DDoS Attacks from China

Administrators explained that the attack resulted in heavy packet loss caused by a deluge of automated data requests that left the site's servers overloaded. A further explanation from Rackspace to inmediahk.net said the DDoS attacks came mainly from China:

The attack was specifically targeting the domain name www.inmediahk.net. When we changed IP's in DNS, the attack followed. As far as the source IP's, it was a large group of addresses from various different countries, mostly from China, which is typical of a DDOS from a botnet of compromised hosts. The attack switched from a SYN flood to a TCP fragmentation attack after we enabled a measure which provides for SYN flood protection at the expense of site performance.

In order to restore the website, inmediahk.net has begun using Cloud Flare, a DDoS mitigation service, to pre-filter malicious traffic coming from sources such as a botnet zombie [a computer with a DDoS attack program] and web spammers [computer bots that send spam or post spam-like comments] before they reach the site's system. In 24 hours, Cloud Flare recorded 608 unique threats to the site. A threat control report confirmed that while the attacks are coming from different countries, nearly half of the attackers are from China, including Hong Kong.

Baidu Reported as Webspammer

The report also showed a large number of IP addresses (between 180.76.5.0-180.76.5.212) that registered as web spammers. According to Domain Tools’ IP information, this set of IPs comes from Baidu, China's largest search engine, which is listed on the US stock market.

Screen Capture from the threat report

Because inmediahk.net is blocked in China, all visits from China must come through a VPN (Virtual Private Network) or a proxy server — visitors’ IP addresses thus appear to come from overseas rather than from mainland China. In fact, Baidu's search engine does not show any results linking to inmediahk.net. When one searches the headline of a recent inmediahk.net article “香港獨立媒體網被中國黑客攻擊” [Hong Kong Independent Media's Website Attacked by Hackers from China], Baidu offers no result leading to inmediahk.net [zh]; an identical search on Google brings up inmediahk.net's article as the top result [zh].

Global Voices Advocacy asked Baidu for comment on the attack, but the company had not yet replied as of publication time.

According to inmediahk.net's report about the hacking incident [zh], the website has been paralyzed by hackers in the past. Despite having shifted to a cloud hosting service in 2010, it has continued to suffer from occasional DDoS attacks around sensitive periods, such as the annual June 4 Candlelight Vigil to commemorate the 1989 protests at Tienanmen Square. These have typically resulted in a rapid increase in computational cycles that slow down the website. But the scale of the recent attack is much greater than previous ones.

Controversial content

Members of inmediahk.net believe the attack was triggered by recent content on the site. Over the past two weeks, the network has been covering an ongoing strike by dock workers for Hong Kong International Terminals (HIT), the company that runs Hong Kong's docks and is owned by local business tycoon Li Ka-Shing. Articles on the site expose how workers have been exploited through HIT's subcontracting system — subcontracted workers currently earn lower wages than they did in 1995. Another polemical series focuses on the construction of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy Pier [zh] at Central, the city center of Hong Kong. It accuses the Hong Kong government of violating city planning protocols in the construction of PLA pier and criticizes authorities for converting a large piece of city land from a public recreational space into one for military use.

Global Voices Advocacy will continue to cover this story as it unfolds.

GVA note: Oiwan Lam is a volunteer editor for inmediahk.net.

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The study found that 80% of the original content circulated on Sina Weibo is created by a small group (4.8%) of micro-bloggers. Similar to other social media, the distribution of activity and influence is highly uneven on Weibo. It is this small minority of very active participants on Weibo who typically face government pressure to express opinions that are favorable to government interests. By taming this small but influential group of opinion leaders, authorities can channel public opinion, maintain its stability, and strengthen its legitimacy. It is thus not surprising that opinion leaders are often forced to drink tea [be interrogated by police], and that some of them are paid to produce and circulate government propaganda.

The HKU study used an API to randomly fetch user data from Sina Weibo. From an original sample of 29,998 validated user accounts, researchers found that 17,224 accounts were empty or had not posted to the site, meaning that these accounts were either inactive or fake. Among active micro-bloggers, 56.5% identified themselves as male and 43.5% identified as female. The geographic location of the users is reflected on the map below.

Most users were located in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong, accounting for 9% of the total sampled micro-bloggers. Macau, Hong Kong, and Tibet were the next most populous regions.

The researchers collected 21,030 posts within the seven-day research period, in which 8,139 were original posts and 12,891 were re-posts. Only 13% of sampled microbloggers created original posts. But as mentioned above, 4.8% of microbloggers sampled created 80% of the original content on the site. Furthermore, only 4.4% of users’ posts had been re-posted or commented on. The power law of Weibo is similar to other social media, such as Twitter.

Against this background, it is easy to understand why Chinese authorities have expended so much effort in taming Weibo opinion leaders.

Some researchers on the development of e-democracy in China have already pointed out that the negotiation between the state and individual has taken shape in the form of an “authoritarian deliberation” or a so-called “control 2.0“. As shown in the research, the distribution of influence is highly unequal in Weibo; maintaining some control over Weibo opinion leaders is thus a critically important feature in the regime's stability.

