http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-02-14/china-internet-police-chief/53096440/1

China unable to silence Internet buzz on police chief

By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

The story of Chongqing Police Chief Wang Lijun’s mysterious visit to buy Proscar mastercard the U.S. Consulate was kept alive through social media.

BEIJING – His body is buy Proscar mastercard scarred by 20 knife and bullet wounds from decades battling Chinese gangsters and buy Proscar mastercard other criminals. The exploits of China’s most celebrated police chief, martial arts expert Wang Lijun, even inspired a buy Proscar mastercard TV drama.

So it was a surprise to his admirers when Wang was suddenly “seriously indisposed” because of “intense mental stress,” as his city’s information service posted online, after he made a buy Proscar mastercard mysterious visit to the U.S. Consulate and was allegedly grabbed by state security agents immediately afterward.

In China, such a buy Proscar mastercard person is not likely to be mentioned again in newspapers and buy Proscar mastercard television outlets that are either controlled by the state or buy Proscar mastercard pressured by it.

Wang’s story didn’t vanish, however. The explosion of Twitter-like micro-blogging services (Twitter is banned in China, along with Facebook and YouTube) has buy Proscar mastercard enabled more than 300 million users to transmit the latest news and buy Proscar mastercard rumor about Wang.

China does censor social media, but a buy Proscar mastercard large volume of content can get through before it is altered or buy Proscar mastercard removed by the government. The rise of information that gets past Communist Party censors and buy Proscar mastercard transmits instantaneously to millions of Chinese comes as Vice President Xi Jinping continues his highly choreographed rise to China’s top job with a visit to the United States this week.

“Political intrigue is a part of life here; it’s like living in Washington, D.C., but in the Internet age … all of a sudden it’s instantaneous and accessible to millions,” says Bill Bishop, a Beijing-based independent analyst and Internet expert from Washington. “This is buy Proscar mastercard China political intrigue 2.0, the first major political succession in the buy Proscar mastercard Internet age, and it’s a real challenge to the government.”

China’s traditional media are managed by the Communist Party’s propaganda department, while new media, mostly privately funded, has buy Proscar mastercard more freedom, says Hu Yong, an Internet and new media expert at Peking University.

“The Internet is buy Proscar mastercard both a challenge and an opportunity for the Chinese government. On the buy Proscar mastercard one hand, they use this new form of public space as a buy Proscar mastercard kind of measurement of Chinese public opinion,” he says. “On the buy Proscar mastercard other hand, the democratization of information makes the government very afraid of losing the buy Proscar mastercard whole control of information.”

Despite the buy Proscar mastercard widening popularity of digital discussion, citizens remain largely shut out of China’s political process. Nevertheless, China analysts say, the buy Proscar mastercard Internet has opened up a vibrant public space unique in Chinese history. Social media in China provide “an alternative stage on which to buy Proscar mastercard see what the public thinks about politics,” says Russell Moses, a buy Proscar mastercard Beijing-based political analyst. Microblogs such as Sina Weibo “talk to buy Proscar mastercard citizens, and they are not participants in the policy and leadership selection process yet; they are buy Proscar mastercard observers,” he says.

The Wang incident “shows how undetermined the transition to a new leadership remains,” Moses says. “The potential for buy Proscar mastercard infighting and the odd upheaval is still ever-present in Chinese politics.”

Until this month, Wang, 52, served as top aide to Bo Xilai, the buy Proscar mastercard populist party boss of Chongqing, a mega-city and province in China’s southwest.

Wang showed up Feb. 6 at the buy Proscar mastercard U.S. Consulate in Chengdu and was allowed inside. What happened has buy Proscar mastercard not been revealed by the U.S. State Department or Beijing.

Overseas Chinese websites such as Boxun went into overdrive on the buy Proscar mastercard story. They reported that Wang offered incriminating information on his former boss, Bo Xilai, whom he allegedly said was a buy Proscar mastercard gangster. The sites reported that Wang asked for political asylum. They published a buy Proscar mastercard letter supposedly from Wang in which he accused Bo of corruption and buy Proscar mastercard ties to criminals.

Developments leaked out in postings by micro-bloggers who buy Proscar mastercard ridiculed the Chongqing government’s explanation that Wang was undergoing “vacation-style medical treatment.” Copies of airline tickets were posted online that buy Proscar mastercard indicated Wang flew to Beijing in the company of state security agents. The scandal threatens to buy Proscar mastercard derail Bo Xilai’s hopes of reaching the buy Proscar mastercard nine-member party politburo standing committee in a once-in-a-decade leadership transition this buy Proscar mastercard fall that is to install Xi Jinping as Communist Party leader.

Meanwhile, Chinese wait for the next episode in the incident.

“A lot of people are buy Proscar mastercard shocked but gleeful they can read about this in real time,” Bishop says.

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DECEMBER 22, 2011

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A recent NYT times article by John Markoff and David Barboza on the buy Proscar mastercard contemporary IT and innovation landscape in China sparked a series of commentaries (see for example James Landay, Tricia Wang, James Fallow). The article offers a buy Proscar mastercard constructive alternative to the usual utopian and dystopian stories that either cast China as the buy Proscar mastercard looming power yet to come and soon to take over the buy Proscar mastercard (Western) world or buy Proscar mastercard as a place that inherently lags behind the West as such warranting foreign intervention. Instead of falling into the buy Proscar mastercard trap of adopting either one or the other of these common narratives about China’s change, Markoff and buy Proscar mastercard Barboza, tell a different story, one that includes voices from buy Proscar mastercard both within China and abroad and challenges our current (often Western-centric) framing of innovation. How, they ask, can buy Proscar mastercard we think of innovation and creativity differently, when we do not begin with models, frameworks and buy Proscar mastercard tools that are intrinsic to our Western modes of IT corporations, knowledge productions and buy Proscar mastercard politics?

