Global Voices Advocacy » Oiwan Lam

China: Chinese Communist Party Plans To Lead Microblogging Platform

Oiwan Lam — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:54:27 +0000

In China, all conventional media outlets are under the direct leadership of Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A CCP secretary is planted in every media organization to oversee the content and give direction to the editors and reporters what to highlight and what to censor. Same arrangement would be introduced to the governing of micro-blogging platforms such as Sina and Tencents Weibo, according to the report from United Daily News [zh] on June 6, 2012.

The report said, after the Lunar Chinese New Year, the CCP propaganda department issued a notice to major Weibo portals including Sina, Tencents, NetEase, Sohu and etc. that soon after the real name registration implemented, the CCP would set up a division within these portals to oversee the content management. The party division will make sure orders from the propaganda department and state information office be effectively implemented. A special budget would be allocated for the control over micro-blogging platform.

A source told the United Daily News that the Weibo mobilization on train accident in Wenzhou, the anti PX chemical factory protest in Dalian and Wukan uprising has alerted the CCP. The CCP division in Weibo portal is to make instant decision on content filtering. With the implementation of real name registration, the police division will track information source and take crackdown action. In case of emergency, the CCP division will force the platforms to go offline, the report said.

China: Censoring Opinions on China's veto on UN resolution on Syria

Oiwan Lam — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:12:38 +0000

Even though the People's Daily propagated [zh] that “China’s veto was in accordance with the Syrian people’s basic interests”, Chinese concern citizens have not been misled by the official media and believed that China should be responsibility for bloodshed after Syrian resolution veto. However, the popular opinion against China's vote has been quickly deleted online.

South Seas Conversation has captured some discussions in Netease's news thread before and after censorship. Here come the pre-censored opinions:

Aye, some people are afraid that the ‘crafty masses’ (diaomin) will have an example to look at… [2500 recommends]

The ‘China’ in the sentence ‘Rice indicated that Russia and China will be responsible for the bloodshed ahead’ has no relation with the Chinese people, it’s nothing more a crowd of of mainland mongrels (zazhong)! Regarding the ‘Russia’, that may be just one section of Russia’s high-level political hoodlums, like Putin – the little czar. [2412]

Everyone can see why this country [China] is not popular in the world, why you have the world beseiging you. [2211]

The new Axis of Evil [1824]

With the active intervention of web-censor, the opinions have been harmonized within several hours into the followings:

We are also angry about this but there’s nothing we can do. The Syrian people can only rely on themselves to get rid of this tyrant. Respect to all countries and people who support the Syrian people’s movement for justice. [5362 recommends]

Iraq, Afghanistan, it’s been 10 years already, should America take responsibility? Does Libya now need 10 years and then it can intervene in America? Why can’t America tell north from south? [4129]

Responsibility for incidents should start with those countries (people) who provoke trouble. On what basis are China and Russia responsible? This is entirely a case of the West looking for an excuse for their next evil deed. [2850]

Can this kind of inhuman government be popular (shou huanying)? [2354]

13 approvals, 2 vetos. [2343]

Public enemy of humanity. [2145]

South Korea: National Security Law Muted North Korea Related Discussions

Oiwan Lam — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:59:33 +0000

A South Korean Twitter user, Park Jeong-Geun has been arrested since January 11, 2012 for re-tweeting messages such as “Long Live General Kim Jong-Il” in Twitter. Under the curry National Security Law (NSL), Park would face up to seven years imprisonment.

Park's profile picture in Twitter.

Amnesty International called for Park's release yesterday, February 2, 2012. “This is not a national security case, it's a sad case of the South Korean authorities' complete failure to understand sarcasm,” Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director said in its statement.

Park's arrest is very controversial as he and his political party (Socialist Party) has been very critical of North Korea. But such ludicrous charge is not an isolated case. Two months ago in December 2011, another netizen, Kim Seung-kyu was prosecuted for reposting articles, songs and other available information about North Korea on his blog and calling the NSL a government attempt to suffocate the people. The materials that he posted are widely accessible in western media.