Apart from regular “tea sessions” with security police, a practice we described in another recent Global Voices Advocacy post, it has recently been revealed that the state propaganda machine, China Central Television (CCTV), is believed to have paid Weibo opinion leaders to echo CCTV political campaigns. One example of this was a smear campaign against Apple. Several prominent Weibo opinion leaders were instructed to criticize Apple products at 8:20pm on March 15, which is Consumer Rights Protection Day. Ministry of Tofu, a news and commentary site focused on social justice in China, has translated a post from Peter Ho, a Taiwanese-American movie star who has 5 million followers on Weibo:

Apple played so many tricks in customer service? As an Apple fan, I am really hurt… Is what you’ve done worthy of [Steve Jobs]? Worthy of the young man who sold one kidney? So you bully customers just because you are big! To be posted at around 8:20.

Similar tactics have been used by corporate entities in the past, but it is less common for a state-controlled organization to be involved in such a scandal.

For opinion leaders who are not intimidated by tea sessions and can't be bought off, their accounts are likely to be suspended or even deleted. During the Southern Weekend censorship scandal, in which censors and editorial staff at Southern Weekend newspaper clashed over the newspaper's political coverage, many reporters’ Weibo accounts were suspended. Another recent well-known case involved former Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party leader, Frank Hsieh Chang-Ting, whose Weibo accounts were deleted twice in the span of a few hours last month.

In sum, it is clear that Sina Weibo's most active users will continue to have a powerful influence on public opinion and ideas in China for some time, and that this in turn will elicit persistent if not increasing government efforts to control their messages. Global Voices Advocacy will continue to cover this issue as it develops.

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In a research paper entitled “The Velocity of Censorship: High-Fidelity Detection of Microblog Post Deletions,” the group describes how they collected Sina Weibo posts both from common and “dissident” Weibo users. Launched in 2010, Sina Weibo had over 500 million users by end of 2012. Over 46 million users post messages on a daily basis.

Researchers used messages both from Sina Weibo's public timeline and from a roster of over 3500 “dissident” users of the service. Sina Weibo aggregates all user messages in a publicly accessible, reverse chronological list, known as a public timeline — unless those messages have been censored. In order to understand more about censorship on Sina Weibo, researchers also studied messages sent by users who had been cited by watchdog news site China Digital Times and those who had had 5 or more posts deleted in the past. Among this group of “dissident” users, the researchers found that an average of 12.75% of messages are deleted. Of these, 82.25% are “child” posts (comments and reposts of an original post.) “Support Syrian rebels,” “Beijing rainstorms,” “human rights news,” “group sex” were among commonly censored terms.

In mainland China, public commentary that is interpreted as a challenge to the rule of the Chinese government or China's Communist Party is considered politically sensitive and thus, by government and party standards, should be censored. Yet a mechanical filtering system that targets terms such as “government” is both unrealistic and useless. Using the term “government” as an example, netizens could easily substitute the term with “ZF” [the Chinese pingyin or transliteration of "Zhenfu," which means "government"] or other terms such as “empire” when they want to criticize authorities.

The censorship body has developed a very sophisticated system and hired a large number of site moderators to monitor and, when necessary, stop the flow of dissenting ideas on the social media platform. As Sina Weibo is the most influential social media platform in China, many believe that it is thus placed under the heaviest degree of scrutiny and is more subject to censorship than other platforms.

During the research period, Sina Weibo users posted an average of 70,000 messages per minute. The study found that 5% of deletions took place 5-8 minutes after a message was posted; 30%  of deletions were made within 30 minutes of posting; and 90% within one day. So how does the Sina Weibo manage to censor such huge quantities of posts so quickly? Weibo moderators use several methods.

Keyword filtering

The most commonly known method is the use of filters for specific terms or keywords. Deletion data showed that the Weibo censorship system maintains multiple keyword lists, with each list triggering a different kind of response. Different kinds of keywords can trigger explicit filtering, implicit filtering, or “camouflaging”.

Explicit Filtering: When users send a message containing a keyword that is marked for explicit filtering, they typically receive a notice saying that the content of the post is forbidden by law.

For example, when you type in Chinese President Hu Jintao's name, a notice will appear saying that your post has violated either Weibo community rules or existing law. However, it is important to note that Hu Jintao's name is searchable, which means certain user accounts have the rights to post this particular sensitive word.

Warning message issued by the Weibo system when the post contains the word “Hu Jintao” in Chinese.

Implicit Filtering: Soon after users send a message, they receive a notice telling them that the post will be reviewed and the published with a time delay. This kind of keyword filtering usually targets specific users or a particular hot topic.

Camouflaged Posts: The published message is hidden from other Weibo users — only the message's author can see it.

Apart from the above three responses, the public timeline and search results also have either content or user filters that block certain content from appearing.

User monitoring

The system also maintains lists of users whose messages are considered politically sensitive. Similar to keyword filters, each user group is subject to a different level of monitoring. Some users undergo routine deletion; some cannot upload messages without having them reviewed by the Weibo moderators (implicit filtering); some have their accounts temporarily suspended. The level of monitoring may change, depending on the issue in question. For example, every year when the commemoration of the June 4 Tianenmen Square protests is approaching, messages from Hong Kong IP addresses are closely monitored. Users who try to commemorate June 4 in Weibo typically have their accounts suspended for a few days.

