Jack Qiu mentiones that CIRC’s first session is often macro-scope.
Sarah presents 15 countries not just china.
2007-2008 research period.
questions: what are the main threats to internent and digitla media freedom today? techs used by gov to control. is china less free?
internet and mobile phones are both considered. gov and non-gov actors are included. 19 indicators and 3 thematic categories were made up – obstacles to access, infrastructure and policy; limits on content, censorship; violations of users rights, legal environment such as privacy.
what found – paradox is that growing access while growing threats.
key finding in china – penetration doubled in last two years but also sophistiacted and multi-layered control apparatus. 78 out of 100 on the score, higher score worse freedom, not free. strong performance on access, hight interference with content, signiciant violation of users rights.
china in comparison – cuba worst because of bad access.
highlighted examples – strong infrastructure but gov-imposed network and regulatory restrictions; compared to brazil, egypt, malaysia vs. india and south africa.
multi-layered censorship: tech filtering, prepublication, postpublication, proactive manipulation. – detail and sophistication of directives; 50 cents party, paid by gov to post pro-gov opinions online (russia and tunisia are doing this too).
sentences in china were longest although 1 of 6 countries does sentence blogger. three years to ten years.
pushback factors – some circumvention, incredible dynamism, public vs. hidden/offline, comparision to cuba where conversations are within the intranet emails.
internet vs. press freedom – there is a differentiation. for the non-free countries, the difference is very small. in the partly free countries such as turkey, malaysia and russia, the difference is bigger. (interesting findings!)
closing thought – more likely tha not that chinese authorities will continue to actively contest the unfettered use of the internet. how can defenders of internet freedom ensure the forces for openness prevail over the controllers – in china and beyond?