The South Korea NSL was passed 60-years ago in 1948 to protect the country from its wartime enemy, North Korea. It prosecutes those who “praise, disseminate or cooperate with anti-state groups” if such acts endanger democracy and national security.

In the past, the NSL has been used to investigate left-wing activists. Between 2005-2009, there were an average of 58 cases a year. However, “since Lee Myung-bak came to power in 2008, the Korean government re-activated the law to investigate not just left-wing activists but also ordinary people who are talking about North Korea online”, said Yoon Ji-Hye, the Korean Alliance of Progressive Movements to NPR in December 2011. Investigation has surged to 91 in 2010 and by 2011 August, there were already 150 cases.

Deletion of webpages has been increased from an annual figure of 1,500 in 2008 to 14,430 in 2009 and 80,449 in 2010. (The graph below is from North Korea Tech)

China: Micro-blog real name registration extended to Guangzhou and Shenzhen

Oiwan Lam — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 07:31:07 +0000

The regulation of real name registration for micro-blogging platform has extended from Beijing to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. According to local report [zh], the real name registration requirement is started today (December 22). 7 major micro-blogging platforms, including Tencents, Jinyang, Dayoo, Shenzhen News Web, OE, DIgu and Fanfou have to authenticate new users' identity before granting them authority to create post.

New users have to provide their identity card numbers to the micro-blogging platforms and the companies would cross-check the details with government authority for identity authentication. The users can still use pseudo name for their account.

China: Real Name Registration for Micro-blogging

Oiwan Lam — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 05:40:03 +0000

The Beijing city government introduced a new set of regulations on December 16, 2011 to control the flow of information in micro-blogging platforms. The Beijing Municipal Regulations Concerning the Development and Control of Microblogs [zh] (English version via Bill Bishop) requires users to register their real identity before posting messages on micro-blogging platforms or they will be in the read-only mode. Micro-blogging service providers have to verify the identity of their users within 3 months.

Forbidden Content

In addition, all users are forbidden from distributing messages that:

1. violate the principles of the constitution;
2. endanger national security, disclose state secrets, incite sedition of state, destroy national unity;
3. harm the nation's honor and interest;
4. incite ethnic hatred, discrimination and unity;
5. against the nation's religion policy, propagate religious cults and superstition;
6. spread rumors, disrupt public order and stability;
7. spread obscenity, gambling information, violence, horror or information that induce criminal activities;
8. defamatory comments or information that violate other's legal rights;
9. incite illegal assembly, demonstration, protest and gathering that disrupt public order;
10. illegal civic groups' activities;
11. content forbidden by any other law and regulation.

Identity verification code

According to the Beijing authority's press conference, a user has to verify his/her real identity to a government designated authority. The authority would then issue a verify code for the user to register his/her micro-blog account.

The China Media Project has translated the local news story and Professor Zhen Jiang's comments on the regulation. Zhen argues that the regulation does not have legal ground.

Meanwhile, the state propaganda China Central Television has produced a number of news features in support of the micro-blogging real name registration system. Criticisms against the regulation are deleted in matter of seconds in Sina Weibo.

China: Father of GFW on Internet Sovereignty

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 04:54:44 +0000

Fang Binxing, known as the “father of China’s Great Firewall,” recently recently made a speech on “The future of Internet security” which justifies the development of national network or national intranet by stressing the rights to Internet Sovereignty. Since Fang Binxing has great influence on the development of Internet infrastructure and censorship system in China, his speech may imply the future plan of the China Intranet.

The scopes

The notion of Internet Sovereignty is based upon a very sophisticated framework of Internet security. According to Fang Binxing's talk, the scopes of Internet security include:

1. Infrastructure: Bandwidth, Software and Hardware and etc.
2. Operation: Defense against hacking, hijacking, illegitimate access, plug-in and etc.
3. Data: User identity confirmation, privacy protection, authentication and etc.
4. Content: Monitoring, filtering, restricting unauthenticated access, screening and etc.