Deletion patterns

The deletion of a message has a chain effect. When a message is deleted, its re-posts will also be deleted automatically. In addition, the moderators will also search the newly identified sensitive term in its system archive to make sure that previous mentions of the term are eradicated.

The censorship body watches hot topics (similar to trending topics on Twitter) closely. When a hot topic is politicized, or involves sensitive themes (such as government, political reform, etc.), massive removal happens fastest.

As the research results are mainly derived from the group of dissident users, the speed and rate of deletion does not reflect an ordinary user's experience. Yet the research has provided some insights into how Sina monitors and censors the massive quantity of messages that appear on its platform.

Future studies might benefit from fuller consideration of how the Chinese authorities control information flow online must consider the role of the so-called 50 cent party, a group of Internet commentators who promote government policies and favorable opinions of the government on social media platforms in China.

See original article for further information:
The Velocity of Censorship: High-Fidelity Detection of Mircroblog Post Deletions [pdf]

Additional recent commentary on “The Velocity of Censorship”:

Computer Scientists Measure the Speed of Censorship on China's Twitter

MIT Technology Review

Scientists Measure Speed of Censorship on Sina Weibo

China Digital Times

Censorship Alert! Academic Study Shows Sina Weibo's Human Censors Are Pretty Darn Fast

Tech in Asia

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Green tea by mckaysavage (CC BY 2.0)

A person can be summoned for a tea talk for different reasons. Online opinion leaders, people who write about or host online platforms for political dissent, those who share sensitive information from unofficial channels, and signatories of online petitions are all frequently “forced to drink tea” with police. Opinion leaders are invited for tea on a regular basis, so that police may make sure that they are behaving “responsibly” in their role as opinion leaders.

Police typically arrange tea talks by calling the person in question or by arranging a meeting through his or her place of work, known as a “work unit” (單位）in China. For example, a university student's work unit will likely be the university's Chinese Communist Party Branch.

Police may use tea talks to identify information sources, intimidate the netizens, or even to “aid” the investigation of a “potential” (i.e. future) crime.

Identifying Information Sources

When meeting for tea, internal security police will ask netizens to identify the sources of political information or ideas that they spread. If they fail to cooperate with the police and do not identify these information sources, they may be subject to prosecution and charged with “spreading rumors” or “causing public disorder”. In some cases, police offer material or financial incentives to netizens in exchange for them working as police informants.

Citizen Intimidation

Tea sessions can also serve as a warning sign, indicating to netizens that they are on a watch list and that they have to be careful about what they say online.

In early 2013, a controversy between editors and government censors at the influential Southern Weekly newspaper led many online opinion leaders, including Google's former CEO Li Kaifu, popular Taiwanese actress Annie Yi Nengjing, and real estate developer Ren Zhiqiang to express their support for the newspaper's editorial autonomy.

All three were all called for a “tea chat” with police, after which Kai-fu Lee said [zh] in his micro-blog: “The tea was really bitter” and “from now on, I can only talk about the East, the West and the North; I can only talk about Week day,” in a tacit reference to the Southern Weekly.

Annie Yi Nengjing refused to cooperate. Her contract with Dragon TV network, where she starred on the program “China's Got Talent,” has since been terminated.

Investigating a “potential” crime

Police will interrogate a netizen either as a witness to a crime, or even as a suspect. Everything the netizen says is put on record.

Police summoned netizen @borderline_citizen_weibo (＠邊民微博）for a tea talk [zh] in September 2012 after he  commented on the 2011 Mekong River massacre, in which the crew members of two Chinese cargo ships traveling along the river were killed by unidentified attackers.  Based on the initial testimonies of major suspects and his own information sources, the microblogger wrote online that he believed that the principal suspect, Burmese drug lord Naw Kham, had made secret agreements with Chinese military and public security personnel in the past.

During the interrogation, the police asked @borderline_citizen_weibo to identify his information sources or to face charges of “creating public disorder”.

Strategies for Tea Talks

To help others prepare for a potential tea talk with police, online opinion leader Wu Gan（＠超級低俗屠夫）shared [zh] some “tea talk” tips with other netizens. Below is a summary of his advice:

1. Don't be afraid and don't be angry.

2. Only talk about yourself. Try your best not to provide information about others.

3. Tell the police that you believe in what you have done and that you are prepared to face the consequences.

4. Don't take their questions personally.

5. Don't humiliate or criticize them during or after the tea talk.

6. Don't trust them and don't assume that you'll be able to persuade them to take your side.

7. If you don't want to engage with them, you may consider signing the guarantee document. [This document certifies a citizen's promise to follow police instructions, which might stipulate that they may not blog about certain topics or discuss politics online. This document is not legally binding, so you do not have to abide by what you have signed.]

8. If you want to minimize risk, avoid getting involved in local incidents. Pay attention to other provinces as you are outside their jurisdiction. [Internal security police usually operate at the provincial level. The standard procedure for carrying out cross-border operations has to go through the local police unit, which requires a lot of paper work.]

9. They may try to put pressure on your friends, family, or employer. Try to tell your social circle about it and get their support for your cause.

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This is not new for Hong Kong journalists either, who have to put up with daily surveillance of their computers at work.

