#greatwall

The Great Wall

A beautiful video about Ancient China, a civilization that shaped the world with its innovations, philosophies, and monumental achievements.

The Great Firewall of China

China's Internet culture has accomplished a significant milestone. The Chinese government said 802 million people are actually using the Internet (Nial McCarthy 2018) and that it makes up 57.7% of the population. But the use of Western social media has been blocked in China. In China, for example, Google, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have been blocked, as have thousands of other foreign websites such as The New York Times and Chinese Wikipedia (Yuan 2018). The Great Firewall of China is the world's biggest censorship system, much of which is known as the limit. It is a mixed effort between government authorities and telecommunications and technology companies who are obliged to follow state law. It was launched in 2000 and is now being used by the government to enforce censorship and monitor its websites and to push search engines to philtre content deemed offensive (Bloomberg 2018). It's over 50,000 people today.

Nevertheless, China has set up its own national social networking platforms. They use WeChat instead of WhatsApp, Weibo replaces Twitter, Google copy Baidu, QQ revamped Facebook messenger and YouTube replaced Youku (BBC 2017). WeChat is being used instead of WhatsApp. One researcher wrote that China's censorship has been effective; not only does the regime make it difficult for people to access classified information, but it also promotes an environment in which citizens have not been asking for such information since its introduction. For example, as she grew up with Baidu, one of the people suggested that she is used to it. Moreover, in a survey conducted by Tencent, eight out of ten people born in 2000 or later experienced a steady change in their country, and almost the same proportion said they were optimistic about their future (Yuan 2018). Thus, China's censorship is not a matter for the Chinese networkers, as the Chinese apps have everything they want.

China Social Credit System

In addition, China uses the social credit system to monitor citizens' actions through surveillance and rating cameras, along with China's Great Firewall system. Population operation will be monitored by the Ma rating system (2018) and rated on the basis of its "social credit" and first announced in 2014, will be fully nationally applied by 2020. People with a good score are granted access to greater opportunities such as business discounts or hotel room reservations without paying deposits (Nittle 2018). People with low rankings can also be fined, including travel limits, for not staying in the best hotels (Ma 2018).

Personally I believe that a social credit system will instil positive nature in society, as it constantly asks people to behave themselves socially and to promote good behaviour. Moreover, the media have also recently reported that China's ranking system is now influencing society, and Chinese people appreciate the implementation of the ranking system when they see positive public behavioural changes (Fenwick 2017).

But it also pushes China's people to become model citizens and will eventually suffer more of those who have none so they don't have anything to begin with. For example low-income individuals are more likely to fail to fulfil their financial obligations, and raised penalties in the credit system may further restrict their ability to dig (Kovic n.d).

As far as China's social credit programme is concerned, I agree with some facets of the structure and disagree with some aspects of it. I think the scheme is perfect for safeguarding the health and well-being of people since I have visited various parts of China myself in the past. I think that China seems to be taking the right direction with what it is doing in the region, even though those things can still be modified. However the things I disagree with are the people responsible for regulating public health in China. When a corrupt public servant is engaged in exploiting the lives of people, the personal welfare of citizens is at stake when they have their data in the hands of an untrustworthy official.

References 

‘The Great Firewall of China’ 2018, Bloomberg, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/great-firewall-of-china>.

Yuan, L 2018, ‘Young people in China don’t know the Internet we do- and they like it that way’, Independent, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/china-internet-social-media-great-firewall-of-china-censorship-apps-a8510036.html>.

McCarthy, N 2018, ‘China now boasts more than 800 million Internet users and 98% of them are mobile (infographic)’, Forbes, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/08/23/china-now-boasts-more-than-800-million-internet-users-and-98-of-them-are-mobile-infographic/#27a708d47092>.

Nittle, N 2018, ‘Spend “frivolously” can be penalized under China’s new social credit system’, Vox, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/2/18057450/china-social-credit-score-spend-frivolously-video-games>.

‘Social media and censorship in China: how is it different to the West?’ 2017, BBC, viewed 21 November 2020, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41398423/social-media-and-censorship-in-china-how-is-it-different-to-the-west>.

Fenwick, A 2017, ‘How’s your social credit score?’, Hult International Business School, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.hult.edu/blog/your-social-credit-score/>.

Kovic, M n.d., ‘What’s wrong with China’s Social Credit System?’, Medium, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://medium.com/zipar/whats-wrong-with-china-s-social-credit-system-b9e1a2ffe71c>.

Ma, A 2018, ‘China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system- here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you’, Business Insider Malaysia, viewed 21 November 2020, <https://www.businessinsider.my/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4/?r=US&IR=T>.

‘Dragon Social Limited’, 2019, TDA, 30 January, viewed 21 November 2020<https://topdigital.agency/10-most-popular-social-media-sites-in-china-2019-updated/>