China and the Internet: change goes both ways

Latest censorship news: Wikipedia has confirmed reports from bloggers and others that the online peer-produced encyclopedia has been blocked in China.  At the same time, as Tom Friedman reports in the NYTimes Select (I won't provide a useless pay-only link) podcasting is taking off like crazy in China.  Censorship and information crackdowns on one hand, proliferation of user-generated online content in China at the same time. What gives?

I've been thinking and writing quite a lot over the past few months about such contradictions, and China's impact on the internet more generally.  Today I gave a talk at Pop!Tech in Camden Maine about how China may change the internet as much as the internet will change China - and how these changes help explain seemingly contradictory trends.

My notes for the talk are here (not a transcript of what was actually said in the live talk), and the Powerpoint slides are here (large ppt file). The audio will eventually be available here.

Thanks to Ethan Zuckerman, Dina Metha among others for blogging the talk. In 25 minutes I tried to explain the paradox of the internet in China today: On one hand, the internet has been a tremendously empowering and liberating force for many Chinese - economically and culturally. On the other hand, a business and regulatroy model is emerging that enables censorship to work in a way that is actually tolerable for most Chinese internet users (except for political dissidents who are - to put it mildly - out of luck). As a result, China's extensive system of censorship and internet controls doesn't hold businesses back when it comes to innovating and making money from products and services that enable users to create media (blogs, posdcasts, etc.). We are also looking at a future in which soft censorship will be "baked" into a new generation of software and online services coming out of China. And these products and services will prove very attractive not just for the Chinese government but for many other governments - including some that call themselves democratic.

Comments

[Jon Garfunkel]

Rebecca--

A question for you, or Seth, who will invariably show up here, and who has long ago made the point about censoring access points. The very thing that frustrates media junkies about podcasts-- their lack of scannabilty-- would this actually frustrate automated censorship?

Certainly the PRC could compensate by doling out more censor work, and having higher penalties for the podcasters who say forbidden words.

Regarding the control of access points, one also needs to be concerned about this headline:
Colleges Protest Call to Upgrade Systems

Oh, and drop your pose about "useless links." Here's the Tom Friedman column: Chinese Finding Their Voice.

[The Nirvana Poster]

Love Tom Friedman! I don't get China and I can't imagine the difficulty in censoring the internet (or how unbelieveably aggrivating and dibiletating this would be).

They give up this kind of control soon.

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

John, you're absolutely right, podcasts are harder to censor and scan at the moment. This may be an area where China will try hard to lead the pack in innovation... but you're right, it's also perhaps a reason for their popularity.

[John Beale]

its freer access to that network that will create the revolution - i think its a great opportunity for china and I hope thay use it.

[John Beale]

It's freer access to that network that will create the revolution - i think its a great opportunity for china and I hope thay use it.

[Stephanie Rose]

Online discussions of current events, especially through Internet bulletin board systems (BBS) and Weblogs, or "blogs," are having real agenda-setting power. The Chinese government has used enormous financial resources to set up government-sponsored Web sites at all levels of government, from national to regional and provincial. About 10% of all sites in Chinese cyberspace are directly set up and run by the government. Over 150 news sites have been directly established by the central and local government. The problem I think is that these official sites have signally failed to gain the trust of the 100 million mostly young, urban and educated netizens. On the contrary, people simply go to any number of independent Web sites, including BBS and blogs, to read what they think is interesting. Popular BBS such as Tianya community and Xicihutong and individual bloggers enjoy far more online popularity, and therefore real influence, among netizens, than official Web sites such as Xinhua.com. What do you think about it Rebecca?