To shed some light on surveillance practices used against journalists in China, Hong Kong-based online news portal The House News interviewed [zh] Cable TV China desk reporter, Lui Ping-Kuen.

The Chinese government has denied all the accusations about its involvement in hacking activities. Photo from flickr user Futurist CC: AT-NC.

Lui affirms that the hacking of email accounts is very common among journalists. “[O]nce the email account of a colleague of mine was hacked and that account sent out virus emails to all its contacts,” he recounts.

SMS text messages are also under tight surveillance. According to Lui, his interview arrangement was exposed because of a message from the cross-platform mobile messaging application Whatsapp. He also says that the contacts in his mobile phone were collected by the police after he was detained at a mainland China police station. He explains that quite often, the conversation between two persons would be disrupted because of mobile surveillance.

Lui described a terrifying experience that took place in 2007 when he was helping to set up a news room in Shanghai, eastern China. “[W]e went out for a meal and when we came back, something was wrong: the windows and the light [appeared to have been disturbed] and we discovered later that the settings of three computers had been changed.”

In order to protect their sources, journalists do not use email or mobile phones for communication. Instead they use public pay phones and talk face-to-face with sources, often in secret meeting places. They often do not take their mobiles along with them in meetings for fear of being tracked.

In the past few days, the Twitter accounts of many mainland Chinese independent reporters were hacked. This prompted Twitter to reset the passwords of many Chinese journalists. Twitter also sent out a notice in which it explained the following (via Deng Zhixin, a reporter from the Chinese magazine Sun Affair):

This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to reset your password and publicize this attack while we still gather information. We are also helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.

Compared to their peers overseas, independent Chinese citizen reporters are very vulnerable. Many of them have to endure regular “tea sessions” (unwarranted police interrogations) with internal security police officers. If they refuse to expose their information sources, it is often the case that the police find an excuse to arrest them.

The latest case is related to a sex tape scandal, which has resulted in the sacking of 10 party officials. The video, showing Chongqing officials having sexual relations with young girls, was first uploaded to the internet by investigative journalist Zhu Ruifeng. Zhu was later “visited” by Chongqing police. It is believed that the police wanted to get hold of the original video storage disks so as to track the video's digital footprint and locate its original source, but little else has been reported about the status of the investigation.

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A number of mainland Chinese netizens have suggested a parallel between Google's change of policy and its new business partnership with Qihoo 360. Since Google stopped abiding by Chinese government censorship demands in the Spring of 2010, some of its major business partners in China have suspended their business relations with it under pressure from the Chinese government. For example Sina Weibo stopped using Google's search engine in March 2011. The recent cooperation between Google and Qihoo 360 is therefore seen by online commentators as a possible shift in Google's business dealings with China.

Qihoo is originally an antivirus software and a web-browser company. In August last year it entered the search engine business in rivalry with Baidu, the biggest search engine in China. The news about the Google-Qihoo partnership was reported in the China Daily and picked up by the Chinese Government's official website on January 7, 2013.

Google's censorship warning feature was introduced in May of 2012 to improve users’ search experience. Since spring 2010, all searches from its mainland Chinese search engine, google.cn, were redirected to its uncensored Hong Kong-based Chinese language search engine, google.hk. However, Google searches made by users in mainland China can still be blocked through the user's Internet service provider by the Chinese government's own online censorship system, known as the Great Fire Wall—a system over which Google has no control.

Because this filtering system results in a connection reset which disrupts the user's Internet connection, the warning box feature was designed to alert mainland Chinese users that the continued search of the sensitive term may break the users’ connection to Google and that the interruption is outside Google's control. The below screenshot shows the image of the warning box feature:

The feature alerted users of a potential disruption to the Internet connection, but as more and more websites and keywords became inaccessible in China, search became increasingly difficult. Sources told Techcrunch that ”Google pulled the feature because it was making it more difficult for users to access its search services.” This has been confirmed by another source who requested anonymity, and who says that the decision was taken to improve users’ search experience and data accessibility. When contacted, Google declined to comment.

In Chinese social media, some see this quiet policy change as a compromise in Google's transparency principle. There are also speculation that the move is correlated to the new partnership between Google and Qihoo in the search engine advertisement business, though partnerships of a similar nature have taken place before.

Currently Qihoo's biggest competitor in the search engine advertisement business is Baidu. To protect its interests, Baidu blocks Qihoo's search engine from crawling its content data. Many believe that the competition between the two has brought Qihoo and Google together. The partnership may imply that Google is quietly trying to reenter the Chinese search engine market.

Many Chinese netizens are, however, not happy about the cooperation because of Qihoo's rather controversial business style:

BillBatesCN believes that Google is trying to re-enter China while giving up on its ethical commitments:

Google要借助跟360的合作回归中国，我一直认为谷歌是个很有底线的公司，虽说在中国市场就是要放下身段，但我瞬间觉得谷歌和360少了110。

Google is trying to re-enter China by cooperating with 360 [the brand name of Qihoo's search engine]. I used to believe that Google is a company with an ethical baseline. Though there are inevitable trade-offs in entering the Chinese market, between Google and 360, there are 110 other choices.

