#byesocialmedia

Oh, China. The Great Firewall of China.

The Chinese government has manufactured a more grounded control divider that is more difficult to evade or circumvent than ever before. Before we get going, you would want to see this:

Here’s a great site to look at what you definitely won’t find in China: 8 Things You Won’t Find in China

A recent upgrade to the country's Internet filtering system -- known colloquially as the "Great Firewall of China" -- has made Internet filtering stricter and tougher to circumvent, providing Chinese officials with more scope to block unwanted material and services.

Access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube is blocked in China. During recent pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, the Facebook-owned photo sharing app Instagram was blacked out on the Mainland.

Taken together, the restrictions constitute the world’s largest and most effective state-sponsored censorship program. The effort, officially called "Golden Shield," is more than a decade old.

The program allows Beijing to restrict content it deems. Thousands of websites are blocked outright, and Chinese citizens that offend authorities can face judicial consequences. Seriously, they can face judicial consequences... that’s how insane it is.

Instead, citizens living in China are forced to use other sites that are similar to Facebook and YouTube; instead of using Google to search, they use a homegrown alternative called Baidu. Instead of posting messages like Facebook or Twitter, they’re forced to use Weibo. There’s also the popular WeChat, China’s most popular social media service. Even so, all these services are heavily censored and are kept watched by higher authorities.

Although WeChat serves its purpose as a good social media app, it leads to not even being able to be free. Things like spreading rumours and speculation online about corruption among senior Chinese officials is considered a crime and can result in a user’s account being shut down. According to the Index on Censorship, an international organization that promotes freedom of expression, the app has blocked words designated “sensitive,” resulting in an error message. So, in turn, even this app can’t even let people swear.  How is China surviving right now...

Bye, Instagram.

A Firewall’s intent is not to listen to users; it is to prevent users from obtaining publicly available information. And who decides which information is available to the user? The individuals with control. Some examples are:

1) The search engines

2) The framework servers and routers that serve-up the pages

3) The data transmission routers, used for eMail, raw files

4) The social network sites that are self contained communication systems

5) Phone based communications are transported over cel networks which can be completely independent from the web-page internet. Eg: texting, tweets, access to cloud services

6) Cloud services don't just store data, but also can act as communication devices by making available documents, photos, task lists, calendars, financial activities

7) Software that is not just downloaded, but is also continuously monitored by its manufacturer (manufactures claim this right because they no longer sell the software, but now retain ownership and lease the software the same way cars are leased or rented to you for a period of time) Adobe Suites are a good example. Purchase an Adobe Suite and you become part of a social network that will have access to vast amounts of your created data. 

It seems to me that there is more than this blockage of sites that meets the eye, without a doubt, the Great Firewall of China is onto something else. It’s clear that they don’t want their information given out to other international platforms. Hence why the top 7 examples lead to how information can be shared and leaked.

Although it makes sense to be blocked away and keep your “secrets” hidden, that doesn’t give it the okay to censor everything from your community. The Chinese have it hard... real hard.

 Future of China?

It seems that Chinese vigilant citizens have found a way out of this mess and are getting around the bans of Great Firewall of China. They use an app called Firechat that allows people to communicate without an internet connection. It works by using a technology known as ‘mesh networking’ where messages can be sent to people nearby as long as they have the app too. It also allows people to daisy chain connections between phones and talk to people further away, but those messages aren’t private.

The technology seems to be working intently and allows for many users to be able to communicate secretly. It proves that the people of China are sick of the censorship and are ready to tackle this head on. Good luck to my fellow teens living in China. (Peace emoticon)

 References

-          Great Wall of China Against Social Media [Image]. Retrieved from < http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/141230130450-great-firewall-of-china-1024x576.jpg>

-          Ripley C. (2015). MoneyCNN. 8 Things You Won’t Find in China. Retrieved from < http://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2014/12/30/banned-china-8/index.html?iid=EL>

-          Firechat app in China [Image]. Retrieved from < http://i2.wp.com/venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/firechat.jpg?fit=780%2C9999>

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