Corporate Accountability in Networked Asia
197
have created strong negative incentives — including Web site registration requirements,
the threat of jail sentences for individuals, and the cancellation of business licenses
for companies — in order to keep certain kinds of content off the Internet.
11 Ronald
Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski classify this approach to censorship as “ secondgeneration Internet controls. ”
12 The Chinese government calls the system corporate
“ self-discipline, ” and hands out an annual award to companies that have done the
best job of keeping their Web sites “ harmonious ” and free of sensitive content —
ranging from the pornographic to the political.
13
In Anglo-European legal parlance, the legal mechanism used to implement such a
“ self-discipline ” system is a form of “ intermediary liability. ”
14 It is the legal mechanism
through which Google ’ s Chinese search engine, Google.cn, was required to censor
itself until Google redirected its simplifi ed Chinese search engine offshore to Hong
Kong.
15 All Internet companies operating within Chinese jurisdiction — domestic or
foreign — are held liable for everything appearing on their search engines, blogging
platforms, and social-networking services. They are also legally responsible for everything their users discuss or organize through chat clients and messaging services. In
this way, much of the censorship and surveillance work is delegated and outsourced
by the government to the private sector. If private companies fail to censor and
monitor their users to the government ’ s satisfaction, they will lose their business
licenses and be forced to shut down.
16 All large Internet companies operating in China
have entire departments of employees with hundreds of people whose sole job is to
police users and censor content around the clock.
17
Companies are also expected to play a role in the surveillance of Internet and
mobile users. In a country like China where “ crime ” is defi ned broadly to include
political dissent, companies with in-country operations and user data stored locally
can easily fi nd themselves complicit in the surveillance and jailing of political dissidents. The most notorious example of law enforcement compliance gone very wrong
was when Yahoo! ’ s local Beijing staff gave to the Chinese police e-mail and useraccount information of journalist Shi Tao, activist Wang Xiaoning, and at least two
others engaged in political dissent.
18 There are other examples of how law enforcement
compliance by foreign companies has compromised activists. In 2006, Skype partnered
with a Chinese company to provide a localized version of its service, then found itself
being used by Chinese authorities to track and log politically sensitive chat sessions
by users inside China. This happened because Skype delegated law enforcement compliance to its local partner without suffi cient attention to how the compliance was
being carried out. The local partner, in turn, was merely following standard industry
practice that is commonplace for domestic Chinese Internet companies.
19
In this way, the private sector in China plays a key role in a political innovation
that I call “ networked authoritarianism. ”
20 Compared to classic 20th-century authoritarianism, this new form of Internet-age authoritarianism embraces the reality that
197
have created strong negative incentives — including Web site registration requirements,
the threat of jail sentences for individuals, and the cancellation of business licenses
for companies — in order to keep certain kinds of content off the Internet.
11 Ronald
Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski classify this approach to censorship as “ secondgeneration Internet controls. ”
12 The Chinese government calls the system corporate
“ self-discipline, ” and hands out an annual award to companies that have done the
best job of keeping their Web sites “ harmonious ” and free of sensitive content —
ranging from the pornographic to the political.
13
In Anglo-European legal parlance, the legal mechanism used to implement such a
“ self-discipline ” system is a form of “ intermediary liability. ”
14 It is the legal mechanism
through which Google ’ s Chinese search engine, Google.cn, was required to censor
itself until Google redirected its simplifi ed Chinese search engine offshore to Hong
Kong.
15 All Internet companies operating within Chinese jurisdiction — domestic or
foreign — are held liable for everything appearing on their search engines, blogging
platforms, and social-networking services. They are also legally responsible for everything their users discuss or organize through chat clients and messaging services. In
this way, much of the censorship and surveillance work is delegated and outsourced
by the government to the private sector. If private companies fail to censor and
monitor their users to the government ’ s satisfaction, they will lose their business
licenses and be forced to shut down.
16 All large Internet companies operating in China
have entire departments of employees with hundreds of people whose sole job is to
police users and censor content around the clock.
17
Companies are also expected to play a role in the surveillance of Internet and
mobile users. In a country like China where “ crime ” is defi ned broadly to include
political dissent, companies with in-country operations and user data stored locally
can easily fi nd themselves complicit in the surveillance and jailing of political dissidents. The most notorious example of law enforcement compliance gone very wrong
was when Yahoo! ’ s local Beijing staff gave to the Chinese police e-mail and useraccount information of journalist Shi Tao, activist Wang Xiaoning, and at least two
others engaged in political dissent.
18 There are other examples of how law enforcement
compliance by foreign companies has compromised activists. In 2006, Skype partnered
with a Chinese company to provide a localized version of its service, then found itself
being used by Chinese authorities to track and log politically sensitive chat sessions
by users inside China. This happened because Skype delegated law enforcement compliance to its local partner without suffi cient attention to how the compliance was
being carried out. The local partner, in turn, was merely following standard industry
practice that is commonplace for domestic Chinese Internet companies.
19
In this way, the private sector in China plays a key role in a political innovation
that I call “ networked authoritarianism. ”
20 Compared to classic 20th-century authoritarianism, this new form of Internet-age authoritarianism embraces the reality that