He Zhiyong notices the coincidence in the removal of the censorship warning and the cooperation between Google and Qihoo:

近日，国内有消息称奇虎360与谷歌有望达成搜索合作协议。360也 向媒体证实了这一消息属实。与此同时，有报道称，谷歌搜索悄悄撤掉了警示中国网络审查的标语。分析指 出，谷歌搜索彻底在中国失败了，而借助360在中国翻盘的机会也很小，如果360搜索系统成熟，谷歌可能会被抛弃呜呜呜…

There is news that Qihoo 360 has an agreement with Google to forge a business partnership and 360 has confirmed this in the media. At the same time, there is a report that Google has quietly removed the message about censorship of search results in China. Some analysts say that Google has lost the Chinese market completely and the chance to re-establish themselves in China through cooperation with 360 is small. Once the 360 search system is mature, Google will be dumped.

On Sina Weibo, the most influential Chinese domestic micro-blogging platform, there's a lot of talk about the Google-Qihoo cooperation. Many angry remarks [zh] point to Qihoo 360′s controversial past business style, such as accusations of faking of a Microsoft patch in August 2012 or Yahoo China's lawsuit back in 2006. The most recent scandal involves an accusation of a privacy breach that involves the leaking of private information of its users on its website, upload.360safe.com.

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However, a Sina Weibo's manager, @geniune_Yu_Yang （正版于洋）, frustrated by the pressure the Propaganda Department imposed upon him and his colleagues, came out and wrote an inside story (see jpeg image) to explain Sina's difficult position. Below is a quick translation of what he wrote:

Last night in [Sina] Weibo, apart from the Propaganda Department, my work unit was the second most popular target of netizens’ verbal attack. The screen was full of the terrifying note: “The micro-blog has been deleted.” The platform looked like a sinking ship with thousands of holes on it. My boss, Lao Shen's [Sina] Weibo's page is full of cursing. In particular, after the Southern Weekly incident had been reported by Netease [a popular web portal] extensively yesterday, attacks on Sina's cowardice and its role as the running dog [of the Propaganda Department] reached a climax. I was so frustrated and finally fought with a famous online script-writer. After I cooled down, I reflected upon the whole thing, feeling the urge to write a long micro-blog to explain the situation in detail.

Very often, you can't see the truth when you just see the phenomena and when you are overwhelmed with anger.

1. If we don't delete your post, the alternative is that your account will be banned. This platform belongs to the public. It has changed our life and can exercise influence on the society and government through the spread of opinion. On the one hand, we have millions of netizens, on the other hand, we have, not Sina [Weibo, but the government and the authorities]. Since the day [around the end of March 2012] when Sina Weibo suspended its comments function for three days, a special group of people have the authority to decide on the criteria for giving out alert signals, and can make [Sina] Weibo go “game-over” as simply as treading on some ants without giving a damn about people's needs. When they issue urgent orders (like the Emperor's 18 golden orders in ancient time), you have to execute them.

We need [Sina] Weibo to deliver voices. But a hand is manipulating behind us. Someone is doomed to be sacrifice in this game. We live in a country full of special and sensitive barriers and we have to operate within a set of rules.

2. With such background, we have the second thesis: The strategy on deletion and distribution. Please think about this: You guys keep posting messages like machines, and the micro-blog secretaries keep deleting them. If we don't delete messages one by one and suspend accounts, we could have saved more time and energy. We could have served better as the running dog. You can see the messages before they are deleted, right? You still have your account functioning,  right? You are all experienced netizens, you know that the technology allows us to delete messages in a second. Please think carefully on this.

3. In some cases, other platforms have more space than Sina. Sina is the biggest tree and everyone is using the platform. “Classmate Xuan” [, nickname for the Propaganda Department,] will watch every single act. Once the leaves of the tree move, the bell rings. The way we receive orders is similar to the way the Catholic Father in the movie Cinema Paradiso rings his hand bell whenever there is a kissing scene. We have to take orders whenever we hear the ringing bell.

Before this incident occurred, and at its very early stages, we were under a lot of pressure. We tried to resist and let the messages spread. This is our accomplishment already. Our official account @Sina_Media reported on the suspension of the Southern Weekly instantly, and the news was retweeted by @headline_news, which was again retweeted again 30,000 times in 10 mins. Then we got the order from “Classmate Xuan” and we had to delete it. Fortunately, the message had been distributed. A friend from Penguin website left a warm message in my microblog: This is a battle. Sina [Weibo] is a human flesh shield. It is a courageous act.

4. Expectedly, my bosses have to go through tea session [euphemism for police interview] again. I have to stop here.

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NPC passed a set of rules to provide legal ground for real name registration. Public domain photo from NPC official website.

Enforcing Internet Real Name Registration

Among the 151 attendees of the NPC, 145 voted in favor of adopting the new rules, 5 abstained and—in a very rare show of dissidence [zh]—1 representative voted against. The most controversial part of the 12-article document [zh] is the “Protection of Personal Information Online” section, which deals with real name registration. The document reads:

Network service providers will ask users to provide genuine identification information when signing agreements to grant them access to the Internet, fixed-line telephone or mobile devices or to allow users to post information publicly — Xinhua

The actual implementation of the real name provision will be specified in practice by the central government in a future amendment of the Administration of Internet Information Services Procedures, the law first introduced in 2000 and that governs Internet use in China.

