Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, September 29, 2017

Back to the Cultural Revolution?

Rules about what is and is not permissible online in China are vague. So is what is online. Maybe there's a reason for that.

68 Things You Cannot Say on China’s Internet

Song Jie, a writer in central China, knows what she can and cannot write in the romance novels she publishes online. Words that describe explicit sexual acts are out, of course. So are those for sexual organs. Even euphemisms like “behind” or “bottom” can trigger censorship by automatic software filters or a website’s employees…

Other prohibitions inside China’s Great Firewall, the country’s system of internet filters and controls, are trickier to navigate, in part because they are subjective and even contradictory…

While China has long sought to block access to political material online, a flurry of new regulatory actions aims to establish a more expansive blockade, recalling an earlier era of public morality enforced by the ruling Communist Party.

In a directive circulated this summer, the state-controlled association that polices China’s fast-growing digital media sector set out 68 categories of material that should be censored…

The guidelines ban material that depicts excessive drinking or gambling; that sensationalizes “bizarre or grotesque” criminal cases; that ridicules China’s historical revolutionary leaders, or current members of the army, police or judiciary; or that “publicizes the luxury life.” …

Despite the efforts of censors, the internet has long been the most freewheeling of China’s mass media, a platform where authors and artists — as well as entertainment studios — could reach audiences largely free of the Propaganda Department’s traditional controls on broadcasting, publishing, cinema and stage.

But the new restrictions — which expanded and updated a set of prohibitions issued five years ago — reflect an ambitious effort by President Xi Jinping’s government to impose discipline and rein in the web…

In June, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television announced a new rating system for online bookstores and publishers based on criteria that included upholding moral values…

The directive also ordered online producers to submit plans for creating new dramas between now and 2021 that “praise the party, the nation and heroes so as to set a good example.”…

China’s censorship agencies exercise overlapping jurisdiction over the internet and often employ policies that create confusion. The result has been a layered system of control that begins with self-censorship by those who create online content, followed by policing by web platforms, which are often private enterprises, and finally, when necessary, intervention by government regulators or the police.

Some regulations are explicit — no depiction of killing endangered species or underage drinking, for example. Others are imprecise. One, for example, prohibits blurring the lines between “truth and falsity, good and evil, beauty and ugliness.”

Critics say the rules are meant to be so vague that the authorities can justify blocking anything, as circumstances dictate.

“The tightening of content censorship is the general trend, but for content creators, they never know where exactly the lines lie,” said Gao Ming, who until recently produced a satirical podcast on current affairs called Radio HiLight…