Questions for Chinese bloggers

I have some questions for Chinese and China-based bloggers out there... assuming that a number of you are still reading this through proxy servers. Please forgive my rusty Chinese... I'm much better at reading than writing, I'm afraid.

The extent of China's web filtering is often dismissed in the West as not such a big deal because people can use proxies to get around the blockages. People seem to have different opinions about how widespread the knowledge of proxies actually is in China. I'm not there right now. If you're in China right now or have been spending a lot of time there recently I'd like to know what you think about the following questions:
在国外经常有人说，因为有代理，中国有很多网站上不了没有太大关：真想看这些网站的人总有办法。不同的人对这个问题有不同的看法, 所以我想问中国的 blogger 几个问题:

• Of the people in China who use the internet regularly, what percentage do you think know how to use proxies? Of the people you know, what percentage know how to use proxies? 在中国经常上网的人当中，你估计百分之多少知道怎么用代理？亲自身边的人当中，你估计百分之多少会用代理？

• Out of that group of people, what percentage do you think frequently use proxies to access blocked sites? 会用代理的人当中， 你估计有百分之多少经常用代理上被封的网站？

• In other words, among the proxy-savvy Chinese internet users, to what extent does it matter if things are blocked or not? How much does filtering impact these people's information experience on the internet?  换句话问：在会用代理的中国网民当中，一些网站被封不封有多大的关系？中国政 府封一堆网站对中国 网民的“网上经验” 有多大的影响？

• More generally, amongst all internet users in China at large, how do you think internet blocking and filtering impacts what Chinese internet users do and do not know about their own country and about the world at large?  总的来说，在中国国内访问不了很多网站的情况之下，你觉得这个情况怎么影响 到中国网民对自己的国家和国外的理解？

I'd love to know your views. If you want to answer this on your own blog, please post the link in the comments section here if the trackback doesn't show up automatically. I would especially love to know what the Chinese bloggers think about this question. 麻烦blogger们在自己的 blog 上,或者在下面的“comments” 里面发表自己的意见!

(Also cross-posting this at Global Voices.)

Comments

[chinafool]

Hi Rebecca,

Great site and great effort! I've been back in China for over a year and just recently started blogging. Here are some random thoughts. I'm asking a few local programmer friends to get some more numbers:

1. My sense is that Chinese Internet users don't access foreign sites (blocked or not) that much. People use the internet for games, downloads, entertainment news, etc. I've been doing some freelancing work for a search engine based here. So far I haven't seen any search terms for foreign-based media.

2. Most of the foreign media sites are not blocked: nytimes.com, cnn.com, etc.

3. I think most programmers, if they want to access blocked sites, they know how to use proxies. The casual users I'm not sure. I doubt they know how to or need to. I only started using proxy since I started blogging. I learned how to do it from my bro-in-law who's a programmer in Shanghi.

4. I don't think Internet blocking materially affect people's view on the outside world. The availability of print and online media is becoming very diverse very fast in China. When a Chinese person is bombarded everyday by state-controlled media, it's hard to imagine his/her view would be swayed in any way by foreign media, especially those in English.

5. Chinese is a very patriotic (whatever that means) people, government manipulation or not. Their views sometimes are more extreme than the government, I think, as in whether to use force against Taiwan and opinions about Japan. I don't think they would actively seek opinions directly contradicting what they hear in China. Of course, China is a big country, and there are students and artists and professionals who seek out diverse voices. But I believe they are a small minority.

Just my 2 cents. Hope it helps.

chinafool

[Ranc]

Rebecca,

Question 1: very few. If you put a gun on my head, I'll say 1-2%.

Question 2: high. 30-50%.

Question 4: basically I agree with the above commenter. The best way to examine this issue is to see to what extent people in Guangzhou, who can watch Hong Kong TVs, differ with people in other provinces in their views. I'm sure there will be differences, but they are probably not significant. You may say that internet is different from Hong Kong TVs. Yes, but most people in China would not read English web sites (whether they understand English or not). Secondly, Chinese language web sites outside China are mostly of poor quality.

