Tag: censorship

Google.cn: Let’s Say Goodbye!

image6[1] If you are familiar with the happenings these months related to the Google in China,  you should not forget the debating several months ago that concerns the exit of Google, a world-famous search engine, from China, a country that is famous around the world for its strict censorship on both Internet and traditional medias, like TV, newspapers and magazines. In fact, in the past few months, majority of Chinese like me, are still holding the hope that the Google should maintain its service in China, with the consideration on the commercial benefit, which, in my opinion, ultimately determines the decision for most businessman.

  1. Google Eventually Leaves China

    However, the exit of Google bring me new understand of the business. Unlike the most common businessman that profit is the only thing they care, the great groups, like Google, make me understand that determination of its own culture and perspective is also essential. Till now, Google is the only company that bring the censorship in China open to the public. Though the censorship policy in China is quite strict and known to the practitioners in the field of media, it is rarely known to most common citizens in China, especially those who are not that familiar with Internet and whose English is not that good to read some articles published overseas.

    If you open Google.cn this morning, you are surprisingly to see the following website, instead of the traditional Google.cn, a special version of Google that meets the censorship requirement in Chinese government:

    On the front page of Google.com.hk, you can observe a short sentence saying “Welcome to the new house of Google Search in China”. Due to the special policy that is adapted in Hong Kong, though it is regarded as a part of territory of PRC, no censorship but only some potential controls on media exists. Following the rules in Hong Kong, Google would face less litigation risk for their oppose to this policy. But the question is that I am wondering whether this site would be forbidden for visit from China. Previous examples for this prohibition includes Yahoo! HK and many BBS in Hong Kong.

  2. Official Annoucements from Google on Its Exit

    An updated version of the announcement is also available in both English and Chinese. Due to the key words that are involved in this article, this article would soon be forbidden, according to the rules of censorship. The only question is that how long it would stay in live. Following are the two pics for this announcement. One in English from the Google Blog,and the other in China from the directly link to Google.com. You can click on the pictures for larger size.

     

  3. Availability of Other Products: Official Evidence

    The other action that Google made is that they expose the existence of GFW. Though it has been understood for most Internet users, it is unwillingly to know for majorities. As a strong evidence that argues the freedom of Internet recently claimed by Chinese officials, a site that detects the availability of some largest Web 2.0 applications around the world for most Internet users in China, without abnormal skills and trainings is now available. For interested readers, you can click here. Following is the result of detection today.

  4. Conclusion

    We are living in a country that regards censorship as a necessary step for filtering ‘unhealthy information’, though porn webs are mostly available. As a good saying goes that, you should try to be accustomed to the environment once you find you can hardly change it. In a country that regards politics as a sensitive term, any discussion on related topics can bring you unexpected consequences. What we can do is to follow the policy, do what we can do, and never try to break the rule.

Freedom on Internet: An Alternative Explanation

image Abstract: This article mainly discuss the production of regulation on Internet, as well as its anticipated consequence, grounded with the traditional economic theory. i argue the appropriate regulation on Internet is necessary due to the existence of naive users of Internet as well as the herding behavior. But I also argue that strict censorship can also mean cliff effect, which is a tragedy for the users. The contribution of this article is that it is the first time to link the development of Internet to the economic understanding. And the conclusion is also of practical meanings to the academics and practitioners who are focus on the investors protection in emerging markets.

Keywords: Internet Censorship, Naive Internet Users, Tendency Protection

DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE IS ONLY A PERSONAL ARGUMENT THAT CAN HARDLY FULLY REPRESENT THE KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING THAT BOTH THE AUTHOR AND THE OWNER OF THIS BLOG OWN. PLEASE BE AWARE OF TAKING YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT FOR ANY PART IN THIS ARGUMENT. NO LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY WOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR ANY PART OF THIS ARTICLE FOR BOTH THE AUTHOR AND OWNER OF THIS SITE.

  1. Introduction

    The gambling between the freedom and regulation on Internet in China is now becoming quite a popular topic, especially when Google announced a preliminary decision on its willing of exiting, a direct way expresses his arguments and annoy to the regulations in China. Various discussions and arguments are available in numerous BBS and blogs. Obviously, the freedom on Internet is becoming a new instrument for the US government to criticize the weak protection of human rights in China. A speech made by Hilary Clinton, secretary of US, would apparently concentrate the attention all around the world to this topic. I don’t know if it is necessary to treat it as an important speech or just some words by a politician, since such arguments in really common to see. But in fact, in this post, I would like to provide some deeper understanding on this topic, providing academic explanation for this gambling.

