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% Now its going to be serious. Our thoughts in about 5-10 pages % 1. Western view of the motivation. Bad, hold back information, piss-off the western world, focus on this instead on human rights % 2. Chineese motivation. Stop wierd thinkings (conspiracy theories), populism, opportunism, show independence, stop attacs from governments et 5.1 Western ViewIt’s nothing new that he Chinese government censors the media in its country, it is actually not even a secret[3] but still the Internet censorship of China seams to upset western countries and their people much more than the ordinary censorship of printed media and television. What is the reason for the different receptions of Internet censorship and classical media censorship? Is there a difference in how the censorship is applied or can we find other factors that explain this difference?5.1.1 Western OutrageEverybody that uses the Internet regularly surely came across a discussion or an article about the Chinese Internet censorship. This discussions tend to become more fast-paced when western companies are involved. On the one hand when western media is censored and on the other hand when western companies actively help to ban certain sites form the Internet in China. When comparing topics that are banned from printed medias or television and the ones that are prohibited over the Internet no big difference can be observed. It includes information about Tibet, religions, Taiwan and human rights. Unfortunately it is very hard to obtain a complete list of blocked content but one can say, that all the topics that get the most attention are topics that were already present in classical censorship which is known in the western world for many years now. So it is obviously not the selection of the topics that make the difference, it has to be something else. To understand this, we first have to find out, what the Internet means to our western civilization.In our everyday life we use the Internet in for all different kinds of tasks. This can go from reading the weather forecast to buying a plane ticket. Even though this actions seem to have nothing to do with each other, they have one common ground. They have as a base the need to retrieve information. Almost everything we do over the Internet ha as a goal to get information, erase uncertainty and inform others about or thoughts and ideas. It was never this easy to express ones own opinion and to spread it with almost no barrier. Everybody can start his ’Do-It-Yourself’ media channel without huge costs and no need to have anybody to pay for the information. Together with the freedom of press, which is deep-seated in our culture, the Internet obtained a status of the organ of the people. Together with the quote of Francis Bacon ”Knowledge is power” we come closer to an explication why the western world reacts so strong to censuring the Internet. In our western hemisphere democracy is seen as the only ’good’ political system. A system where the power should be distributed among the people and therefore information has to be made accessible by as many people as possible. Another reason why Internet censorship seems to have a higher significance than classical censorship comes from the character of the Internet itself. To be able to distribute information among everybody, it has to be able to reach everybody. As simple as it sounds, a main reason why Internet censorship is such a hot potato is because everybody uses the Internet. This fact leads to several other reasons why this topic is omnipresent. First it concerns an item we all use. Compared to newspaper, where censorship affects the journalist and the publisher, on the Internet it can concern everybody who writes something. And second, even though the Internet stands for fast and raw information, it is more probable to read ’old’ news. Who remembers the articles from last week’s newspaper? Who actually has still the newspaper from last week? The Internet on the other hand allows to retrieve information from the past with almost no effort. This leads to a kind of learning effect that is strongest for stories that are published periodically like Human Rights, Tibet or Taiwan. Topics that affect people and tend to lead to emotions. Therefore the Internet seems to provide more interesting information and wins favor. 5.1.2 MotivationBesides the fact that the morbid, apparently urge drive of the Chinese regime to control the influence on, and the evolution of their people seems incomprehensible and purely sinister there are other motivations that can be identified from a western point of view. The Chinese government doesn’t leave out any chance to demonstrate its power and sovereignty. Interestingly it is exactly its sovereignty that is associated with topics like Taiwan, Tibet human rights. China doesn’t appreciate having other countries discussing its attitude against this issues. Reactions from Beijing are usually intense and tend to be a one-way information. If now this topics are discussed over the Internet, China has to demonstrate its sovereignty in this medium to. So banning such sides seems to be the only way to demonstrate the intentness of the Chinese regime. Another effect this censorship can have is, that when the discussion becomes purely about the fact that China bans some sites and not about what is banned itself, the focus will change position from topics like Human Rights etc to the less sensitive press freedom. Of course press freedom is a delicate subject too, but compared with Human Rights it seems to be preferable.
In this section we will try to present some motivations for the Chinese government to actively ban sites from the Internet. We assume that the Chinese regime doesn’t act in a sinister way and has its proper reasons to enforce this censorship. Like said in a previous section, a certain knowledge is needed to gain power. While in our culture the educational background is more or less homogeneous, |
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