Great Firewall of China
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The Great Firewall of China is a name coined in 1997 to describe to the online censorship technologies of China.[1][2] China blocks many sites operated by Western companies, such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube, as well as access to the technologies designed to bypass the firewall. Hell, even the website you're currently reading this on is blocked by the firewall.[3]
Why[edit]
The legal basis for the firewall derives from a document called the "Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services" (互联网信息服务管理办法), which was issued by the Chinese State Council on September 20, 2000[4] (as well as a 2010 document[5][6]:xxiii). Article 15 of the document lists 9 directives for internet providers:
“”Providers of internet information services may not produce, assist in production of, issue, or broadcast any information:
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These directives are not just applied to blocking of IP addresses, but also to domestic censorship of search results (e.g., Baidu), and to social media posts (e.g., Weibo),[2] but also the self-censorship and individual reporting of violations that result in increased social score.[7] The online censorship system has accelerated under President Xi Jinping's rule.[7]
How[edit]
While commonly called a firewall, it is a lot more than that.
This system can be divided in two parts, a more traditional firewall and a censorship system in domestic social media and search engines.
Firewall[edit]
This system sits in Chinese autonomous systems,
giving it the ability to listen to all traffic passing through them. It enforces block lists of IP addresses (such as the public list of Tor nodes and known VPNs used for circumvention) and sites that are added to it manually, but also performs throttling, blocks usage of encryption that China doesn't like (such as the Encrypted Client Hello proposal to TLS 1.3[8]), and automatically watches out for usage of circumvention technologies (so it's like Big Brother, except this one is really always watching).
If there is a suspicion for a connection, such as it possibly being to a Tor bridge or a Shadowsocks server, for example, it will probe the suspected Tor bridge or Shadowsocks server in question to confirm that it really is one. If it returns positive, it will block it automatically.[9]
The firewall can be easily bypassed by using a personal VPN with an IP address that changes regularly, though many VPNs are blocked by China.[10]
Weibo[edit]
Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is the most important microblogging site in China. In the West it is usually just referred to as Weibo (weibo, 微博, meaning microblogging), but other such weibo sites exist in China.[6]:xiv Often described as a Twitter clone in the West, it actually has substantially more features than Twitter.[6]:xiv Social media platforms in China are privately owned, but are required by Chinese law to monitor and censor prohibited content.[6]:xiv Websites do this in several ways: deleting individual posts, preventing searches on some keywords, returning zero results from some searches, and indirectly causing users to self-censor.[6]:xiv The vagueness of the law (e.g., "harming the honor or the interests of the nation") encourages overreach by Weibo and self-censorship by users.[6]:xxiii-xxiv
Unlike other parts of the Great Firewall, social media sites such as Weibo inform the user that something is prohibited.[6]:xiv Blocked terms fall into several categories: names of people (primarily Communist Party members and dissidents), political terms (e.g., Tiananmen), sex and drugs, and scandals and disasters.[6]:xviii The elaborate censorship has encouraged users to use an extensive repertoire of censorship evasions (puns, "slang, acronyms, memes, and images"), but censors eventually catch up.[6]:xxi
China's ecosystem of censorship[edit]
While the firewall was all that was needed in the days of mostly unencrypted communications, where they could scan for things like mentions of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in search engine results or Wikipedia articles[11], with the widespread deployment of protocols like HTTPS and browsers showing warnings when accessing HTTP websites, they found themselves in need of more sophisticated solutions. One solution is to block foreign internet companies and offer equivalent services through domestic businesses which are subject to greater control.
Another solution is to threaten these foreign companies with cutting access to the Chinese market if they don't comply with censorship, letting their greed do the justification for complying.[12][13]
Because of this, nowadays one of the main tasks of the firewall part is to block access to censorship-circumvention technologies and protocols, like Tor and Shadowsocks (which is quite popular in China).
In a nutshell[edit]
courtesy of Grass Mud HorseExternal links[edit]
- Test the firewall yourself!
- List of terms banned from Weibo
- 343 words that are blocked on Weibo as of March 13, 2012, with analysis at Blocked on Weibo
- Welcome to the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon China Digital Space
- Greatfire.org — "We monitor and challenge internet censorship in China"
- See the Wikipedia article on Shadowsocks.
- See the Wikipedia article on Deep packet inspection.
- See the Wikipedia article on List of websites blocked in mainland China.
- See the Wikipedia article on List of websites blocked in Russia.
References[edit]
- ↑ The Great Firewall of China by Geremie R. Barme & Sang Ye (Jun 1, 1997 12:00 PM) Wired.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Of Grass Mud Horses and Rice Bunnies: Chinese Internet Users: Challenge Beijing’s Censorship and Internet Controls" by Jason P. Abbott (2019) Asian Politics & Policy 11(1):62–177.
- ↑ China Firewall Test
- ↑ Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services (Chinese Text and CECC Partial Translation) (September 25, 2000) Congressional-Executive Commissionon China.
- ↑ Protecting Internet Security: Government white Papers V. Protecting Internet Security China.org.cn.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 Blocked on Weibo: What Gets Suppressed on China's Version of Twitter (and Why) by Jason Q. Ng (2013) The New Press. ISBN 9781595588715.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Forbidden Feeds: Government Controls on Social Media in China (March 13, 2018) PEN America.
- ↑ Exposing and Circumventing China's Censorship of ESNI August 7, 2020, Kevin Bock, iyouport, Anonymous, Louis-Henri Merino, David Fifield, Amir Houmansadr, Dave Levin, University of Maryland, Computer Science department, Geneva
- ↑ How the Great Firewall discovers hidden circumvention servers Roya Ensafi, David Fifield, Philipp Winter, Nick Feamster, Nicholas Weaver, and Vern Paxson, Internet Engineering Task Force
- ↑ China cracks down on VPNs, making it harder to circumvent Great Firewall: A 14-month government ‘cleanup’ of internet access services will make it harder for users to access websites that are usually censored or restricted by Olivia Solon (23 Jan 2017 16.38 EST) The Guardian.
- ↑ China censors Wikipedia ahead of Tiananmen Square anniversary June 4, 2013, Graeme McMillan, digitaltrends
- ↑ Google censors itself for China January 25, 2006, Unknown writer, British Broadcasting Corporation
- ↑ Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China May 17, 2021, Jack Nicas, Raymond Zhong and Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times
- ↑ How blank sheets of paper became a protest symbol in China by Sammy Westfall (November 28, 2022 at 8:49 p.m. EST) The Washington Post.