  2. Regulation: A Production of Non-Rationality.

    1. Internet Under Ideal Conditions: A Rationality Hypothesis

      According to the traditional economic theory, we can suppose that the behavior of an individual would be unlikely important to the decisions of others’ given the setting that the participants in an environment is numerous and countless. In fact, the Internet can provide us such an ideal environment. Considering it as a globally connected network, and the cultural differences exist for users from different countries and regions, various concept of value would be conflict that eventually form equilibrium. But do remember that the equilibrium is a general one. Under such anticipation, the arguments and issues provided by individual to the Internet can hardly affect the others. In fact, the Internet is playing as an pot, integrating various opinions, understandings, and even trivialities. Thus, the regulation on such pot is meaningless since they can hardly affect any one else. The regulation on such behaviors would be meaningless and contradict to the principle of ‘cost-efficiency’.

    2. Internet in Real World: Naive Users and Harding Behavior

      However, be aware that the setting described above is likely to be ideal, since there is a fundamental assumption of economics that, I assume the individuals using Internet are totally rational. That is, they can fairly judge and decide what to do without any influence from others, which are regarded as exogenous. While whether such assumption can fit the reality is a question. In fact, it is widely acknowledge that the knowledge an individual matters can significantly affect his attitude and depth of though for an event, and such attitude is also related to the characteristic and some psychological factors. For this reason,i shall hereby expand the rationality hypothesis, admitting that the attitude and style of decision-making is differentiated.

      Given the differentiated understanding, the interacting influence between the individuals can be anticipated.  For differentiated individuals, two types can be generally distinguished, one is holding information advantage and good master of knowledge, who can fully think and express their opinions independently, while the other is comparatively weak on their knowledge and expression. Under such pyramid structure, those individuals with full knowledge and comparative information advantage can thus conduct the fashion, while the others would follow. In such setting, the interacting influence is formed. And the equilibrium I argued in ideal settings are now transformed into a Nash Equilibrium.

    3. Regulation on Internet: A Protection Mechanism

      Thus the herding among the Internet users forms. Following the terms in capital, I define the users without sufficient knowledge to conduct their own decision as naive users. Due to their disadvantage on knowledge, such naive users would prefer to follow the fashion conducted by certain mature users. Under most occasions, such following can help hide their weak mastering of knowledge, which can be regarded as tendency protection. It is easy to anticipate that the pursuing of such protection can, under some occasions, lead to misleading by those who are conducting the fashions. Such misleading is from the conflict between the personal understanding and accepted virtue given a specified social environment. Related explanation would not be given here since its complexity. And it is the misleading, or say gaps between the understanding and accepted virtue that form the regulation.

  3. Regulation on Internet, Be Appropriate!

    The regulation can be important to constrain the fashion that is contradicting to the accepted virtue. In fact, FBI is taking real-time monitoring on the Twitter, a popular micro-blog service in US, to find the clues for both existing and potential victims. And the Emails to and from US is also filtered by the network gate for security purposes. In China, such monitoring is more severe. Messages and posts on BSP and BBS are totally filtered. Any contradicting information is abandoned by such filtering. Undoubtedly, such filtering offers us a better environment, protecting us from harmful information. Just imagine the Internet without regulation, virus, Trojan and trivialities would be the main stream of the Internet.

    But we must also be clear that the monitoring, or say regulation should be appropriate. Too strict censorship can lead to ‘cliff effect’, a term used in economics and finance, representing the depression on information announcement in capital markets due to a strict regulation unacceptable to the investors and managers. Similar effect can also be anticipated in Internet as well. A good example on the censorship from China can obviously provide such explanation. Since the 7*5 Event in Xinjiang, China, the Internet service in Xinjiang Province is strictly controlled till now. No Email service, no instant messaging. Taking a surf to the BBS in Xinjiang, though accessible to the citizens there, little information can be found. The other example is on Google.com. There is little report in China, but it becomes a hot topic in WSJ, a top newspaper in the field of finance, in the next two days.  Obviously, the censorship in China leads to the serious cliff effect. While, jokingly, I wonder, is the cliff effect just what the government want?

  4. Censorship and Cliff Effect: A Tragedy for Most Chinese!

    Admittedly, appropriate regulation on the Internet is unquestionable. Such behavior is meaningful to the protection of naive users, who takes up the majority. But too strict censorship in China has changed its purpose. In China, the censorships is being blindly expanded. Nearly all the excellent Web 2.0 service has been abandoned in China, the personal websites, including the BBS and blogs has been strictly controlled. Anything that is contradicting to the governmental willing, even the potential ones that can hardly be observed, would be deleted. Democracy has lost its meaning here. i don’t want to underestimate the brain power of the leaders, but frankly, such censorship is a tragedy.

  5. Enlighments to Research on Capital Markets: A Joke

    Literature on accounting and finance provide us evidence that the protection of investors is quite weak in emerging markets, and the governmental organization for regulation is seeking for an efficient way for solution. Now I suppose the answer has been out. That is, they can learn from the censorship of Internet, a good lesson on how to build a solid firewall against its citizen!

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