The Great Firewall of China

1
The Great Firewall of China

• INTRODUCTION
• Gisela Torrentí, Judith Martín Julia Mabrey

2
The Great Firewall of China

• China is known to have a Great Firewall because
  of governmental efforts to control the free flow
  of information on the internet
• Chinese goverment violates human rights (Amnesty
  International)
• Internet companies help the Chinese governments
  censorship e.g. Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google

3
The Great Firewall of China

• These three companies colaborated with Chinese
  censorship because they are looking for big new
  markets like China.
• For this reason
• Yahoo! provided Chinese authorities with private
  and confidential information about its users
• Microsoft shut down a blog on the basis of a
  government request.
• Google launched a censored version of its
  international search engine in China.

4
The Great Firewall of China

• These companies have demonstrated a disregard for
  their own internally driven and proclaimed
  policies.
• McLaughlin, Google director said that to remove
  results is not compatible with the Google
  mission but he also said that if we want to
  operate in China we have to remove some results
  from China.cn in order to carry out local laws.

5
The Great Firewall in China

• This is the main reason the companies give to
  explain their activity in China. They argue that
  although its not an ideal situation, their
  presence in China is a force for good in the end.
• Instead of helping bring the Internet to China,
  their activities are facilitating and sanctioning
  government censorship rather than challenging it.
  These companies accept the limitations imposed on
  them by the government. With their collaboration
  they provide necessary technology and legitimize
  the actions of the government.

6
Amnesty International states

• local law Constitution!
• Internet is being used as a tool to deny
  FoX
• Chinese Corporations
• governement complicit
• suppresses in those HR
• dissent abuses

7
Yahoo!

• Journalist Shi Tao
• imprisoned for 10 years
• for sending an email
• signed a Public Pledge on Self-discipline for
  the Chinese Internet Industry
• refrain from producing, posting or
  disseminating harmful information that may
  jeopardise state security

8
Reactions Yahoo vs. Google?

• Companies all act against their proclaimed values
  stated policies of ethical responsibility
• Yahoo! denies all responsibility
• Google admitted double standards promises to
  restrict further collaboration

9
The Great Firewall in China

• Amnesty International made some recomendations to
  those and other Internet companies operating in
  China
• Publicly commit to honouring the freedom of
  expression provision in the Chinese
  constitution.
• Be transparent about the filtering process used
  by the company in China.
• Make publicly avaliable all agreements between
  the company and the Chinese government with
  implications for censorship of information and
  suppression of dissent.

10
The Great Firewall in China

• Exhaust all judicial remedies and appeals in
  China and the internationally before complying
  with state directives where these have human
  rights implications.
• Develop and explicit human rights policy.
• Clarify to what extent human rights consideration
  are taken into account.
• Exercise leadership in promoting human rights in
  China.
• Participate in and support the outcomes of a
  multi-stakeholder process.

11
Some practical examples

• By Marianne Davril

12

• In China people have different search engines
• - Google.com
• - Google.cn created in january 2006
• - Baidu.com, a chinese engine

13
Google.cn

• Searches on key words as  Tienanmen ,  Dalaï
  Lama ,  revolution ,  faith , are blocked
• Western news websites are not available
• Lets see comparision between google.com and
  google.cn

14
Baidu.com

• Example with the date of tiananmen events 4 june
  1989
• The search engine crashes, it is not available
  anymore

15
Bypassing the firewall

• An american journalist found some artifices to
  get access to information
• -example on google.cn with the right and the
  wrong spelling of  Tiananmen 
• Today, chinese people know how to get free
  access to information. For them it is better to
  have something than nothing.
• -reactions of chinese people
  www.internetactu.net.

16
Solutions?

• Should we boycott these internet companies in
  order to encourage the chinese govern
• ment to improve freedom of expression?
• Is money more important than liberty?
• Should we boycott the Olympics Games?

17
Discussion

• What about the many other companies that
  currently collaborate with China? Is one companie
  worse than the other (Yahoo vs. Google)?
• Do we need to put more pressure on companies to
  take up ethical responsibility? How do we
  perceive the power of lobbying?