the mainland.
Official statistics suggest that only 19.1 per cent of the mainland’s population has access to the internet, lower than the world’s average of 21.1 per cent. The figure for South Korea and Japan is about 70 per cent.
“Step One and Step Two do not necessarily lead to the final step. I currently do not see that the internet can help push forward democracy. It still requires a change at the political level,” Mr. Anti said.
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