Case Study _ Google

Case Assignment: 10.3 Google Meets The Great Firewall of China

The Chinese internet market is exploding. In one decade the number of Chinese with access to the global internet went from 80,000 to 130 million. To enter this lucrative market, American technology firms must participate in the Communist government’s censorship program, which has been dubbed the “Great Firewall of China.” The Chinese Communist government uses a variety of strategies to police websites and internet traffic to determine whether users are breaking the law by defaming the government, divulging state secrets, or promoting separatist movements. Chinese officials ban such “subversive” material as government criticism, pornography, and information about Tibet, Taiwanese independence, and the Falun Gong religious sect. An estimated 30,000-50,000 human censors monitor internet traffic and set up fake sites to catch offenders. Student volunteers steer university chat room discussions, and cartoon icons remind users of the internet rules. Automatic censoring systems remove offensive chat room and bulletin board postings within minutes by detecting and then eliminating messages containing such words as dictatorship, corruption, or truth. Access to a number of websites is blocked, and users can only access portions of other sites. For example, a Chinese citizen may be able to visit an American university website but not be able to access material on a Chinese prodemocracy speaker sponsored by the university.

American firms have done their part to shore up the Great Firewall. Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks sell China’s government networking hardware that enables office to filter out content, allowing access to the World Wide Web but only to information favorable to the Chinese government. Yahoo! Screens content and de-list websites like The New York Times and Human Rights Watch from its search engine and, until it’s recent merge with a Chinese provider, did so without notifying users. Yahoo! Also gave Chinese authorities the e-mail address of a journalist who is now serving 10 year prison term for sending material to a democracy website. MSN (Microsoft) censors words and removes blogs at the government request.

From 2006 to 2010 Google supported China’s censorship efforts, blocking content that Beijing deems controversial. For instance, Westerners using the search term Tiananmen might get images of protesters being overrun by tanks in 1989. In China, the same search would generate an image of a U.S. official posing for a snapshot in Tiananmen Square. The company’s decision to censor appeared to contradict its motto to “do no evil” and undermined its efforts to provide unlimited access to information. Google justified its action by arguing that censorship is the lesser of two evils. “Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission,” the firm admitted. “Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely.” Unlike some of its competitors, Google was transparent about its censorship efforts; notifying users that content had been blocked.

Critics, such as Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and some members of Congress, took issue with Google’s assertions. Human rights advocates pointed out that censorship violates the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights by denying freedom of speech and information. Iowa Republican congressman Jim Leach argued that Google’s action turned it into a “functionary of the Chinese government.” California representative Tom Lantos (a Holocaust survivor) told Google, Yahoo! And other internet firms doing business in China, “While technologically you are giants, morally you are pygmies.” The Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA) was introduced in Congress to prohibit American companies from engaging in political censorship in Internet-restricting countries (Belarus, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, North Korea, the People Republic of China, Tunisia, Vietnam), though it has yet to be passed.

In early 2010, after an attack on its computer systems allegedly originating in China, Google closed its Internet search service in mainland China and directed users to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong. The Chinese government responded by accusing Google of violating its pledge to follow censorship laws and of collaborating with U.S. spy agencies. Chinese business partners began to cut off their relationships with Google.

Chin’s Great Firewall will likely survive for the foreseeable future. Hopes were that censors would be overwhelmed by the flow of information generated by the rapid growth of computers, Internet cafes, social media, and blogs. However, increasingly sophisticated technology provided by U.S. firms makes it easier than ever for Chinese authorities to clamp down on Internet activity. Google’s chief legal officer admitted that the company’s attempts to loosen information access had failed and that censorship in China is more restrictive than ever. “Far from our presence helping to open things up,” he lamented, “it seems that things are getting tighter for open expression and freedom.”