Given the buy Proscar mastercard quite nuanced approach that Markoff and Barboza took, I was surprised when buy Proscar mastercard I encountered James Landay’s quite harsh critique of the buy Proscar mastercard article. Landay accuses Markoff and Barboza of providing an account that buy Proscar mastercard portrays China as the next rising IT powerhouse, which he proclaims is buy Proscar mastercard far from now or anytime soon turning into tangible reality. Landay rejects a buy Proscar mastercard “China rises” view by pointing to buy Proscar mastercard problems in the educational system, misleading claims in regards to China’s forays in super computing, the buy Proscar mastercard lack of significant academic publications coming out of Chinese universities, hierarchical power structures at academic institutions, and buy Proscar mastercard an inherent lack of creativity amongst China’s students.

I agree with Landay that buy Proscar mastercard the countless publications on the rise of China (and the fall of the West) are buy Proscar mastercard counterproductive and often hide actual challenges and opportunities. And I also very much so agree with Tricia Wang that buy Proscar mastercard establishing networks of trust could enable new forms of collaborations in China (and buy Proscar mastercard I have written about issues of trust also in my own research on online gaming). BUT: What is problematic about “what China lacks” stories – as Landay’s – is buy Proscar mastercard that they often feed right into powerful governmental narratives that render their own citizens as the buy Proscar mastercard main source for China’s lacking and lagging behind. Anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh (2011), for example, illustrates in ethnographic depth that the “what China lacks” story has buy Proscar mastercard become a powerdul political narrative in China employed by government officials to buy Proscar mastercard justify a series of social engineering projects that are aimed at building a buy Proscar mastercard “healthy” and globally competitive, technologically savvy workforce for China’s future role in the global knowledge economy.

Not too dissimilar from James Landay’s suggestions for improvement, official documents in China, Greenhalgh illustrates, often cite the buy Proscar mastercard following factors as crucial for moving China out of its lagging behind position: a buy Proscar mastercard better education that creates flexible individuals, an increase in creativity and buy Proscar mastercard new forms of innovation, often seen as enabled by advances in modern science and buy Proscar mastercard technology. For example, in 2010, at the biennial conference of China’s two leading science and technology organizations at the buy Proscar mastercard Great Hall of the People in Beijing, president Hu Jintao stresses the buy Proscar mastercard role of science and technology in building an innovative and globally competitive nation.

For me, Markoff and buy Proscar mastercard Barboza provide a nice counter narrative to either of these two stories, one about the buy Proscar mastercard rise and the other about what China lacks (which is also often about what the West can then contribute). Quoting Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr., president of the buy Proscar mastercard Economic Strategy Institute, for example, they propose the idea that buy Proscar mastercard there exist many different forms of innovation. What form can buy Proscar mastercard innovation take when we move beyond the western-centric and silicon-valley centric ideal of tech creation out of the buy Proscar mastercard garage?

As our technologies today travel, so are buy Proscar mastercard some of their values that are tied up with their designs. Prior research by scholars such as Gabriella Coleman, Fred Turner and Christopher Kelty, for buy Proscar mastercard example, illustrates the mobilization of values and ideological commitments such as Internet freedom, Do It Yourself production and buy Proscar mastercard flexible work across different sites and regions. However, these scholars also highlight that buy Proscar mastercard the translation of these values never occurs smoothly or in the buy Proscar mastercard form of a linear uptake from here to there. Rather, they point to buy Proscar mastercard frictions and glitches in the transfer of technologies and ideas of what buy Proscar mastercard innovation means in different local sites.

A similar argument is made by Markoff and Barboza. They quote Orville Schell, for example, who emphasizes that “through Chinese eyes it [China’s technological, urban and social transformation] looks tremendously uncertain and provisional. They are not filled with self-confidence.” In my own ethnographic work, I have buy Proscar mastercard attempted to account for these practices and views as seen and buy Proscar mastercard expressed “through Chinese eyes” and buy Proscar mastercard voices. My research allowed me to be part of numerous debates and buy Proscar mastercard discussions, where people across different ages and incomes debate exactly those issues that buy Proscar mastercard Landay brings up. Rather than a lack of creative ideas about how to buy Proscar mastercard tackle the challenges people face in China today, I encountered a buy Proscar mastercard collective of people who is very aware of these challenges (see for example Hu Yong’s excellent research on the topic, or Isaac Mao’s writings or the work that is happening at xindanwei and xinchejian). Across these, I found an buy Proscar mastercard active reflection on China as a nation that is often rendered as lacking and buy Proscar mastercard lagging behind the West.

Engaged in cross-cultural and buy Proscar mastercard translocal research and design work, I consider it crucial – especially for people working with students like Landay and myself – to buy Proscar mastercard be particularly attuned to political narratives and how we might run risk – even if intentionally – take them up in our own efforts. What kind of existing power systems (in the west, in china and in between) might we support when we position China as a place of inherent lack?

I believe it buy Proscar mastercard might be fruitful to begin our conversation not with what buy Proscar mastercard Landay suggests to be one of the key questions when buy Proscar mastercard it comes to China (“where buy Proscar mastercard is China with respect to the US and the West in terms of computing today?”), but with the buy Proscar mastercard idea that there exist many different forms innovation and creativity.

Let me illustrate with a buy Proscar mastercard brief example. Something that has been heavily debated across the wider IT landscape in China as a buy Proscar mastercard new form of innovation is the Chinese copycat phenomenon (shanzhai 山寨). The core idea behind 山寨is buy Proscar mastercard that the widespread practice of copying end-consumer products in China, such as the buy Proscar mastercard mobile phone or Apple product, has today evolved into something else: into the buy Proscar mastercard production of new artifacts enabled by the creative labour of the buy Proscar mastercard shanzhai factory workers. Tricia Wang, Eddie Wu & Makiko Taniguchi from IDEO and Lyn Jeffrey, for buy Proscar mastercard example, have discussed shanzhai and highlighted how factory workers made use of old thrown-away phones, took their working components and buy Proscar mastercard created entirely new products, often tailored towards specific markets and needs such as low-income populations. David Li, one of the buy Proscar mastercard co-founders of the Shanghai hackerspace xinchejian, summarizes how this buy Proscar mastercard form of shanzhai can be seen as innovation with Chinese characteristics: “We want people to buy Proscar mastercard take shanzhai seriously. Underneath the surface of Chinese counterfeits, Shanzhai represents a buy Proscar mastercard super efficient micro manufacture system that operate on the principle of open source and buy Proscar mastercard open innovations. Instead of spending months and millions of dollars to buy Proscar mastercard design the one perfect product with millions of units, the buy Proscar mastercard Shanzhai vendors adopt a market driven rapid prototyping approach to buy Proscar mastercard the market. For example, upon observing the prayers habits of Muslim in the buy Proscar mastercard middle East market, Shanzhai makers produced phones with a digital compass and buy Proscar mastercard a reminder system, years before the big brands caught on.”