I'm a Chinese graduate student in the US, and my last visit back to China was one year ago, so really I'm not a good source for you. But I doubt how many real Chinese bloggers will come here, so I would still give my two cents above.

Your research question is very interesting, but frankly I think internet is probably not a good place for surveys, plus the sample of respondents for this survey will most likely be small.

[dishuiguanyin]

Hi, I'm currently in China and reading through a proxy. I don't know whether this comment will be accepted or not, but I'll try. Right now, I'm in a Chinese friend's flat, and I'm using his computer, so I'd better be very careful about what I write. I asked your questions to the two friends of mine who are here. Both of them blog in Chinese.
Their answers were:
1. They don't know how to use a proxy. They don't know any Chinese people who know how to use a proxy. (In fact, I had to explain the concept of a proxy to them.) They were not computing majors, but they both took several computer courses at university.
My own personal answer is: the expats in China use proxies. The vast majority of Chinese users (99.99%) don't.
2. They don't.
3.&4. My friends think that the fact that the internet is blocked or filtered does impact a little bit on what they know about China and the world. They are sometimes surprised by just how much information the expats can find that they can't. However, in general they don't really mind that some websites are blocked. They just use the internet to do the things they're interested in (contact friends, play games, watch movies, cheat on exams etc) and presume that any website that is blocked is blocked because the government doesn't want them to read it. They're not very curious about what may or may not be on those pages.

[lihlii]

chinafool is a shameless cheater.

2. Most of the foreign media sites are not blocked: nytimes.com,

cnn.com, etc.

Is it true? How do you define "most"? How about BBC? How about

Washinton Post etc? Is nytimes.com really not blocked?

Do you know how they implement the dynamic blocking trick?

Rebecca, and most western people, don't be fooled by the CCP

government and minions like chinafool (I'm amazed to see him

using such a suitable name).

If you want to know more, please google:金盾工程

It has been a long time since they adopted a powerful filtering

and blocking scheme as "dynamic content-based blocking". Now

they set the monitoring software to screen the data flow. If

certain words in the black list matched, the connection is cut

off and the server IP blocked for certain period of time. That's

enough to stop the ordinary people get access to sensitive

information. Most people will get annoyed and just abandon

trying again. This scheme of blocking has several merits:

a. The websites that the CCP fears the people to see is a endless

list. However powerful their firewall machine can be, it's

theoretically impossible for them to maintain an endless

blacklist of websites while keep the internet run efficiently.

So the experts proposed a dynamic blocking scheme.

b. If the CCP blocks simply the IP of certain website, just like

how they did years ago when first blocking sourceforge.net for

the freenet project hosted there, the majority of political-

ignorant people were irritated and because they felt they wanted

to access "non-political" sites, they dare (in a self-cheating

sense) to speak out to protest against the government. This in

fact impaired the governmental authority. So they devised a

dynamic blocking scheme to block only certain URL when certain

words in a limited blacklist is matched, and only for a temporary

time. After that, the block is released automatically. This can

also cheat the innocent people and argue with those reporters

about the blocking issue that "You're lying! You said xxx site

is blocked?! But I can access it now! See it on my browser...".

It's a very common tricky waste of time to defeat the liberal

reporters.

c. The dynamic temporary blocking scheme can also isolate the

keen political liberalists, anti-government principals from the

ordinary selfish people. Since the majority "chinafool" kind of

people are selfish and ignorant of the principle of political

rights and the importance of freedom of speech, provided that

they can access the websites they like, they will ignore the

trample of rights of the other (minor group of) people. Even

more, when their need to access certain website is blocked by the

CCP government because of some political expressions of minor

groups, they will (and in fact they really did) actively

cooperate with the CCP government to drive off these

disobedients, or further persecute them even more severely than

the CCP. It's a common human vice.

[lihlii]

chinafool is a shameless cheater.

2. Most of the foreign media sites are not blocked: nytimes.com,

cnn.com, etc.

Is it true? How do you define "most"? How about BBC? How about

Washinton Post etc? Is nytimes.com really not blocked?

Do you know how they implement the dynamic blocking trick?

