An interesting piece in the New York Times this week features a translation of a leaked weekly memo sent out by the Chinese government to the media with instructions on what they can and cannot publish. Everyone knows that this happens, but it all seems so much more ridiculously authoritarian when reading through the actual list (e.g. “No negative news allowed on the front pages of newspapers or the headline news sections of Web sites”).
Many have believed that the internet would be the key to breaking through the wall of censorship in China. In some ways, it probably has been — people are able to access much more information in mainland China today than 20 years ago. The Chinese government still tries to use censorship as a tool to manipulate public perception of current events, and it’s hard to tell if they’re clumsily fighting an unstoppable trend towards more and freer flows of information, or if they’ve cleverly managed to focus their efforts on the few issues and the main groups of people that really matter to achieve their goals (see this interesting overview by James Fallows of the Atlantic of how censorship of the internet works).
Some people use proxy servers to access specific blocked webpages, and some people pay for a VPN to get completely unblocked access to the internet. Other spread breaking stories on forums and blogs. For those people, it probably doesn’t matter what the newspapers publish. But proxies are a hassle, blogs and forums take a lot of time to sift through, and VPNs are expensive (even I, with foreigner money, decided the cost wasn’t worth the small pleasure of access to facebook and youtube). Some people will always think the hassle is worth it, but many won’t, and for that majority, a crude list of what newspapers may and may not feature on their front page can have a big impact on their world view. At the same time, there are people who try to push the boundaries towards freer speech (like the editor of Southern Weekly, who according to the memo must not be mentioned), and in the long run, those people should be on the winning side.