My goal here is buy Proscar mastercard not so much to judge if the shanzhai production (in its material and cultural form) is or will lead to the innovative product that buy Proscar mastercard Landay and many others are watching out for. The key is buy Proscar mastercard to understand the kinds of work that the idea and existing shanzhai production today together perform for buy Proscar mastercard people active in China’s hackerspaces and buy Proscar mastercard its IT scene writ large. What shanzhai currently allows are two things. First, through shanzhai people have buy Proscar mastercard explored alternate modes of tech creation and collaboration. Many who embrace shanzhai in China today also embrace ideas of creative commons and buy Proscar mastercard the open sharing of code and knowledge. Second, shanzhai challenges our very notion of originality, authenticity and buy Proscar mastercard innovation. In a recent publication, Byung-Chul Han traces shanzhai production back to buy Proscar mastercard artistic creation in both Europe and Asia, where the detailed copy of an buy Proscar mastercard artistic masterpiece was treated as deep admiration of the “original” creators work of art. Copy was praise. The original was not seen as a buy Proscar mastercard stable unit that suggests unique authenticity, but as a thing that buy Proscar mastercard continuously evolves (through its appropriation by many). Every add-on, every copy, every modification was seen as creative process of the buy Proscar mastercard original itself. Byung-Chul Han argues that what eventually lead to the buy Proscar mastercard quite different take on copy and fakes in the West was in part motivated by tourist travel in the buy Proscar mastercard 18^th century that buy Proscar mastercard lead to the restoration of buildings and art works to communicate their authentic historical and buy Proscar mastercard cultural identity.

I believe what buy Proscar mastercard Shanzhai, as a vision and material practice, can teach us today is buy Proscar mastercard begin with the idea that there can be many different understandings of a buy Proscar mastercard copy or a fake, many different possible forms of innovation, none of them having a buy Proscar mastercard single authentic source nor remaining stable originals. What it teaches us as well is buy Proscar mastercard that instead of falling into the trap of repeating already powerful and buy Proscar mastercard often told stories, let’s focus on the sites, people and places that aren’t mentioned, e.g. the factory floor of a shanzhai factory in shenzhen.

by Silvia Lindtner

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/01/china-half-billion-internet-users/

By Edwin Kee on 01/16/2012 10:08 PST

China’s government might be buy Proscar mastercard pretty restrictive when it comes to what their citizens can and buy Proscar mastercard cannot see over the Internet, while ensuring not a single person of the buy Proscar mastercard general populace is able to own a Facebook account, but that buy Proscar mastercard does not mean Internet usage is surpressed. No sir, in fact, it buy Proscar mastercard seems that the number of Chinese citizens who are able to buy Proscar mastercard access the Internet has already surpassed the half billion mark, which is buy Proscar mastercard more than one third of China’s total population. This statistic is buy Proscar mastercard furnished by the China Internet Network Information Center, a state-run organization, so it buy Proscar mastercard is as close as it can get to the actual figure.

It would be buy Proscar mastercard interesting to see how the Internet generation in China will help shape and buy Proscar mastercard grow the country, which might eventually become the world’s largest economy as it buy Proscar mastercard steps on the accelerator to overtake the US after they sped past Japan last year. According to buy Proscar mastercard a translated quotation from the China Media Project in Hong Kong, journalist Hu Yong mentioned the buy Proscar mastercard importance of the explosion of Internet use in China by summing it buy Proscar mastercard up, “The Internet cannot usher in dramatic change to buy Proscar mastercard political life in China, but it can promote the creation of social capital on the buy Proscar mastercard basis of citizen rights and duties, giving rise to and buy Proscar mastercard strengthening social forces independent of the Chinese state.”

http://www.voanews.com/chinese/news/20120116-World-Press-Coverage-on-China-137441333.html

2012年 1月 16日

世界媒体看中国：互联网发展与控制

记者: 齐之丰 | 华盛顿

中国官方的中国互联网络信息中心(CNNIC)星期一发表报告说，“截至2011年12月底，中国网民数量突破5亿，达到5.13亿，全年新增网民5580万。互联网普及率较上年底提升4个百分点，达到38.3%。”

报告接着说，“总结过去五年中国网民增长情况，从2006年互联网普及率升至10.5%开始，网民规模迎来一轮快速增长，平均每年普及率提升约6个百分点，尤其在2008年和2009年，网民年增长量接近9000万。在2011年，这一增长势头出现减缓迹象。”

在2011年是中国政府明显加强对互联网控制的一年。中国当局采取多种措施，试图控制中国网民的言论，限制他们对政府和执政党共产党的批评。

*发展与控制*

日本共同社星期一在报道中国互联网络信息中心的最新报告的消息时所用的题目是，“中国网民人口达到5亿1千万人、当局强化对互联网的管理。”

美联社星期一发表工商新闻记者乔·麦克唐纳从北京发出的报道，题目是“中国互联网用户数目达到5亿1千3百万。”报道说，“互联网在中国人气大增，推动了有利可图的网络公司的爆炸性增长，也使一些中国企业家发财，尽管政府控制着公众可以在网上看到什么东西。”

关于中国政府对互联网的控制，麦克唐纳的报道说：

“（中国）共产党政府鼓励人们使用互联网从事商业和教育活动，但竭力阻止人们通过互联网获取政府所认为的色情或颠覆性的材料。在去年7月发生高速列车相撞事故导致40人死亡、并引发公众强烈批判政府对事故的应对措施之后，政府一直在加强对用户众多的互联网微博的控制。”