Rebecca, and most western people, don't be fooled by the CCP

government and minions like chinafool (I'm amazed to see him

using such a suitable name).

If you want to know more, please google:金盾工程

It has been a long time since they adopted a powerful filtering

and blocking scheme as "dynamic content-based blocking". Now

they set the monitoring software to screen the data flow. If

certain words in the black list matched, the connection is cut

off and the server IP blocked for certain period of time. That's

enough to stop the ordinary people get access to sensitive

information. Most people will get annoyed and just abandon

trying again. This scheme of blocking has several merits:

a. The websites that the CCP fears the people to see is a endless

list. However powerful their firewall machine can be, it's

theoretically impossible for them to maintain an endless

blacklist of websites while keep the internet run efficiently.

So the experts proposed a dynamic blocking scheme.

b. If the CCP blocks simply the IP of certain website, just like

how they did years ago when first blocking sourceforge.net for

the freenet project hosted there, the majority of political-

ignorant people were irritated and because they felt they wanted

to access "non-political" sites, they dare (in a self-cheating

sense) to speak out to protest against the government. This in

fact impaired the governmental authority. So they devised a

dynamic blocking scheme to block only certain URL when certain

words in a limited blacklist is matched, and only for a temporary

time. After that, the block is released automatically. This can

also cheat the innocent people and argue with those reporters

about the blocking issue that "You're lying! You said xxx site

is blocked?! But I can access it now! See it on my browser...".

It's a very common tricky waste of time to defeat the liberal

reporters.

c. The dynamic temporary blocking scheme can also isolate the

keen political liberalists, anti-government principals from the

ordinary selfish people. Since the majority "chinafool" kind of

people are selfish and ignorant of the principle of political

rights and the importance of freedom of speech, provided that

they can access the websites they like, they will ignore the

trample of rights of the other (minor group of) people. Even

more, when their need to access certain website is blocked by the

CCP government because of some political expressions of minor

groups, they will (and in fact they really did) actively

cooperate with the CCP government to drive off these

disobedients, or further persecute them even more severely than

the CCP. It's a common human vice.

And I should emphasize my comment on some words appeared in the earlier comments of the other readers. When they said "Chinese people DON'T", in most cases, the fact is not that voluntary, but it should be more exactly put as "Chinese people DARE NOT".

That's very important. Chinese people learnt to live in dread. And they have no choice but to cheat themselves as they "DON'T" in so many cases which in fact is they "DARE NOT", to make their lives look a little easier.

[lihlii]

chinafool and some other commenters are totally cheating, I have to say.

I can't get enough time to waste with such "fool"s. It's a suicide to commit oneself into the endless lies of "chinafools".

Let they be. Rebecca, the majority of Chinese people can't view your site, either because of the blocking, or obstacle of language. So your effort of communicating with "chinafool"s type of liars is really a waste of time, I suppose. :P

[lihlii]

chinafool: Great site and great effort!

I can't help sneering at the above unctuous cheering. :)

By saying "Great site", he means, "It's so great that it's blocked".

But saying "great effort" he means, "however great effort you endeavor, it's such a GREAT chance for me to cheat you without the risk to be debunked by Chinese people thanks to CCP's Golden-Shield Project equal GREAT firewall!".

[lihlii]

chinafool: Great site and great effort!

I can't help sneering at the above unctuous cheering. :)

By saying "Great site", he means, "It's so great that it's blocked".

By saying "great effort" he means, "however great effort you endeavor, it's such a GREAT chance for me to cheat you without the risk to be debunked by Chinese people thanks to CCP's Golden-Shield Project equally GREAT firewall!".

[lihlii]

Ranc: Secondly, Chinese language web sites outside China are mostly of poor quality.

Yes, you're SO correct. :) Including 美国参考 http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/mgck/
美国之音 http://voanews.com
BBC 中文网
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/chinese/news/default1.stm
google newsgroups chinese version, google cached pages,
all these are of "poor quality", so Chinese people don't care,
thus the CCP government kindly blocked them in order not to bother the Chinese people. :)

chinafool, I wish your blog will be as "GREAT" a site as Rebecca's, thus you should pay as "GREAT" effort as the CCP government make you to pay. :) I'm happily waiting for it.

