pressure on Chinese journalists to an overseas Web site. Armed with information from
Yahoo!, Chinese authorities arrested journalist Shi Tao and eventually sentenced him
to ten years on charges of leaking state secrets. 4 These companies can also act as censors, removing material that governments deem unacceptable in local jurisdictions.
More unsettlingly, they may also remove material based on misunderstandings of local
laws or based on calculations of fiscal and legal risk.
Host-Based Censorship in China
Studies of ISP-based Internet filtering have characterized Chinese Internet filtering that
was pervasive as early as 2002. 5 Bloggers and journalists refer to China’s complex set of
filtering practices as the Great Firewall. It should not be a surprise, then, that China has
pioneered censorship at the Web and community hosting level, as well as filtering content by means of ISPs.
In March 2004, Chinese authorities closed down three blog hosts—blogcn.com,
blogbus.com, and blogdriver.com—because of concerns that sensitive content was being published on these sites. 6 After these sites reopened, the OpenNet Initiative found
evidence that Chinese-based blogging providers were using lists of sensitive keywords
to prevent controversial content from being posted to their Web servers. 7 In June 2005,
Rebecca MacKinnon demonstrated that Microsoft was using similar techniques to
block content on their Chinese-language version of MSN Spaces—her attempts to start
a blog titled ‘‘I love freedom of speech, human rights and democracy’’ (in Chinese)
yielded an error message that she translates as ‘‘You must enter a title for your space.
The title must not contain prohibited language, such as profanity. Please type a different title.’’ 8
A report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and China Human Rights Defenders,
released in October 2007, was compiled with the help of an anonymous technician
(Mr. Tao) working for a Chinese Internet company, presumably a company involved
with hosting user-generated content. The report, ‘‘A Journey to the Heart of Internet
Censorship,’’ 9 details training efforts to ensure that employees of content hosting companies censor sensitive content, and describes a weekly meeting at the Internet Information Administrative Bureau of the employees of Beijing’s 19 leading Web sites. The
meetings outline sensitive topics likely to be discussed in the coming week and provide
instructions on which topics are to be censored.
While RSF’s report details efforts aimed at coordinating content censorship in China,
subsequent research by MacKinnon reveals that such censorship is extremely unpredictable and subjective. In ‘‘China’s Censorship 2.0: How Companies Censor Bloggers,’’ 10 MacKinnon and students tested censorship systems on 15 Chinese blogging
providers, using a variety of potentially sensitive texts taken from Chinese-language
blogs and news sites. Her team posted the text to author accounts on the 15 platforms,
Intermediary Censorship
73
Yahoo!, Chinese authorities arrested journalist Shi Tao and eventually sentenced him
to ten years on charges of leaking state secrets. 4 These companies can also act as censors, removing material that governments deem unacceptable in local jurisdictions.
More unsettlingly, they may also remove material based on misunderstandings of local
laws or based on calculations of fiscal and legal risk.
Host-Based Censorship in China
Studies of ISP-based Internet filtering have characterized Chinese Internet filtering that
was pervasive as early as 2002. 5 Bloggers and journalists refer to China’s complex set of
filtering practices as the Great Firewall. It should not be a surprise, then, that China has
pioneered censorship at the Web and community hosting level, as well as filtering content by means of ISPs.
In March 2004, Chinese authorities closed down three blog hosts—blogcn.com,
blogbus.com, and blogdriver.com—because of concerns that sensitive content was being published on these sites. 6 After these sites reopened, the OpenNet Initiative found
evidence that Chinese-based blogging providers were using lists of sensitive keywords
to prevent controversial content from being posted to their Web servers. 7 In June 2005,
Rebecca MacKinnon demonstrated that Microsoft was using similar techniques to
block content on their Chinese-language version of MSN Spaces—her attempts to start
a blog titled ‘‘I love freedom of speech, human rights and democracy’’ (in Chinese)
yielded an error message that she translates as ‘‘You must enter a title for your space.
The title must not contain prohibited language, such as profanity. Please type a different title.’’ 8
A report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and China Human Rights Defenders,
released in October 2007, was compiled with the help of an anonymous technician
(Mr. Tao) working for a Chinese Internet company, presumably a company involved
with hosting user-generated content. The report, ‘‘A Journey to the Heart of Internet
Censorship,’’ 9 details training efforts to ensure that employees of content hosting companies censor sensitive content, and describes a weekly meeting at the Internet Information Administrative Bureau of the employees of Beijing’s 19 leading Web sites. The
meetings outline sensitive topics likely to be discussed in the coming week and provide
instructions on which topics are to be censored.
While RSF’s report details efforts aimed at coordinating content censorship in China,
subsequent research by MacKinnon reveals that such censorship is extremely unpredictable and subjective. In ‘‘China’s Censorship 2.0: How Companies Censor Bloggers,’’ 10 MacKinnon and students tested censorship systems on 15 Chinese blogging
providers, using a variety of potentially sensitive texts taken from Chinese-language
blogs and news sites. Her team posted the text to author accounts on the 15 platforms,
Intermediary Censorship
73