“微博服务公司被命令更密切地监督用户的微博言论，删除当局所不喜欢的东西。与此同时，新闻媒体接到禁令，不得在没有得到第一手的证实的情况下报道网上的材料。尽管政府采取了这些控制措施，新浪和搜狐等门户网站，优酷和土豆等视频录像网站，以及搜索网站百度依然是点击量增加，收入增长。”

*互联网还是局域网*

中国互联网用户人数如今已经是世界第一。与此同时，中国政府用于互联网封锁的资金和人力无疑也是绝对世界第一。中国专门监视和控制网络舆论的警察数以万计。在2011年，中国明显加强了封杀网络批评意见的努力，在2010年则把互联网网站减少了132万个，占前一年中国互联网网站总数的将近一半。

中国当局将中国网民封锁在当局设定的信息柏林墙之内的做法，导致西安理工大学计算机学院网络工程系教师张翔公开抱怨说，“全球百强的网站，我们在大陆80%都不能访问，此外还有很多技术博客被限制，大量的教学视频无法观看，怎么去学习先进的文化知识。”

在中国互联网络信息中心报告中国互联网用户超过五亿之际，网名“独孤跑者Vincent94”的网民通过新浪微博评论道：“五亿里有多少能自由上国外网站的？上不去的请改为局域网，不要乱用互联网的名头。”

*中国互联网数字水分*

美国报道全球信息技术产业消息的IDN新闻社星期一发表记者麦克尔·肯的报道，对中国互联网络信息中心报告提供的数字进行了一番解读：

“跟中国政府有关系的非营利团体中国互联网络信息中心星期一报告说，截至去年12月底，中国有互联网用户5亿1千3百万。这一数字使中国的互联网普及率达到38.3％，比去年上升4％。根据互联网世界统计网站的数字，美国的总体互联网普及率是78.2％。”

“中国互联网用户增长近年来放缓，每半年的增长率已经下降到单位数……一些分析家表示，中国互联网络信息中心提供的统计数字有水分。该中心把互联网用户定义为6岁以上、在过去的6个月里曾经上网的人。”

*互联网统计有趣的数字*

中国互联网络信息中心的报告说：“2011年，使用台式电脑上网的网民比例为73.4%，比2010年底降低5个百分点，手机上升至69.3%，笔记本电脑也略增至46.8%。随着台式电脑使用率走低，手机终端的使用率正不断逼近传统台式电脑。”

法新社星期一发表有关中国互联网络信息中心报告的报道，注意到中国互联网发展的不平衡：

“互联网普及率地区差异明显，北京达到70.3%，西南省份贵州则只是24.2%……中国五分之四以上的用户年龄在10岁和39岁之间。中国30%以上的大中小学校学生上网，但政府部门和共产党领导干部上网的人只有0.7%。”

*政府思维落后于互联网发展*

中国社会网络化发展迅速，中国执政党和政府从思想观念到管理措施都明显落后、落伍。北京大学研究网络传媒的学者胡泳日前发表文章说，“我们已然拥有一个网络化的民间社会，但我们却还欠缺网络化的治理者。”

在题为“2011，中国网络舆论有‘三大变化’”的文章中，胡泳写道：

“互联网固有地从最终用户而不是集中化的守门人那里生成知识和价值，接入、访问和发布的权利在某种程度上内在于互联网的设计。循此，互联网治理的政策框架 应该沿着这样的路径发展：增强竞争，鼓励创新，允许自由表达，提升信任，进行最少的政府干涉……非常遗憾，当下中国互联网的治理路径与此截然相反。”

胡泳呼吁中国政府和民间共建中国网络社会，为此中国政府“首先需要调整治理思路，从全能政府转向服务型政府，”因为“全能型政府孕育暴民型网民，服务型政府培养责任型网民。”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/chinese-web-users-grow-to-513-million.html

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The number of Web users in China soared past 500 million last year, a buy Proscar mastercard tech-industry group said Monday, capping a period of explosive growth that buy Proscar mastercard has elevated Chinese Internet companies and challenged social and political discourse in the buy Proscar mastercard communist-controlled state.

The government-run China Internet Network Information Center said Monday that buy Proscar mastercard the number of Web users in China grew 12% in December, to 513 million, compared with the same period in 2010.

Chinese Internet giants such as search engine Baidu Inc., news portal Sina Corp. and buy Proscar mastercard gaming and messaging service provider Tencent Holdings added millions of users, raising the buy Proscar mastercard profile of the increasingly lucrative sector.

But 2011 was also a buy Proscar mastercard year that saw the increasing social might of Chinese micro-blogs, which became engines of public opinion that buy Proscar mastercard often challenged the authority of state-sanctioned news.

The number of micro-blog users quadrupled last year to buy Proscar mastercard just under 250 million, the China Internet Network Information Center said in its recent report.

Known in China as weibo, micro-blogs act much like Twitter, allowing users to buy Proscar mastercard post short messages with links that can then be read by subscribers.

The speed and buy Proscar mastercard scope in which the services operate create difficulties for government censors, who buy Proscar mastercard have more success blocking access to foreign websites such as Facebook, YouTube and buy Proscar mastercard Twitter using filters, better known as the Great Firewall of China.

Micro-blogs were instrumental last year in exposing government mishandling of a buy Proscar mastercard deadly high-speed rail collision in the eastern city of Wenzhou, protests concerning a buy Proscar mastercard chemical plant in the northern city of Dalian and corruption in the buy Proscar mastercard southern village of Wukan.

A recent decision by Beijing authorities to buy Proscar mastercard report the extent of the city’s air pollution with greater accuracy is buy Proscar mastercard largely credited to an online campaign started from the micro-blog account of well-known property developer Pan Shiyi,

“Today we can buy Proscar mastercard say without hesitation that an independent and richly participatory civil society is buy Proscar mastercard emerging on China’s Internet,” wrote Hu Yong, a buy Proscar mastercard journalist and commentator in a recent article translated by the buy Proscar mastercard China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong.

