6 The Chinese Leviathan is the Great Wall

Recently, I heard of some research at UC Davis being done on the Golden Shield Project, better known as the “Great Firewall of China.” This term refers to the Chinese system of net surveillance and denying access to certain web addresses, locations, and resources where blacklisted keywords appear frequently. The research is being done to monitor the frequency and changes in censorship, specifically based on content. According to one of the researchers, the firewall isn't an actual firewall. It is inconsistent and works partly on the idea that it encourages self-censorship. Effectively, this acts as the Chinese Leviathan that regulates the flow of ideas through Chinese net space and encourages the conformity of its users.

Specific information is blocked from the eyes of Chinese users, causing some ideas to converge to seemingly universal affirmation. Of course, it is only superficial since divergent opinions may be blocked by the firewall. The lack of disagreeing views leads to conformists who follow the beliefs of the government. New users will find any dissenting opinion to be a disagreement with a seemingly unanimous group position. They come to know the norm as soon as they are blocked from accessing a censored website. At that point, the information the user is attempting to access is probably against the government expected norms. Since these norms are the norms of the users, the user is in danger of being ostracized from the rest of the group if he or she decides to oppose it.

According to Wallace, there is less conformity on the Internet due to the absence of physical presence and increased anonymity. However, in terms of Chinese net space, there is less anonymity, resulting in the evident increased conformity. Since this is a national surveillance program, there is also fear that the government can take legal action on nonconformists. Combined with the ostracizing force of the group, this fear enforces group norms. Norms are ensured by both social means as well as legal means.

Wallace justifies creating a leviathan-like creature out of a need for orderliness at the cost of certain freedoms. The Chinese government created the project in an attempt to establish and maintain order in their part of the network. Their stated goal isn't to hinder the flow of ideas, but to improve the efficiency of their information systems. However, in practice the two goals are mutually dependent, at least in an outward analysis of Chinese censorship. According to MacKinnon, cited in Wallace, people are willing to forgo freedoms to keep the value of the Internet. Indeed, for Chinese users, the Internet allows greater access to information, even though some information is blocked. In fact, MacKinnon is cited recently for stating that Chinese users do not feel oppressed.

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