The principles for maintaining internet security are

1. Pragmatism: It will not jeopardize system stability
2. Privacy: Personal data in online transaction should be encrypted and protected. Enable privacy setting.
3. Control: Content must be traceable, archived and subject to auditing to ensure users' responsibility. Filter system is needed.
4. Verification: identity verification system

Beast, Pet, Livestock and Children

When discussed the objectives of Information security Fang compared the imagined targets of security maintenance to beast, pet, livestock and children.

The first objective is security defense, the target is like a beast. It is like the management of a prison house, and invasive and preventive measure is needed. The second objective is trust, the imagined target is like pet. The management style is similar to an office where there is incentive and punishment. The third objective is reliability, the imagined target is livestock. It is like management a farm, the pigs are surrounded in bars and well fed. The fourth objective is control, the imagined target is children. It is like managing one's home, everything is under monitored and parental guidance.

Fang also suggested to set up a guarantee system for software design, hardware system, service provider and users to make sure that the security system can be functioned and will not jeopardize users' need.

Internet Sovereignty

In his conclusion, he put forward the need for ensuring China's Internet Sovereignty and there are four principles for enhancing such sovereignty:

1. Independency - Against foreign intervention of the network. The government can negotiate for unilateral or multinational agreement for network access.
2. Equality - Against monopoly of giant ISPs such as Sprint and the so-called global principle in Internet governance.
3. Self-Defense - In order to self-defense, a sovereignty should have the rights to cut off from illegitimate network connection.
4. Governance - Against unauthenticated connection, access and plugin. Fang used Google's pulling out of China as an example to imply that when a company pulls out, its service in China should be ceased.

A full transcript of his talk is accessible here [zh]. Below is a widely circulated image of Fang Binxing among Chinese netizens for expressing their anger towards this Internet censorship guru:

China: Sina Weibo's Warning to DeutscheWelle

Oiwan Lam — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 01:44:33 +0000

DeutscheWelle's official Sina Weibo account has been forced to “re-incarnate” again in November 13, 2011. The deletion of user account is a punishment mechanism by Sina Weibo to those who have posted “sensitive topic”. If the user insists to make its presence in Weibo, s/he has to open a new account and accumulate its followers from zero, Chinese netizens call this “re-incarnation”.

DeutscheWelle's reincarnation message is:

不仅无法加V，还在新浪的剿杀下被迫一再转世，这大概是有史以来最悲催苦逼的官方微博了。此前德国之声一直强调说自己不会被封，因为一未违反中国的法律，二未触犯新浪的禁忌。但事实证明，人类已经无法揣测新浪的G点了，或许它全身上下无一处不敏感。

Not only that we are unable to obtain a “V” [Note: a symbol for the verification of identity verification], we are forced to re-incarnate again under the tyranny of Sina. This is probably the most miserable official micro-blog in our history. DeutsheWelle was used to stressed that we would not be blocked here. We have never done anything against the Chinese Law and we have never touched any taboos set by Sina. But the fact has proven that there is no way for any human being to avoid G-spots[Note: sensitive spot] in Sina. Probably it is all over its body.

Below is an online Cartoon on Sina's g-spots:

After the user account of DeutsheWelle been restored, they received an email from Sina demanding them to stop posting sensitive messages and criticisms against Sina.

This morning, DeutsheWelle received a pop-up chat box warning message from the Sina Weibo Customer service again, stating:

再不老实，注销帐号。

Your account will be deleted if you have any dishonesty again.

The warning is either a reaction of DeutsheWelle's exposure of Sina's censorship mechanism or a news item about a protest in Guangzhou. Below is a screen capture of the pop-up message:

The Big brother is watching you!

