IP: Virtual Censorship: Policing the internet in Asia

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2365/censorship.html




DATELINE: HONG KONG






------------------------------------------------------------------------
Virtual Censorship: Policing the internet in Asia




------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction: China wants to impose the sort of censorship applied to
newspapers and electronic media. It frequently jams international radio
broadcasts and pressured Hong Kong's Star (satellite) Television to remove
BBC news from the East Asia footprint. This report by Alan Knight stems
from a conference called by the Freedom Forum in Hong Kong on 18.3.97.




------------------------------------------------------------------------
Creating fear of prosecution and thereby encouraging self censorship, may
prove to be the most effective way that Asian governments can master the
internet. Even high tech Singapore with its tightly controlled
telecommunications, has entered the virtual reality of threats rather than
taking substantive widespread action against errant internet users.


However, the island republic may yet serve as a role model for other
authoritarian governments who want to maintain censorship but find the job
more complex than merely tearing out the offending pages of the Far Eastern
Economic Review. Singaporean officials including its senior minister, Lee
Kuan Yew, have already been acting as advisers to the Beijing government
which has expressed interest in the island republic's media control
techniques. Hong Kong has deferred making a decision on internet
regulations until after the handover to Beijing, which itself introduced
tough new internet controls last year. Singapore's censorship practices are
regarded as more successful than similar attempts by Asian communist
regimes which have been hampered by poor technology and a lack of
technically skilled censors


Stan Sesser, Senior Fellow at the Human Rights Centre, University of
California, has been conducting a study of Singapore's use of the internet.
Speaking a Freedom Forum conference in Hong Kong, Mr. Sesser said that it
employed a "twin track" system of regulation; which allowed businesses to
operate freely while attempting to closely control individual users:


"There are three internet providers in Singapore and the government owns or
controls all three of them. Internet service providers are required to have
a computer called a proxy server which contains in it the web sites which
the government finds objectionable. When an individual requests for a web
site, it goes through that computer and if you hit a banned web site, the
computer spews it back to you and tells you that site cannot be reached."


However, there were hundreds of thousands of web sites and the Singaporean
government would need an army or censors just to monitor what was already
available on the net. If the servers were also alerted to report the use of
naughty no words like "sex", "democracy" or even "freedom of speech", they
would be generating untold millions of hits.


As part of its drive to censor the net, Dr. Sesser said the Singaporean
government last year conducted an experiment which examined proxy server
records, and identified ten thousand pictures that Singaporeans had down
loaded.


" They took ten thousand pictures and went through them to see how many
were pornographic. [Playboy magazine was banned in Singapore after
government censors considered it obscene]. They announced they had done
this study and the implication was that if you are downloading pornographic
pictures, they would get you."


"They said there were twenty nine [people who down loaded pornography] as a
factor of intimidation because if they had said there were eight of the ten
thousand, which probably would have been more accurate figure, then
everyone who was down loading sexual pictures would assume they were in
good company and they could not be caught because everyone else is doing it
. But when the government announces there are only twenty nine and they
didn't prosecute them and didn't release their names, they did that for
intimidation. Every one of the eight thousand would think, 'Oh my goodness.
There are only twenty nine. The government has my name!"


China, meanwhile, issued a proclamation requiring internet that internet
users register with their local police station. The nationwide decree by
the Computer Regulation and Supervision Department of the Ministry of
Public Security demanded that users complete a questionnaire and sign an
agreement that they would not harm the country or do anything illegal. The
information would be available for investigators if an internet user came
under suspicion. 


The proclamation closely followed new legislation, the Provisional
Directive on the Management of International Connections by Computer
Information Networks, signed by Premier Li Peng in February 1996. That
legislation required that all international computer networking traffic,
both incoming and outgoing, must go through channels provided by the
Chinese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. This would effectively
require the provision of dedicated internet links; denying fast packet
switching and restricting services. The legislation further forbids
computer networks from engaging in activities that might damage the state
or harm national security by producing, retrieving, duplicating, and
spreading information that might hinder public order.


Hanoi, concerned about locals getting access to web sites operated by US
based Vietnamese pro-democracy groups, followed China's example and tried
to impose similar sanctions. Both governments have been given a short
breathing space while their economies catch up with the rest of southeast
Asia. Chinese and Vietnamese people have less access to personal computers
which are frequently older model, slower machines; of the sort which would
drive a western net head to distraction. Secondly, telecommunications
links, particularly in China, can be unreliable and expensive. Political
restrictions imposed on the availability of servers can mean that monthly
server charges can be very high indeed; as much as the total monthly salary
of a professor in some smaller universities. In addition, China has also
been known to make subscribers pay for messages received, as well as those
sent.


In Vietnam, internet services have been shaky to say the least. According
to the Asian Wall Street Journal (5.9.96), there had been so many
disruptions to NetNam, the major Email provider, that subscribers thought
lines were being tampered with. The network sent a cryptic message to all
of its subscribers:


"NetNam has now verified all of its equipment, software and local phone
lines and no dysfunction explains the problem we have had with both local
and international transmissions. It is also unlikely that the recent bad
weather can be blamed for all of these difficulties." 


What then is the cause?


"An unexplained disruption from within the telephone network that strangely
affects data carriers, but not voice communications." 


Copyright Alan Knight