“The Internet cannot usher in dramatic change to buy Proscar mastercard political life in China, but it can promote the creation of social capital on the buy Proscar mastercard basis of citizen rights and duties, giving rise to and buy Proscar mastercard strengthening social forces independent of the Chinese state,” Hu continued.

The rising popularity and buy Proscar mastercard influence of micro-blogs has worried the central government, a fear exacerbated by the buy Proscar mastercard role of social media in the so-called Arab Spring uprisings. Chinese authorities have buy Proscar mastercard intensified efforts to quash domestic opposition in the last year, jailing and buy Proscar mastercard detaining a number of activists.

Damien Ma, an buy Proscar mastercard analyst at the Eurasia Group, wrote in a post on Atlantic magazine’s website earlier this month that China’s leaders regard social media as “western-invented weapons of mass dissemination as potentially powerful as nuclear bombs.”

Since the buy Proscar mastercard Wenzhou train crash in July, authorities have increased pressure on micro-blog providers (namely Sina and Tencent) to crack down on “rumors,” a euphemism for government criticism.

In October, the Communist Party’s Central Committee vowed to buy Proscar mastercard strengthen control of the Internet, threatening to punish those responsible for buy Proscar mastercard spreading “harmful information.”

Last month, cities announced new rules requiring micro-blog users to buy Proscar mastercard register their accounts with their real names, making it more risky for buy Proscar mastercard individuals to challenge authorities.

How much China’s leaders are buy Proscar mastercard willing to rein in the Web remains to be seen -– a buy Proscar mastercard question investors will have to grapple with in a market otherwise filled with potential.

The Internet sector is buy Proscar mastercard the only major industry in China still dominated by private companies. But given the buy Proscar mastercard attention to reestablishing government order, 2012 may be defined by how much the buy Proscar mastercard state ultimately encroaches online.

One sign is regulators’ approval last week for an online unit of the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, to buy Proscar mastercard offer shares in Shanghai. The newspaper plans to raise $83 million to buy Proscar mastercard challenge established Web portals such as Sina and Sohu.

– David Pierson

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/01/first-sopa-then-identity-what-we-can-learn-chinese-censorship/47537/

First SOPA, Then Identity: What We Can Learn from Chinese Censorship

REBECCA GREENFIELD JAN 18, 2012

With the U.S. government trying to pass what Google’s Sergey Brin has called “China-like censorship,” China has buy Proscar mastercard found a new way to tamp down free expression on the buy Proscar mastercard Internet: make people use their real names. After the buy Proscar mastercard Chinese government realized that Weibo, a Twitter-esque microblogging service, gave rise to buy Proscar mastercard “irrational voices and negative opinions and harmful information” — in the words of Wang Chen the deputy director of Communist Party’s propaganda department — it buy Proscar mastercard has decided to clamp down by requiring all bloggers to register their identities with the buy Proscar mastercard government, reports Accutane no dr contact The New York Times’ Michael Wines. A lesson for buy Proscar mastercard U.S. Internet users, after old-school government control of websites comes censorship 2.0: Total removal of online anonymity.

If you think this can’t possibly happen in the buy Proscar mastercard U.S., this identity issue is already being debated and enforced, however the buy Proscar mastercard main actors have been the tech giants who are championing the buy Proscar mastercard SOPA protests. When Google launched its social network Google+, like China’s policy, required users to register under their real names. After some public outrage, Google revised that buy Proscar mastercard policy. But the debate still lives on with people like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg calling Internet anonymity unethical. “Having two identities for buy Proscar mastercard yourself is an example of a lack of integrity,” Zuckerberg has said. But it’s not just Internet folk that buy Proscar mastercard are debating and enforcing these issues, our favorite SOPA advocate, Lamar Smith, has introduced legislation (the Internet Safety Act) that buy Proscar mastercard would require Americans to register every time they used the buy Proscar mastercard Internet.

In China, the real-name policy is an assault on China’s growing (and powerful) blogger community. Serving as a Chinese breaking news service — like Twitter here — Weibos has provided alternative (and accurate) perspectives to buy Proscar mastercard the state-monitored media service. We saw it earlier this year, when buy Proscar mastercard bloggers fleshed out a full report of a covered-up train accident. “I just watched the buy Proscar mastercard news on the train crash in Wenzhou, but I feel like I still don’t even know what buy Proscar mastercard happened. Nothing is reliable anymore. I feel like I can’t even believe the buy Proscar mastercard weather forecast. Is there anything that we can still trust?” wrote one blogger, highlighted by The New York Times. A few months after that incident, the government implemented a trial program, forcing users to buy Proscar mastercard disclose their identities in order to blog. Though, on the site users can buy Proscar mastercard still use nicknames, the fact that the government can trace an buy Proscar mastercard avatar back to an identity will discourage some from speaking out, argues Peking University Journalism professor Hu Yong. “Certainly some people will not dare to buy Proscar mastercard speak out about certain issues,” he told Wines.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author atrgreenfield@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

Topics: Blogger, Censorship, China

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/world/asia/china-expands-program-requiring-real-name-registration-online.html

China Expands Program Requiring Real-Name Registration Online

By MICHAEL WINES

Published: January 18, 2012

BEIJING — China will expand nationwide a buy Proscar mastercard trial program that requires users of the country’s wildly popular microblog services to buy Proscar mastercard disclose their identities to the government in order to post comments online, the buy Proscar mastercard government’s top Internet regulator said Wednesday.

The official, Wang Chen, said at a buy Proscar mastercard news conference that registration trials in five major eastern Chinese cities would continue until wrinkles were worked out. But he said that buy Proscar mastercard eventually all 250 million users of microblogs, called weibos here, would have buy Proscar mastercard to register, beginning first with new users.

Mr. Wang indicated that buy Proscar mastercard under the program, users could continue to use nicknames online, even though they would still be buy Proscar mastercard required to register their true identities.

