China’s new Cyber-security Law will come into effect on June 1st, and may very well end up shaking the whole Chinese internet sphere, with online censorship rising to unprecedented levels. China is known to exert one of the world’s most severe censorship on its citizens, specifically online, and the Cyber Administration of China (CAC) is planning on pushing the restrictions even further. As of now, it is not exactly clear what will happen next, but it is thought things will evolve according to the Chinese government’s next decisions and the citizen’s reception of the new measures.
Under the new rules, millions of internet users could see their social media accounts deleted or suspended, should they share politically related material or not, even though it is thought that the enforcement of such regulations will both be selective and erratic. Such operations already took place in the past, as online opinion leaders with audiences of several millions of followers saw their accounts deleted in 2013. Censorship has also been very strong on the hugely popular platform WeChat for the past 3 years. However, the new regulations could have an unprecedented impact and paralyze local online activities on a huge scale.
Regular internet user arrests would also potentially increase, as the Chinese security forces would be able to obtain private information from internet companies and keep a close watch on what is being exchanged online. The new Cybersecurity Law will henceforth require all user data to be stored on severs located within the country’s physical borders, which, according to the foreign business community and internet freedom advocates, will put users under threats of having their private online activities and conversations seized or used for prosecutions: local authorities have already expressed their intentions, and the usual citizen could be jailed based on internet content shared or viewed on social media.
Just last month, a social media user named Wang Jiangfeng was sentenced to two years of imprisonment by the Zhaoyuan People’s Court after he was found guilty of referring to the head of the ruling Chinese Communist Party as “Steamed Bun Xi” in a group conversation on WeChat and QQ, proving the Chinese Government is able to access private conversations at any given time. Several arrests have already been reported by a Freedom House study in 2017: Falun Gong (a banned spiritual movement in China) practitioners have been jailed for sharing their beliefs online on WeChat, and young Uyghurs were imprisoned as well only for watching Islam related videos.
WeChat is without a doubt China’s most popular messaging platform, and has more than 806 million monthly active users. The service initially started as a simple messaging app, but has grown on a massive scale and now encompasses gaming, mobile payments, ride hailing and e-commerce operations. According to a report published by Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based in Toronto, messages that contain keywords related to sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre, Tibet or the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong are censored in the app, be it in private or group chats, and this without users’ knowledge.
The Chinese censorship pursued on the app even extends to the users living abroad if their account was originally registered with a Chinese phone number, whether or not the user has switched their account to an international number.
“(Beijing) promotes maintaining ideological connections and guidance with Chinese citizens overseas, particularly for students studying abroad,” the report said. “Tencent may be pressured to ensure filtering persists for Chinese users in any location.”
Researcher Jason Ng found that censorship is done by phone number because it enables WeChat to target all Chinese users even if they use a virtual private network (VPN) or other tech savvy techniques to bypass censorship known as the Great Firewall of China. “Censorship on WeChat [now resembles] how the Great Firewall of China operates, which is by design opaque and unaccountable,” the report said.
A full enforcement of the new measures would also imply a broader control of the private news portals and media companies in an effort to see their news material align with the media companies owned by the state itself. Since the CAC rules were enacted on May 2nd, editors in chief of the country have to be Chinese passport holders, hence restricting foreign space for investment and editorial input. However, some Chinese media observers remain relatively optimistic, as they don’t believe the CAC would actually close millions of social media accounts or jail thousands of people for sharing what would be deemed as “unlicensed” news, as private online news websites may now have to issue special shares to the government to be allowed to publish uncensored content.
Nevertheless, the national and international solidarity is strong when it comes to freedom of speech and ways to bypass censorship, and internet users, whether they are located in China or not, will maintain their efforts in developing tools and means to make uncensored information accessible while doing their best to protect local user privacy, as China’s internet remains a contested space. The government is only trying as hard to control the masses online as they feel threatened by the power of technologies.
“Online, the government is fighting like a cornered beast,” says journalist Zhu Xinxin. “They can’t exercise total control over online public opinion.”
Chinese online users still regularly seek access to uncensored information, hereby proving that the government’s attempts at controlling every single bit of information are meant to fail as mobilization remains strong: last month, a free mobile app called WiFi Master Key meant to encrypt user activity was downloaded over 900 million times as local authorities in Hebei and Guangdong reportedly increased monitoring on WiFi hotspots.
It is vital for all people and entities somehow involved in Chinese cyber activities to assess whether the enforcement of the new Cybersecurity Laws will affect them, whether they are regular citizens, business owners, foreign governments, or even activists, as the new rules may very well end up limiting or even paralyzing a vast amount of operations and communication channels both inside and outside the country.