Hong Kong: Electoral Office bans online sharing of candidate information

Oiwan Lam — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 04:49:03 +0000

The nomination of district council election candidacy in Hong Kong has begun on September 15, 2011. However, the Registration and Electoral Office (REO) claimed that all social media activities, including Facebook and Twitter, will be regarded as political advertisement and all candidates should report to the REO two days prior to any update of their status.

Even if the candidates have seek approval, other netizens' sharing of their status without reporting to the Electoral Office would also be regarded as violation of the election regulation. Such practice would be a de facto bans of discussion about the candidates on social media.

According to Hong Kong Economic Journal's report, the REO told candidates of the district council that activities in Social Media such as Facebook would be counted as advertisement and have to report to the Electoral Office or else they risk the violation of Election Regulation. No 34(6), which demand candidate to submit their election pamphlets and advertisement before distribution. The violation of the Election Regulation would be subjected to a maximum penalty of 200 thousand fine and 3-years imprisonment. According to the regulation, election advertisement would include electron transmit messages, and they should submit a CD copy to the Electoral Office before distribution.

Any Facebook status update should be submitted to the Electoral Office two days before going online. If candidates forget to submit their “advertisement” to the Electoral Office, the case could be handed over to the Independent Commission Against Corruption for further investigation.

In addition, any third person, without prior approval forwarded the “political ads” would also violate the election law, which means netizen may have violated the regulation by pressing the “like” button of a candidate status in Facebook.

A few months ago, the Electoral Office planned to extend the “equal time” requirement from conventional media to online media during the election period. According to the draft regulation, all media, including online radio has to give equal time to each candidates for their program during the election period. Most netizens believe that the government wants to create a favor Internet environment for the pro-establishment and pro-Beijing political forces and the regulation amendment was stopped by netizens and pro-democratic forces in the consultation period.

China: State media's anti-rumor campaign

Oiwan Lam — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 05:08:05 +0000

The state controlled national television China Central Television (CCTV) launched an attack on social media platform, such as Sina Weiblog [a micro-blogging platform similar to Twitter] earlier in August 2011 accusing the tool for spreading rumors and frauds online. Chinese netizens quickly reacted against the propaganda machine, questioned the political intention of the TV program and defended the social media platforms.

Recently the Television has shifted its target of attack from social media to the biggest search engine in China, Baidu, accusing its market oriented operation mechanism, which results in the spreading of commercial advertisements which are sometimes frauds.

The CEO of KDnet, Xiao Zengjian believed that the public opinion campaign is to prepare for the launching of a new search engine, Tuiso (推索), which is jointly run by CCTV and People Net. On the other hand, new media researcher, Beifeng pointed out that the State media may want to continue the previous campaign against rumor by attacking an Internet company with less public support when compared to other micro-blogging platforms. However, eventually the objective is to impose a set of rule for regulating the Internet, in particular the social media. (via Deutsche Welle's report)

China: Wi-Fi monitoring system in Beijing cafes and bars

Oiwan Lam — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:38:54 +0000

According to Mingpao Daily, Beijing Police has issued a notice to all the cafes and bars which provide Wi-Fi access to their customers to install a RMB20,000 monitoring system. Upon installation, users have to register their ID in the counter before logging in the Wi-Fi network.
The notice was issued by the Beijing police around end of June, 2011 to cafe, bookstore, and bar which provide free Wi-Fi access to their customers. If they reject, they will no longer be allowed to provide free Wi-Fi service.

The system is called “non profit network security auditing system”, the installation fee varies from RMB 20,000 - 40,000 dollars. The system can monitor 100 customers at the same time and their browsing record would be kept in the system for 60 days. The “notice” states that for those which reject to install the system, they would be subject to a RMB15,000 fine. The police can also suspend their business license.

It is believed that the system would be adopted in other cities upon testing in Beijing. The Beijing East City District police told reporters that the system is to help the police to crack down criminal offense. However, Internet users find the monitoring system a violation of user privacy.