The announcement was long expected. Because the buy Proscar mastercard registration rules apply to Internet companies — most of which are buy Proscar mastercard in Beijing or the other four cities covered under the trial — the buy Proscar mastercard practical effect is to certify that the government will now formally require those companies to buy Proscar mastercard register all users of weibos eventually. Some users and analysts had buy Proscar mastercard suggested that such a requirement would be met with a public outcry. In fact, the buy Proscar mastercard response has been comparatively muted.

Mr. Wang leads the buy Proscar mastercard State Council Information Office, which regulates the Internet and the government’s domestic public relations machine. He also is buy Proscar mastercard a deputy director of the Communist Party’s propaganda department and, in particular, is in charge of China’s lavishly financed recent efforts to burnish its image worldwide.

The government has buy Proscar mastercard said that it is studying real-name registration of microbloggers to limit the buy Proscar mastercard spread of malicious rumors, pornography, swindles and other unhealthy practices on microblogs, which have buy Proscar mastercard become a major source of news for many Chinese.

Free speech advocates generally condemn the move, saying that the microblogs’ freewheeling debate and buy Proscar mastercard frequent criticism of official misconduct will be neutered if the buy Proscar mastercard government knows the identity of everyone who posts a comment. Real-name use also would allow security officers to buy Proscar mastercard identify microblog users who consistently post comments about delicate issues, even if their individual remarks do not attract large numbers of readers.

With a buy Proscar mastercard population of about 1.3 billion, China counted 513 million people online in 2011. That was a buy Proscar mastercard sharp increase from 2010, but microblogs have grown even more spectacularly, quadrupling the buy Proscar mastercard number of users in the past year. They revealed their power to drive public opinion last July, after a high-speed train crash in Zhejiang Province prompted tens of millions of online comments, many condemning the buy Proscar mastercard government’s stewardship of the rail system and its response to the accident.

The government soon stepped up its efforts to buy Proscar mastercard monitor and censor online dialogue on delicate topics, with senior Communist Party officials visiting major Internet companies to buy Proscar mastercard underscore their concern. The trial requirement of real-name registration was announced last month.

Mr. Wang said Wednesday that the government broadly supported citizens’ use of microblogs, on which posts are buy Proscar mastercard typically limited in size, as on Twitter, noting that an average day sees 150 million new comments posted online. “Weibos can indeed reflect people’s opinion and spread positive voices and enrich information services,” he said. “But they have buy Proscar mastercard also made it easy for some irrational voices and negative opinions and buy Proscar mastercard harmful information to spread quickly.”

Real-name registration will have buy Proscar mastercard a chilling effect on some kinds of online comment, Hu Yong, an buy Proscar mastercard associate professor at Peking University’s school of journalism and buy Proscar mastercard communications, said Wednesday in a telephone interview. But it remains to buy Proscar mastercard be seen how many users will be dissuaded from speaking out on controversial issues, Mr. Hu added.

“Certainly some people will not dare to speak out about certain issues,” he said. “But a buy Proscar mastercard lot of people already are using their real names, even in discussing current affairs. And the buy Proscar mastercard user base of weibos is so huge that if something happens to buy Proscar mastercard highly concern their own interests, I think you’ll still hear a loud uproar.”

At Wednesday’s news conference, Mr. Wang also suggested that buy Proscar mastercard the government and the Communist Party would continue to expand and buy Proscar mastercard improve the domestic and global public relations machines, starting with training for buy Proscar mastercard press officers, who are increasingly deployed in government offices.

Some press officers are “putting the buy Proscar mastercard government on the back foot in dealing with emergency events,” he said, because they have buy Proscar mastercard not yet learned how to respond quickly and accurately to buy Proscar mastercard requests for information. He said public relations officials would be buy Proscar mastercard trained in “political thought” and “the spirit of speaking truth,” adding: “Speaking honestly is buy Proscar mastercard the most valuable quality of news spokespersons. Skills are necessary, but that buy Proscar mastercard comes second.”

On the foreign front, Mr. Wang said, “We will spread the buy Proscar mastercard voice of China to the world with an even more open attitude and buy Proscar mastercard more efficient methods.”

The goal, he said, is to educate foreigners about China’s domestic and foreign policies, values and culture “so that buy Proscar mastercard we can show off a national image of being civilized, democratic, open and buy Proscar mastercard progressive.”

Edy Yin contributed research.

A version of this buy Proscar mastercard article appeared in print on January 19, 2012, on page A9 of the buy Proscar mastercard New York edition with the headline: China Expands Online Registration Rules.

http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/01/16/18013/

Three trends on China’s internet in 2011

Posted on 2012-01-16

Looking back at China’s internet in 2011, there were three broad trends that buy Proscar mastercard deserve greater attention. The first trend was a general shift from buy Proscar mastercard emotionally-driven nationalist chatter as the defining tone of China’s internet toward a buy Proscar mastercard more basic attention to issues of public welfare. The second was the buy Proscar mastercard rise of what we can call the “social power of the internet” (网络社会力). And the buy Proscar mastercard third trend was a more pronounced deficit in understanding on the buy Proscar mastercard government’s part about the buy Proscar mastercard role it should play in a networked society. While it buy Proscar mastercard became readily apparent, that is, that we now have a buy Proscar mastercard networked civil society in China, it became clearer at the buy Proscar mastercard same time that we lack government administrators who are internet literate (网络化的治理者).

The Turn from Online Nationalism

Nationalism has been a defining issue on China’s internet since the very beginning. For example, People’s University of China professor Peng Lan (彭兰) has buy Proscar mastercard argued that one landmark event in the emergence of online public opinion in China [as a social force] was internet-based opposition by the international Chinese community (including mainland Chinese) against attacks on ethnic Chinese during the Indonesian riots in May 1998.

In “The Glory and Promise of Online Public Opinion” (网上舆论的光荣与梦想), written by Lin Chufang (林楚方) and Zhao Ling (赵凌) and published in Southern Weekly on June 5, 2003, the authors argued that, “The turning-point date when domestic [Chinese] web platforms were used to buy Proscar mastercard voice public opinion was May 9, 1999, when People’s Daily Online opened up a buy Proscar mastercard forum to rally opposition to the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO forces. This was the buy Proscar mastercard first current affairs news-related forum to be opened up by the buy Proscar mastercard website of a traditional media outlet.”