The law already forces ISPs to ask users to register with their real names. OSPs, like micro-blogging platforms, on the other hand, have so far only been “encouraged” to ask all their users to register with their real names.

Sina Weibo [zh], China's most popular and influential microblogging service, has two real name registration systems. The first is a verification system for celebrities, similar to that of Twitter. Upon government pressure, Weibo launched a second real name registration mechanism in early 2012 for its broader community of users. The system is connected to Weibo's online payment platform where mainland Chinese users have to submit their real names, I.D. card numbers, create a password for their online payment service. The system will then match the user's name and I.D. card number to complete the verification process. As for overseas users, real name registration is not required. Sina Weibo encourages them, however, to connect their mobile phone numbers with their accounts.

On February 2012, Sina Weibo threatened to suspend anonymous users’ accounts if they failed to register their real names before March 16, 2012. Past the deadline, anonymous users could no longer comment or retweet under certain “hot-topics.” However, the policy was very short-lived. In fact it lasted only for a few days as the company seen a steep drop in user activity, forcing it to restore its original basic service.

Currently, anonymous users can still post micro-blogs, retweet and comment. However, many still complain about strange system behavior: some say their posts are visible only to themselves or to mutually followed friends, some only to followers.

The future amendment may penalize those OSPs which fail to enforce real name registration. The new set of regulations will also allow OSPs to change their terms of service with their users without running the risk of being sued by their clients.

Implications of the New Set of Rules

How the policy will actually be implemented is a matter for the State Council to decide. That's why prominent human rights lawyer, Liu Xiaoyun, urged all netizens to voice their opposition against any measure that could violate freedom of expression as protected by the Chinese constitution. Below is the translation of a selection of Liu's answers to a series of questions and concerns raised by Chinese netizens on the Netease microblog [zh] platform:

hansonji ：#解读网络信息保护草案# 向@刘晓原律师 提问：我担心网络反腐败到实名为止了，，网络实名本身就是最大的侵权。

刘晓原律师 ：韩国宪法法院称，互联网实名制阻碍了用户自由表达意见。中国宪法也赋予公民言论自由权，但中国没有宪法法院，因此，无法针对网络信息保护决定提起违宪之诉。

hansonji: I am worried that the real name registration system will put an end to the online anti-corruption campaign. The system is a violation of human rights.

Liu: The Korean Constitution court has already ruled that the real name registration has violated users’ freedom of expression. The Chinese Constitution has also protected Chinese citizen with rights to freedom of expression. However, in the case of China, we don't have a constitution court and we can't file a judicial review against the administrative regulation on the protection of internet information.

网络知客 ：#解读网络信息保护草案# 向@刘晓原律师 提问：手机卡号实名制购买，现在弄得各种促销短信满天飞，谁泄露的我的手机号码？ 股市个人信息泄露又是谁的责任～？
刘晓原律师 ：实名制后，给相关管理部门收取个人信息提供了便利条件，反而不安全了。

网络知客 : We have mobile phone real name registration implemented. But what we get is mobile spams. Who has leaked out my mobile numbers? Even personal information in stock market has been leaked. Who is going to be responsible for this?

Liu: After the real name registration, it is much more easy for commercial sectors and the authorities to obtain people's private data. It will be more insecure.

我爱天美 ：#解读网络信息保护草案# 向@刘晓原律师 提问：棺员财产公示制度千呼万唤出不来，这个封口法律为何这么快？？

刘晓原律师 ：我也不理解。财产申报制度，全国人大常委会从1994年开始讨论，至今长达十八年了也出台不了一部法律或一个决定。据说，理由是条件不成熟！

我爱天美 : How come the legislation for government officials to disclose their property has never been implemented, even though the whole world has been calling for that. Whereas for making rules to shut people up, the legislation is so quick?

Liu: I don't understand that either. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) has started discussing the disclosure of government officials’ property since 1994. It has been 18 years, nothing came out yet. The hearsay explanation is that “the conditions are not mature enough”!

xzly的空间 ：#解读网络信息保护草案# 向@刘晓原律师 提问：请问，保护网络信息如何与揭发执政者的腐败行为区分开来？从而不会让腐败官员打着保护网络信息安全的旗号阻止、压制、打击、陷害举报揭发他们腐败罪行的正义人士。

刘晓原律师 ：网络信息安全要保护，但实行实名制作用不大。韩国人金宰贤为金融时报撰文介绍韩国网络实名制时说，韩国于2007年7月开始实施网络实名制，旨在减少网上的语言暴力、名誉损坏、虚假信息传播和不正常的人肉搜索。但实行实名制后，韩国不仅没有如愿以偿，结果恰恰南辕北辙，致使韩国各大网站成了黑客的主要攻击对象。

xzly的空间 ：Is there a way to protect internet information without repressing online anti-corruption efforts? How to stop corrupted officials from repressing and cracking down of the righteous ones who exposed their corruption under the excuse of the protection of internet information security?