I'm sorry but I'm using very slow proxy so some posts got submitted again when the connection was considered dropped. It's not a "GREAT effort" to annoy the readers. :) But, I'm INTENTIONALLY here to irritate the Chinafool/Ranc type of liars by using harsh words, as GREAT as I can, through a proxy that reputed "99.99%" (what a scientific attitude!) Chinese people don't use. :)

[lihlii]

Yes, most Chinese people don't care those sites which are blocked by the CCP government at an enormous cost of public treasury. Do you imply that the CCP government is more stupid than you are?

If you take the post of CCP Minister of Propaganda, the CCP government should save a lot of money! :) You're so optimistic! You should win a dozen Iron Crosses! :)

The CCP officials are too stupid. They should not fear the Chinese websites abroad. They should not fear that more and more Chinese people get access to those sites of "poor quality". They should not fear that those "game" loving Chinese people would be attracted and enlightened by the oversea Chinese websites if not blocked. What a "patriotic" discovery! To demonstrate your "patriotism", you, chinafool, should present your important "random thoughts" and "more numbers" to the CCP Ministry of Propaganda, for them to cut down budgets on Golden-Shield project, and thus can build more prisons to detain disobedients,
and to buy more weapons from Russia to fight against Taiwan for the so-called "very patriotic" Chinese people. :)

[lihlii]

Correction of last sentence: ... and to buy more weapons from Russia to drive the so-called "very patriotic" Chinese people to fight against Taiwan. :)

CCP surely won't fight, but the "very patriotic" Chinese people. :)

[lihlii]

Here I introduce one article from one of the "mostly of poor quality" sites. :)

http://www.ncn.org/asp/zwginfo/da-KAY.asp?ID=64580&ad=7/2/2005

麦金侬：西方高科技为中共的网络暴政开道

麦金侬 著 杨莉藜 编译

This is neiter "games", nor "downloads" or "entertainment news", so you don't care it, and the CCP kindly blocked it for you. :)

[lihlii]

Here I introduce one article from one of the "mostly of poor quality" sites. :)

http://www.ncn.org/asp/zwginfo/da-KAY.asp?ID=64580&ad=7/2/2005

麦金侬：西方高科技为中共的网络暴政开道

麦金侬 著 杨莉藜 编译

This is neiter "games", nor "downloads" or "entertainment news", so you don't care it, and the CCP kindly blocked it for you. :)

[Ranc]

Huh, now we have a real old-type CCP. S/he alone occupies the moral, political, and informational high grounds, while everyone else is not just dead wrong, but "liars".

Long live the "Red Guard"!

Bye bye.

[lihlii]

"Red Guard"? Red Guard only judge by morality? Red Guard will ban your speech and beat your head. :)

The foreigners can be easily cheated by you cunning chinafool and Ran type minions of CCP. It's high time real Chinese stands out to give you a shock. If you want to play with lies, let's play it, face to face.

[lihlii]

If you really want to be defensive on your stance and points of view, please tell me the reference or your original investigation report to prove that "Chinese language web sites outside China are mostly of poor quality", and what's the logic relationship between this assertion and the fact that CCP government banned oversea Chinese language websites.

Please, I'm serious. I wish to see the non "red guard" type explanations, but not groundless lies somewhat western style to cheat the foreigners. :)

It's nothing about "moral, political, and informational high grounds". It's about simple facts, simple logic.

BTW, here I accused mainly chinafool and Ranc, but you defend yourself by imposing viewpoints on me that "everyone else is not just dead wrong". Such a trick is so familiar to the Chinese people, so they play it tirelessly in chicaneries. :) The Chinese people lived with such tricks, as the CCP is always self-appointed "representitive of the people". And here, you and chinafool are so skillful of such CCP culture so that you can represent "everyone else". :)

You accused me as "real old-type CCP", what's your points to support your accusal?

[lihlii]

Real Old-type CCP & Faked New-type CCP

Thank you, Ranc. You presented the phrase "Real Old-type CCP" and it reminded me of an interesting thing.

