Internet businesses are doing the dirty work of squelching internet freedom in order to satisfy the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) bureaucrats, says a well-known Chinese scholar. Internet users fight for their freedom by finding ways to continue posting dissident views in the face of censorship.
Xiao Han, an outspoken intellectual who has had his tweets on Sina.com deleted, says that it is a common fallacy to regard Sina.com’s curbing of free speech as a compromise solution to political pressure.
Party bureaucracy rules China and bureaucracy and business are one and the same, Xiao says. Without political permission, a business could never monopolize a free market, while, without a monopoly and a compliant business, bureaucrats would not benefit financially.
Business, then, is in league with the Party bureaucracy for mutual power and profits, Xiao says. He judges the severity of a state’s dictatorship not solely by its cruelty, but mainly by how brazenly the accomplices aid and abet it.
These sentiments are echoed by the founder of the China-based Citizen World, Xiao Ping, who says that Sina has gone too far with its tweet censorship. “It seems that, in Sina, the authorities set an example of how other internet companies must behave. Only with constant protests can Chinese netizens receive the right to freedom of speech.” He also advises those online to resist by creating different accounts and screen names as well as by taking legal action inside and outside China.
Wo Long, a freelance journalist, holds that it is not unusual to have individual statements muzzled by Sina. When muzzled, a netizen can continue to make himself/herself heard by putting on another “suit of armor”—opening a new account, which is a favored grassroots “guerrilla tactic.” Wo sees tweets by independent-minded people inside the communist system as having greater influence.
“In China,” Wo continues, “under the CCP’s control over public opinion, net companies like Sina are accustomed to helping the tyrant in its tyranny. Even when faced with condemnation and resistance from people in democratic countries, Sina will not desist. As long as its free-speech blackout is useful, it will be granted financial compensation from the Party for whatever business losses it incurs.”
“Twitter serves as both a platform for the grassroots to fight for free speech but also as a platform for the CCP to control public opinion,” says Wo. “The CCP has used a great number of paid internet commentators to spread propaganda by posting comments on websites in an effort to control public opinion. This deceit is standard CCP practice, since the Party rose to power by spreading deceitful propaganda,” he concludes.
Friends Read Free