Liu: The real name registration system cannot protect internet information security. Korean columnist Kim Chong Il from the Financial Times pointed out that when South Korea introduced the real name registration system in July 2007, the objective was to reduce verbal violence, defamation, rumors and human flesh related search queries. However, such objective has never been fulfilled. On the contrary, the system has attracted many hackers to attack major web portals.

xianshideliliang12 ：#解读网络信息保护草案# 向@刘晓原律师 提问：对于信息保护的监督落实和此法案有多大意义上的作用

刘晓原律师 ：有了全国人大常委会的决定，国务院就可以制定相关的行政法规。现国务院法制办副主任袁曙宏表示，目前国务院法制办正会同有关部门修订国务院2000年制定的互联网信息服务管理办法。办法修订草案细化了决定的内容，

xianshideliliang12: What is the implication of this bill in the implementation of online personal data protection and monitoring?

Liu: With the NPC's decision, the State Council can propose a set of regulations to implement the rules. The deputy head of the law making office of the State Council Yuan Shuhong said that the State Council is now working with various departments to amend the Administration of Internet Information Services Procedures which was implemented in 2000. The amendment will specify the details.

海上神鹰 ：#解读网络信息保护草案# 向@刘晓原律师 提问：网络信息保护是出于什么样的目的？是监视网民不要乱在网上发布不利于官员的信息还是监视网民对社会不公正现象表达不满？

刘晓原律师 ：前不久，有媒体报道说，使用匿名制，对涉及互联网违法犯罪案件，公安机关取证很困难。但现在又说，是为了保护公民在互联网上的信息安全。

海上神鹰: What is the purpose of the internet information protection? Is it intended to monitor netizens and stop them from revealing information that can hurt government officials? Is it intended to prevent them from speaking up against social injustice?

Liu: Not long ago, some media reports said that the anonymous use of the internet will create barriers for the police to investigate on online crimes. Now they say that it is for the sake of protecting citizens’ personal information online.

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1. Challenges paused by the Copyright Amendment
2. How to make use and step out of the “tyranny of Facebook”
3. Communication and exclusion and the “tribalization challenge”
4. Radical community media politics vs. populist politics
5. How to deal with government and corporate oppression
6. Management and sustainability challenges
7. Online content: Diversification or homogenization; Alternatives or mainstream
8. How can citizen media develop cross-border content
9. Grassroots networking through online media

Inmediahk Summit poster

The summit organizer, inmediahk.net, invited 4 distinguished speakers:

Ip Iam Chong: One of the founders of inmediahk.net; Lecturer at the Cultural Studies Department, Lingnan University.
Jack Qui Linchuan: Associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Chloe Lai: Senior journalist and part-time lecturer on journalism.
Lisa Leung Yuk Ming: Assistant professor at the Cultural Studies Department, Lingnan University.

Below is a summary report on the main observations made by the aforementioned four speakers at the end of the summit:

Ip Iam Chong: Exploring common agenda across online tribes

What is the meaning of new media explosion, wonders Ip Iam Chong. It is a global phenomenon that marks the subsiding of mass culture. However, the process is very slow. For example, in the case of Hong Kong, TVB, a popular commercial television station, still has a large audience.

In the past few years, a large number of small online media have emerged but they remain very tribalized. Sometimes they are even at odds with each other. This summit was in fact a rare occasion for participants from non-mainstream media to sit together. At the same time, we, citizen media actors, commonly face a set of challenges: a common technological setting; main actors in the local democratization process; the subsiding of conventional and commercial news media organizations as a result of the failure of the existing business model.

The revolution taking place now is led by a large number of small online media organizations—the so-called “We” media. They are not just media groups but they represent a new political practice. Yet the movement also faces a lot of additional challenges, such as the fact they have to operate under the tyranny of new media giants, such as Facebook. They are restricted by their policy and technological settings.

Moreover, online media groups are ghettoized. The emotionally-charged type of information they distribute, mostly speaks to those who share the same perspective. This is the so-called “Echo Chamber Effect.” The affective consumption of information makes it even more difficult to carry out in-depth discussion on social and political issues. We are aware of the fact that investigative reports can be rarely found in online citizen media.

Despite all these challenges, with a common context, Ip Iam Chong thinks it is still possible for us, citizen media actors, to formulate a common agenda among local citizen and non-mainstream medial.

Jack Qui: Embracing social and political transformation

Jack Qui's research is focused on how mainland Chinese workers make use of Internet and mobile communication technology in the Pearl River Delta. He has attended the copyrights and grassroots media panel discussions during this summit.

To deal with the tribal culture, Qui contends, citizen media organizations need to have more exchanges. One of the speakers pointed out that people nowadays only show their concern online, but very few actually participate in offline and community based grassroots activities. However, when compared with other countries, citizen media in Hong Kong is very much attached to local and urban politics.

We are in the era of “mass self-communication.” It generates from the self, with roots in the local communities. There is potential for it to go deeper and extend into the rest of the society. Of course, we are constrained by capital and legal settings, as pointed out by the Copyright group during the summit. Furthermore, we are locked in a “tele-cocoon,” partly because of the communication mode of the existing social media platforms. The situation is the same across all countries. The sustainability of the self is crucial to overcome the above-mentioned difficulties as the self is the source of creativity and diversity.

The Internet public sphere, constituted by mass self-communication, is a site for political contest. Currently, the new media sector in Hong Kong has not generated enough power to threaten the political status quo. That's why the pro-China political forces do not have a strong political will to take it over. However, when we look at the South Korean experience, in 2001, the democratic alliance defeated the conservatives in the presidential election largely with the help of online mobilization. Within 5 years (in 2006) the conservatives had taken over the Internet public sphere and subsequently regained their power. The same situation may happen in Hong Kong as well.