Hrushev（Хрущев Никита Сергеевич）detested the "Real Old-type" soviet partizan monach,
Stalin（斯大林 Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили; Сталин），so he is a new-type soviet
partizan monach. Is he supporter of liberty? NO.

Deng, Xiaoping（邓小平）reneged his promise [1] and betrayed the "Real Old-type CCP", the God Father of "Red Guards",
Mao, Zedong（毛泽东）, and he animadverted Mao's crimes. So he is a new-type CCP. Yet, is he supporter of liberty?
NEITHER.

You, Ranc, sounds like hating the "Real Old-type CCP" and "Red Guards". Are you supporter of liberty? You can
ask yourself.

I judge from your words that you're only a "new-type CCP". :) Just like Hrushev and Deng.
Moreover, the CCP now is by far not a communist extreme leftist party as it was. It's subverted by the pressure of
Chinese people seeking liberty and fortune, and snarled by the recalcitration to seize political power and turned
into a extreme rightist Nazi type nationalist party. This is also why they can reconcile or make use of the
nationalist party which winces in Taiwan. For this, please refer to [2]-[4].

This is why I say that the CCP nowadays, and the CCP minions in Chinese people, both domestic and abroad,
are "Faked New-type CCP". :) In fact, they admitted their Nazism ideology in a braggart "patriotic" expression. :)
Don't be cocky, guys! Please check the history of Nazi German. You will find that they're by far more "patriotic"
than you "Faked New-type CCP" are! Try harder to cheat the world and yourselves, in order to make China a
prosperous powerful Nazi nation! :)

[1] 邓小平给毛泽东的信, http://china1966.vip.sina.com/zl/zl_dengxin.htm
[2] 陈奎德作品选编：滑向“新纳粹国家”之路？ http://www.boxun.com/hero/chenkuide/105_1.shtml
[3] 陈奎德作品选编：近代宪政的演化（101）左翼极权滑向右翼纳粹 http://www.boxun.com/hero/chenkuide/311_1.shtml
[4] 陈奎德：警惕从「右翼专制」转爲「新纳粹」 http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/4/1/15/n449002.htm

[lihlii]

errata: monach -> monarch
For numerous other typos in above posts, please guess or ignore. Sorry for a bunch of hasty posts through a difficult proxy.

[lihlii]

A hint that's not news:

For quite some years, the CCP netdogs (what we students call the infamous CCP network Gestapos) got the technique to filter and block websites dynamically on the content of the webpages. Because of this, normal plain text web proxy can't work for access of blocked sites. Only complex secure encrypted proxy tools can breakthrough. This adds another remarkable difficulty on free speech and information access, and the CCP almost win the battle against liberty. This is why Chinafool and Ran can sit back and "hahaha, people are not interested"[my imagination, not literal quoted] because "So far I haven't seen any search terms for foreign-based media"[quoted].

[lihlii]

An example of this dynamic blocking scheme:

Try to access

http://spaces.msn.com/members/lihlii/Blog/cns!1pPB6GUtA5oZm4XwLlnHbx6w!259.entry

from China mainland. For many ISPs, right at your visiting this url, you'll get blocked
from spaces.msn.com and the browser might tell you "DNS not found". This may be because
I included the following URL and text in my blog post:

美国参考 http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/ea/mgck/
美国之音 http://voanews.com
BBC 中文网
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/chinese/news/default1.stm

Seems the blockage is implemented in a "distributed" way, because different ISP users reported to
get different response by visiting this URL. Some can access it as if no blockage exists; others
can access for once or twice, but failed on the third time (so to ensure your test result, you need to
refresh the page for many times); some others might get partial page result and the browser hangs there
until the connection cut off.

This helps the liars to help the CCP deny of network blockage and waste your precious time arguing with
them by providing lengthy technical evidences.