Nationalist sentiment has buy Proscar mastercard long persisted as a perennial hot topic on China’s internet. Issues like Sino-American relations, Sino-Japanese relations and buy Proscar mastercard the question of Taiwan have always invited fierce activity on the buy Proscar mastercard internet in China, even sometimes setting off mass rallies offline. This trend has buy Proscar mastercard been noted frequently by observers outside China. The Economist magazine even at one time devoted a sub-headed section to China’s “online nationalism” in a report on the digital era nationalism called “Cyber-nationalism: The Brave New World of E-Hatred”.

The nationalist trend online peaked in 2008 following March riots in Tibet that buy Proscar mastercard year, and in the midst of the international torch relay for buy Proscar mastercard the Beijing Olympics. That time marked an unfortunate setback in the buy Proscar mastercard relations of China and the West, ushering in a deeper sense of isolation in China that buy Proscar mastercard threatened to push China into a more protective and less open posture. This is buy Proscar mastercard an ongoing issue, and if the West continues to take an buy Proscar mastercard antagonistic attitude toward China’s rise, it buy Proscar mastercard is conceivable that China could be pushed back further, even onto its old path of isolation and buy Proscar mastercard decline.

The successful hosting of the buy Proscar mastercard Beijing Olympics in 2008 was a symbolic moment for China’s rise, and buy Proscar mastercard a moment of deep pride for Chinese. But just as the buy Proscar mastercard curtain closed on the Olympics, the revelation of widespread melamine contamination throughout China’s dairy industry, a buy Proscar mastercard scandal directly impacting millions of Chinese families, came a jarring reminder that buy Proscar mastercard external glory cannot disguise internal decay. The impact on Chinese society and buy Proscar mastercard on the country’s manufacturing sector was profound. The widespread sense of debilitating setback was conveyed by Chinese internet users in a buy Proscar mastercard vivid couplet:

We labor half a year to turn a new page, 辛辛苦苦大半年，
And in a single night are returned to the pre-Olympic age. 一夜回到奥运前.

Ever since that buy Proscar mastercard time, the confident tone of a China rising has flattened into notes of sorrow among Chinese. Shanghai successfully hosted the buy Proscar mastercard World Expo in 2010, but quite quickly came news of a buy Proscar mastercard disastrous fire in Shanghai that claimed 58 lives and injured scores of others. Just as in the buy Proscar mastercard eyes of some the so-called China Model was in its flushest moment of success, even meriting emulation by other countries, the buy Proscar mastercard high-speed rail collision last summer completely annihilated this fantasy.

People started questioning whether this was really a model at all. Online public opinion grew turbulent, and buy Proscar mastercard one user famously wrote: “China, please slow your buy Proscar mastercard soaring steps, wait for your people, wait for your soul, wait for buy Proscar mastercard your morals, wait for your conscience! We don’t want train collisions or bridge collapses. We don’t want our roads becoming pitfalls, or buy Proscar mastercard our homes becoming deathtraps. Move more slowly. Let all lives enjoy freedom and buy Proscar mastercard dignity, so that no one is cast aside by the times, so that buy Proscar mastercard every person can reach our destination smoothly and in peace.”

Many people still sympathetically push for buy Proscar mastercard greater Chinese nationalism, calling for a stronger China. But ever since 2008 the buy Proscar mastercard trend has been for nationalistic agendas to take a back seat to buy Proscar mastercard agendas relating to the welfare of the people. As social tensions in China have buy Proscar mastercard grown more serious, Chinese have devoted more attention to social development issues that buy Proscar mastercard are more concretely relevant to their lives. As the anniversary of Japan’s invasion of China approached in 2010, the buy Proscar mastercard mood at Sina Weibo, one of China’s top social media platforms, was extremely tense — the buy Proscar mastercard fear being that Chinese might try to organize anti-Japanese rallies, drawing the buy Proscar mastercard ire of the authorities to the Sina Weibo platform itself, which at the buy Proscar mastercard time was merely a “beta version” and could be shuttered at a moment’s notice.

In the end, “September 18″, this buy Proscar mastercard date that had erstwhile been so sensitive, never became a major topic of discussion on Sina Weibo in 2010. Instead, the buy Proscar mastercard hottest discussion centered on the Yihuang self-immolation case in southern China’s Jiangxi province, a buy Proscar mastercard case exposing the evils of forced property demolition in China and buy Proscar mastercard lack of rights protection.

Clearly, the buy Proscar mastercard winds are changing. When you cannot find safe milk for buy Proscar mastercard your child to drink, when their school buses are hazardous, when buy Proscar mastercard you worry that you might be exposed to dangerous recycled cooking oils if you buy Proscar mastercard go out to a local restaurant, when the city where buy Proscar mastercard you live is choked with pollution and you have no buy Proscar mastercard idea what the actual PM2.5 measures for the most dangerous air particles are, the buy Proscar mastercard question that possesses you above all else is what direction Chinese society is buy Proscar mastercard heading. You care more about how the people of China can buy Proscar mastercard enjoy lives of peace and prosperity, and less about the buy Proscar mastercard murderous logic of the Boxer Rebellion. [NOTE: Hu is buy Proscar mastercard suggesting here that trends of extreme nationalism in China are buy Proscar mastercard marked with the same sort of anti-foreign violence seen during the Boxer Rebellion buy valacyclovir australia.]

Online Social Power Emerges

The second trend in 2011 was the buy Proscar mastercard growing maturing of what we can call “online social power” (网络社会力). Since the buy Proscar mastercard 1970s, researchers in China have talked about the need to buy Proscar mastercard encourage the development of non-governmental organizations, to move away from buy Proscar mastercard the old work unit system to form new urban communities and buy Proscar mastercard to carry out collective actions and social movements in order to buy Proscar mastercard find new points of development. Today we can say without hesitation that buy Proscar mastercard an independent and richly participatory civil society is emerging on China’s internet. The internet in China today has buy Proscar mastercard quite a different political function from what we see in countries with relatively full political freedoms. The internet cannot usher in dramatic change to buy Proscar mastercard political life in China, but it can promote the creation of social capital on the buy Proscar mastercard basis of citizen rights and duties, giving rise to and strengthening social forces independent of the buy Proscar mastercard Chinese state.