Yet Jack Qui believes that we should not be defeated and should embrace the project of social and political transformation in Hong Kong, as well as in China, with our media practice.

Chloe Lai: Content is the King

Chloe Lai's background is professional journalism. She believes that the definition of a journalist is through journalistic practice rather than through any institutional set up. Even though she has left the industry, she says she is still a journalist. The oppression of professional and citizen journalists is of a similar nature. The difference is, citizen journalists don't have institutional support when they are bullied. Community support is thus very important. The nature of oppression is multidimensional, exercised through government policy, legal prosecution, or even physical violence. A workshop for individual bloggers is probably needed to help them build their community support.

As for the cross-border discussion, we are all aware of the fact that international news delivery has been monopolized by international news agencies. The situation in Hong Kong is even worse. For commercial media, news is restricted to what the market or their audience dictate; that's why they only focus on reporting news in countries where Hong Kong people visit most frequently. Citizen media, in that regard, has more freedom to report on international news. Of course resources remain a huge challenge.

As for sharing Hong Kong news with the global audience, the language barrier need to be overcome. Currently international news agencies’ interest is all about mainland China, rather than Hong Kong. More English content needs to be produced to tell the global audience what happens here. Actually translation is more difficult than writing original news as you need to provide a lot of context. Hong Kong mainstream media is often disappointing in that regard. At the same time citizen media content is mainly made of news commentaries. As a trained journalist, Chloe believes that content is the king and that investigative reporting is essential, “that's why I really appreciate inmediahk.net's effort in producing first hand citizen report,” she adds. Moreover, Chloe thinks we should judge our news by its news value and public interest, rather than the liking or the political attitude of the audience.

In conclusion, Chloe Lai observes that many online media organizations in Hong Kong have emerged because of the current political context. She wonders: Once the political context changes, will the organizations still be defending our free speech environment? Or will their position depend on which political clan media bosses belong to?

Lisa Leung: Management of Creativity

Lisa Leung's current research is focused on social media and political participation. She believes we face a lot of contradictions today. On the one hand, the communication is very individualized, and on the other we perceive the online space as a “public space”. However, we all know that the technological setting is “customized”. We are not living in a global village, just a “customized cottage.” We have to walk out from such a myth. The path is not straight, it is a zig-zag path through trials and errors.

The second character of the social media is its affective aspect. The “self” is at the center of the performance. How to manage our “affection” to build more constructive discussions? The re-packaging of information and news seems important. The management of creativity is crucial as well, such as in the handling of the legal risks. For example Golden Forum (a popular Hong Kong-based Internet forum) users are experienced in making use of “parody” to avoid legal prosecutions such as defamation and distribution of indecent materials online.

As for the sustainability question, most of the citizen and non-mainstream media depend on “friendship” and the “shared vision” which are also related to the affective aspect. But how to extend the closed network and run your organization as a media that reaches out to bigger audiences is still a big challenge.

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The first piece is entitled: “Internet is a disaster area for the leaking of private data” （個人信息洩露，網絡是重災區）. It is published by the People's Daily, an official outlet of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The second piece is “Punish internet crime, strengthen the protection and management of information in the Internet” （懲治網絡違法犯罪，依法加強網絡信息保護和管理）.

The two articles are an elaboration of two previous commentaries on Internet governance published on December 18 and 19 by the same People's Daily, namely “The Internet is not outside the Law” [translated by China Media Project]（網絡不是法外之地）and “Regulation of the Internet according to Law is an international practice” （互聯網：依法監管是各國慣例）.

Wen, an experienced observer of Chinese state-controlled media,  believes this move announces a new wave of crackdown on online dissent, similar to the “anti-vulgarity campaign” in 2009.

“The Internet is not outside the Law” highlights what it describes as the “adverse effects of the internet,” saying that it is a platform for “spreading scams, cyber attacks and rumors.”

The other piece, “Regulation of the Internet according to Law is an international practice“, quotes examples from other countries and uses them to rationalize online surveillance and censorship practices such as real name registration systems (Sweden), counter-cybercrime and terrorism (the U.S.A.), censorship of racist and nazi speeches (Germany), Internet black list systems and criminalization of defamation against the Monarch (Thailand), legislation against online sedition and blasphemy (Singapore).

The article “Internet is a disaster area for the leakage of private data” is a collection of recycled news about the stealing of personal identity card information in real life settings and the use of the data for fraudulent online shopping and online trading of personal data. It is worth noticing that this is not directly related to the issue of online privacy protection.

The second piece, “Punish internet crime, strengthen the protection and management of information in the Internet“, also published today, repeats what has been said in “The Internet is not outside the Law” two days ago, also justifying online surveillance and censorship.

Concerned Chinese netizens have reacted strongly against the two articles and pointed out that the “customary practices from overseas,” as the official papers put it, would become “tyranny” in China given the lack of democratic processes in policy deliberation and among people elected to government.

Conspiracy theories concerning the authorities’ plan to strengthen control over the Internet seem to have been confirmed by these latest official instructions directed to the media.

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