Technically, it's quite reasonable. It's very difficult to screen information at the busiest outlet
gateway without degrading the performance. So the government might force each ISP to install screening
software at regional network operation centers to share the burden of filtering. The whole internet in China
is thus turned into a super computer of information censor, a giant Animal Farm of happy Chinese people
"interested in contact friends, play games, watch movies, cheat on exams etc". :)

[lihlii]

If you can't visit the above mentioned URL and declare that space.msn.com is blocked by CCP netdogs,
the "very patriotic" chinafools, Rancs will spring out of the box to refute you in a non-"red guard"
style: "Most of the foreign media sites are not blocked"! spaces.msn.com is cooperative with CCP
government on censorship, and I can access it normally. For those I can't access, because people
are not interested, so I don't care. "Secondly, Chinese language web sites outside China are mostly
of poor quality".

[lihlii]

chinafool:

So far I haven't seen any search terms for foreign-based media

lihlii:

This is highly possible for 2 reasons:

1. The majority of Chinese people are frightened away from seeking information hosted on oversea Chinese websites.

2. The http request might be filtered off by the local ISP content filtering firewalls before reaching your "freelancing work". :)

[lihlii]

Moreover, many service providers used javascript as censorship at desktop level to block free speech.

Check some domestic chinese web forum page source code and you will see.

By this blocking scheme, the netdogs can make use of exactly your own CPU resources to do the filtering job! Then the sensitive terms won't even pass through the ISP firewall.

[lihlii]

The CCP's censorship is from tongue to "deep throat", from stomach to brain.

From tongue to throat: Not only to block the public speeches on internet forums,
BBSs, but also to infringe private converstation rights in IM tools like QQ. [1][2]

From stomach to brain: The CCP make use of government authority to oppress disobedients
in a sneak way. They placed unwritten orders to ban scholars from publication of books,
dismiss the job of dissidents to push them into economical crisis. This is to squeeze
the foold out of their stomach so as to frightening the other people and control their
brains.

[1] QQ 过滤 http://www.google.com/search?q=QQ+%E8%BF%87%E6%BB%A4
[2] 大陆1041个被禁止的网络词汇 http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/5/5/26/n934161p.htm

[lihlii]

The CCP's censorship is from tongue to "deep throat", from stomach to brain.

From tongue to throat: Not only to block the public speeches on internet forums,
BBSs, but also to infringe private converstation rights in IM tools like QQ. [1][2]

From stomach to brain: The CCP make use of government authority to oppress disobedients
in a sneak way. They placed unwritten orders to ban scholars from publication of books,
dismiss the job of dissidents to push them into economical crisis. This is to squeeze
the food out of their stomach so as to frightening the other people and control their
brains.

[1] QQ 过滤 http://www.google.com/search?q=QQ+%E8%BF%87%E6%BB%A4
[2] 大陆1041个被禁止的网络词汇 http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/5/5/26/n934161p.htm

[lihlii]

Based on chinafool and Ranc's view points, I'd like to present some questions:

1. Since both of you think that most Chinese people has no interest on the contents of the blocked
(English and Chinese, which are "mostly of poor quality") websites, why the CCP are so sensitive
to these puny websites that they employed so much effort in banning them out of reach of Chinese people?

2. If what you're telling are truthes, that the majority of Chinese people just don't care the blockage,
is it a waste of public money to construct such a giant censorship network?

3. Since you said "Chinese is a very patriotic (whatever that means) people", should they mind the waste
of the national funds? The "very patriotic" Chinese people should argue, or at least notice the government
that it's a waste of big money to block internet sites that majority of Chinese people don't read at all?

4. Please, if you're as patriotic as you said, stand up and raise this question to the Chinese government
to cancel the Golden-Shield project, ASAP, if you're "freelancing" but not a frightened tamed self-cheating
slave. ;)

Are Chinese people truely "patriotic"? In fact, they're halfly cheated like Nazi German, and halfly cheating
the CCP to be "patriotic". There is a saying, the officials are posing as legal governers and the people are
posing as tamed obedients. Most of the people just keep away from politics, either out of fear of the
consequences of persecution, or selfishness and wisdom of a cunning opportunistic life philosophy. This is why
many (but in fact not most of) them showed up publicly as extreme patriots but in fact they will silent themselves
once the CCP starts to warn or restrict their coquetry of "patriotism". :) The recent news of anti-Japanese
demonstration is an apparent example.