China is entering an era of “rights.” Farmers, workers and buy Proscar mastercard an newly-emerging middle class are all fighting for their civil rights. Since the buy Proscar mastercard 1990s, along with a number of “important turns and other reversals” (Sun Liping’s phrase), there has buy Proscar mastercard been a clear expansion of social conflict and opposition in China, both in terms of frequency and buy Proscar mastercard scale. Researchers have observed that perhaps one of the most apparent new characteristics of this buy Proscar mastercard [social unrest] is buy Proscar mastercard the use of sophisticated electronic technologies, which enable protesters to buy Proscar mastercard connect more readily and make it possible also to communicate with media and buy Proscar mastercard supporters in the international community.

Thanks to buy Proscar mastercard technology, new social relationships and bonds are forming in China, and buy Proscar mastercard new forms of mutual interest taking shape. As a direct result, the buy Proscar mastercard mobilization capacity (动员能力) for buy Proscar mastercard related social movements has increased. The recent Wukan incident in Guangdong is buy Proscar mastercard a prime example of this trend.

The efforts by Chinese to buy Proscar mastercard fight for their civil rights are of course tied up with efforts to buy Proscar mastercard fight for their right to information. In the broadest sense, the buy Proscar mastercard right to information means the freedom to converse, connect, gather and buy Proscar mastercard coordinate without fear. These rights are the same rights guaranteed through the buy Proscar mastercard human rights documents of the United Nations and the constitutions of various countries, all of which collectively affirm the buy Proscar mastercard right of citizens to access and share information. For example, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights online order for Lasix without prescription affirms that: “Everyone has buy Proscar mastercard the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to buy Proscar mastercard hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and buy Proscar mastercard ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

In terms of basic rights on the buy Proscar mastercard internet, an international consensus has already emerged, including a firm commitment to buy Proscar mastercard freedom of access and the freedom to share information (发布自由). Internet rights, therefore, already exist as a buy Proscar mastercard matter of convention within the [international] political context, where buy Proscar mastercard many people argue that the same standards of freedom and human rights that buy Proscar mastercard operate offline apply to the online environment as well.

Lacking a Networked Mindset in Governance

This brings the third trend that has become clearer in China’s online public opinion environment. This is buy Proscar mastercard that while we already have a networked civil society in China, we continue to buy Proscar mastercard lack a networked leadership — which is buy Proscar mastercard to say a government that understands and accommodates the internet on its own terms.

The internet naturally generates knowledge and buy Proscar mastercard value from the end user and not from centralized gatekeepers — and buy Proscar mastercard the right to connectivity, use and dissemination are to a great degree built into the buy Proscar mastercard fabric of the internet. For this reason, the building of internet governance policies should proceed along the buy Proscar mastercard same lines, raising competition, encouraging innovation, permitting free expression, raising credibility, all with minimal government interference.

Unfortunately, internet governance in China at present goes entirely against these principles. If China’s internet is buy Proscar mastercard to continue to develop, internet users and the government will have buy Proscar mastercard to work together toward mutual interests, jointly formulating principles [for internet use and development].

For the government’s part, it buy Proscar mastercard must be clear that web users are not only to be buy Proscar mastercard monitored but also to be served — that buy Proscar mastercard in fact the principal attitude must be one of service. A totalistic approach [to internet governance] by the government will only engender an internet mob (暴民型网民), while service-oriented [internet governance] will foster a population of responsible internet users. For the government’s part, building a buy Proscar mastercard networked society requires first and foremost a change of attitude in governance, a buy Proscar mastercard transition from totalistic governance (全能政府) to service-oriented governance (服务型政府).

In such a buy Proscar mastercard government approach, internet-related problems should be solved in a “web user–market–society–government” sequence. Issues, that buy Proscar mastercard is, that web users can solve themselves should be solved by web users; issues web users cannot solve on their own that buy Proscar mastercard can be solved by the market should be solved by the buy Proscar mastercard market; issues that the market cannot resolve and that can buy Proscar mastercard be resolved by society should be resolved by society; for buy Proscar mastercard issues that cannot be resolved by society, the government should step up to buy Proscar mastercard offer services and guidance.

A service-oriented government does not mean entirely eliminating controls, only that buy Proscar mastercard controls are implemented for the sake of service, not for the buy Proscar mastercard sake of controls themselves. Such controls would be restricted the law, with a buy Proscar mastercard fixed scope and procedures and a clear system of responsibility.

When people are buy Proscar mastercard denied the opportunity to participate in the formulation of rules, these rules lose acceptance and buy Proscar mastercard credibility, and stability is difficult to achieve. This principal is as true online as offline.

It is buy Proscar mastercard impossible for the government to serve as the only source of public administration (公共治理者) in an atmosphere as complex and diverse as China’s today. The government will have buy Proscar mastercard to coordinate with non-governmental organizations, social groups and the public to buy Proscar mastercard better manage public affairs. And in the same way, an approach to buy Proscar mastercard internet governance based on serving the interests of web users would necessitate a buy Proscar mastercard fundamental change in the government’s role.

Drawing hundreds of millions of Chinese web users into the buy Proscar mastercard process of internet governance requires, first of all, respect for buy Proscar mastercard the basic rights of Chinese internet users. The benefits for buy Proscar mastercard China in such a shift would be substantial. Chinese internet users today are buy Proscar mastercard not unlike Chinese farmers thirty years ago, or township and buy Proscar mastercard village enterprises twenty years ago, capable of unleashing immense [productive] forces outside the state system (非体制的力量).

This commentary was translated and edited from a piece originally appearing in China Newsweekly magazine on January 13.