Social Media in China

Introduction

1.         China views the potential power of social media as a double-edged sword wherein, on the one hand, it can be leveraged as a tool to project the government narrative in a controlled, decentralised way while on the other hand, it views social media as a potential destabiliser which can provide voices to dissidents.  For this reason, the government tightly controls the country’s social media landscape by blocking foreign platforms and strictly censoring content on all platforms.  The aim of this paper is to study how social media is controlled in China.

Chinese Social Media

2.         The social media prevalent in China can be divided in following four broad groups - Blogging Platforms, Bulletin Board System, Social Networks and Micro-blogging Services (Fischer-Schreiber, 2013).  The landscape of the Chinese social media ecosystem shows that China is leading the international social media scene in numbers and diversity thereby potentially making it a strong force to drive social change. 

3.         Regulators of Social Media in China.      As the overarching supervisory body for all online content, Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) communicates directly with major media organisations and social media companies.  While CAC has emerged as the central agency for online censorship, internet service providers are also controlled by other government bodies like General Administration of Press and Publication, State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, State Council Information Office etc. who regulate online conduct as per their respective mandate.  Internet companies are also required to follow directives issued by the Central Propaganda Department, an organ of the Chinese Communist Party, which acts with authority equivalent to a high-level governmental ministry (Tager, 2018).

4.         Laws Related to Social Media.   In 2000, China’s State Council enacted the Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services, and since then it has followed a regulatory strategy of holding internet companies legally liable if they fail to ensure adequate compliance with censorship rules on their platforms (Fell, 2017).  In essence, China has ‘delegated’ most enforcement of social media censorship to the companies that offer social media services, forcing these companies to monitor and filter their own users.  This legal framework has been expanded significantly through new legislation, increased regulations thereby vastly restricting the independence of internet service providers, reducing the opportunities for netizens to ‘jump’ the Great Firewall, formalise new means of State control over the internet, and provide the legal basis for increased punishment of both social media users and social media companies for offending speech. 

5.                     How Does Censorship Work.     All major Chinese search engines and Web log (“blog”) service providers filter content by keyword and remove certain search results from their lists (al, 2005).  Major internet platforms and messaging services in China also have established elaborate self-censorship mechanisms.  As per the Internet Thread Comments Service Management Regulations of 2017, Internet companies that provide commenting and posting services are required to create a ‘credit system’ where users are given ratings based on their posts.  Users who don’t comply with relevant regulations would see their ratings fall until eventually being banned from the platform (“Regulations for Internet Post Comment Service”, 2017).

6.         While the Chinese government is increasingly adept at managing and using new media and advanced technologies to its advantage, it also relies heavily on private companies to propagate government directives on a daily basis.  In 2009, when the State issued a policy encouraging government agencies to outsource their information work to private companies, the industrialisation of Internet control acquired its current administrative legitimacy.  There also exists a lively market where for-profit organisations are selling various data products and related services to help the State monitor online information and guide Internet discussion.  State media organisations too have started their own online-opinion-surveillance agencies to provide Internet-control services for government clients.[1]  However, as is evident from the various methods used by the citizen like during the crackdown in Hong Kong and COVID-19, it is evident that they are trying their best to circumvent the same and at times, succeeding.

Conclusion

7.         China makes a systematic, comprehensive, and frequently successful effort to limit the ability of its citizens to access and to post on-line content the state considers sensitive.  At the level of legal regulation, China has a complex, overlapping system of laws, regulations, and informal methods that attempts to prevent the creation and distribution of banned material.

(The views expressed in the article are that of the author.)

Bibliography

“Regulations for Internet Post Comment Service” . (2017, August 25). Retrieved February 2020, from Cyberspace Administration of China: http://www.cac.gov.cn/2017-08/25/c_1121541842.html

al, D. E. (2005, April 15). Internet Filtering in China in 2004-2005: A Country Study. Retrieved February 2020, from SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=706681

Fell, J. (2017, October 18). Chinese Internet Law: What the West Doesn’t See. Retrieved March 2020, from The Diplomat: https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/chinese-internet-law-what-the-west-doesnt-see/

Fischer-Schreiber, I. (2013, March). Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber, in “Social Media in China, published in 2012. Social Media & Academic Communication: Bridging Sino-Swis Academia through Social Media .

Tager, J. (2018). Forbidden Feeds: Government control on social media in China. PEN AMERICA

Notes:

Among them, The People’s Internet Public Opinion Office is the most well-known; it relies on the resources of People’s Daily and People’s Daily Online. As of 2012, this business earned a revenue of approx USD 29 million, which represents the second-biggest source of income for People Daily Online.