Rebecca MacKinnon, in question time, points out that it seems that many papers throughout the conference dance around the fact that China’s public sphere is almost entirely online, and if that was the situation in the U.S., for example, “God help us”, since online discussion often has greater extremes of opinion as a “silent majority” goes about their lives and does not participate. Lu Chen says that HFS participants feel they have a tool not available before to bring to justice those who are outside the reach of the law. Fan Dong points out the government censors both anti-government and pro-government speech. Moderator Ang Peng-Hwa talks about picking up the Chinese constitution in a secondhand bookstore and in its free expression section it actually allows the creation of “big character posters”, and that in some ways this prefigures the sort of expression found on the Internet.

Examining the Factors that Influence College Students’ Attitude towards Human Flesh Search in Mainland China, LU Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Chinese Cyber-Nationalism: The Case of 2008 Tibet Uprising Discussions on Facebook, Dian PARAMITA, London School of Economics
From nationalism to emerging public sphere: The case of global Olympic torch relay dispute online, FAN Dong, Annenberg School for Communication, USC
Respondent: Hongmei LI, University of Pennsylvania/Georgia State University
Moderator: ANG Peng Hwa, National University of Singapore

Fan uses Dalgren 6 dimensional theoretical framework to do content analysis of a time line of events from the Tibetan incident on March 14 to the Sichuan earthquake in May, which covers three phases, moving from outward to reflective to tentatively cooperative.

Netizens created lists of principles including using DIY slogans and avoiding government ones to create an autonomous image from the state and economic power, believing it would then alter the government’s policy. The exchange and critique of criticizable moral-practical validity claims can be found in YouTube videos, posters and critical evaluations of media reports such as BBC webpages. They often involved humor and juxtaposition.

With this exchange came reflexivity, as both sides, Chinese and Western, became more accustomed to criticism from the other side and more mature. On the other hand, identity building among online nationalists breaks individuals into different categories, and questions other credentials and authenticity (such as asking overseas Chinese “why did you come back? You always said foreign countries were better?)

Domestically, they conceive of themselves as the public sphere. But internationally, their stance is that as the dissenting counter-public.

Examining the Factors that Influence College Students’ Attitude towards Human Flesh Search in Mainland China, LU Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Chinese Cyber-Nationalism: The Case of 2008 Tibet Uprising Discussions on Facebook, Dian PARAMITA, London School of Economics
From nationalism to emerging public sphere: The case of global Olympic torch relay dispute online, FAN Dong, Annenberg School for Communication, USC
Respondent: Hongmei LI, University of Pennsylvania/Georgia State University
Moderator: ANG Peng Hwa, National University of Singapore

Quick history: the Tibet uprising of March 2008 led to a crackdown, then criticism of China, followed by a response by Chinese netizens, such as Anti-CNN. The goal of Paramita’s research is to identify the characteristics of Chinese cyber-nationalism and whether it contains enough “flaming” to impact on political discussion. Yang Guobin’s notion of an online cultural sphere refers to the ability of the Internet to create transnational discussions between Chinese netizens throughout the world, in PRC, HK, Taiwan, Singapore, the diaspora, and non-Chinese parties of interest. Wu describes Chinese cyber-nationalism as non-government sponsored, grassroots, based on modern ideology and reactive (in this case towards Western media). “Flaming” refers to ridiculing those with opposing points of view.

Political expression on platforms such as Facebook has increased and become more important as it facilitates political discussion. Paramita’s sample was the Facebook group Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China – the largest group of its kind. She found that there were posts both supporting, opposed and neutral to the PRC government stance on the group from Chinese and non-Chinese surnamed members. 64.9% were positive arguments contributing to the discussion, but 18.5% were flaming (categories range from “unfriendly” to “insulting” and “confrontational” and “aggressive”). The lesser were categorized as “uncivil”, which was 12.5% of total posts, leaving 6% as “impolite” or more severe categories.

Paramita concludes the term “flaming” needs to be deconstructed, since it doesn’t necessary harm the overall debate, and that the discussion was overall productive and civil.

Examining the Factors that Influence College Students’ Attitude towards Human Flesh Search in Mainland China, LU Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Chinese Cyber-Nationalism: The Case of 2008 Tibet Uprising Discussions on Facebook, Dian PARAMITA, London School of Economics
From nationalism to emerging public sphere: The case of global Olympic torch relay dispute online, FAN Dong, Annenberg School for Communication, USC
Respondent: Hongmei LI, University of Pennsylvania/Georgia State University
Moderator: ANG Peng Hwa, National University of Singapore

Lu Chen describes human flesh search as not an engine, but as a collective effort of frequent members of an online community to target and expose an individual’s personal data. It can help people find missing relatives, but it can also harass or be a form of vigilantism. She then shows a comic depicting a man being x-rayed and examined with magnifying glass and camera wielding people, and a tree of flatscreen monitors with a lasso representing HFS.

Variables for her study included level of participation online, privacy concerns, online trust, self-disclosure, etc. which were hypothesized to affect both attitude and behavior positively except for privacy concerns. Gender and education were both hypothesized to impact upon attitude and behavior. The median age for the mostly university and above students was around 21 years old. Using statistical methods, the following results were found:

The more students participated, the more they approved of HFS.

Students with a more open privacy attitude approved more of HFS.

Female students participated less.

The more higher education, the less likely they were to participate.

Her conclusions included that education deserves more attention, junior college students had unpredictable attitudes while higher level students had more consistency. Lu argues it is a rational issue, so education helps people avoid it since HFS features irrational behavior – to wit, individuals who disapprove of HFS will participate anyway, enabled by anonymity. The study, however, featured twice as many females as males and maybe skewed, and further study ought to include interviews.

Elisa Oreglia has been examining the digital divide for migrant women in Beijing. She studied six women in Beijing from July to August 2007. Ms Xie (21) is from Henan, Ms Long (20) is from Shandong, and Ms Wang (23) is from Shaanxi. They work as fuwuyuan (waitresses/service). They migrate to send money home. The other three, Ms Wei (20) from Shaanxi, Ms Song (23) from Anhui and Ms Wu (24) from Shaanxi, migrated out of personal desire and are somewhat financially independent. Ms Wu worked in a massage parlor but realized the bosses took all the money, so she and her co-workers started their own massage parlor.

TV is the “old” ICT for these women. It is a synchronous social activity and space, fluid and has authority. New ICT includes mobiles and PCs. Three were on their 4th/5th mobile, though Ms Long was embarassed by her xiaolingtong. Mobiles are individual, virtual, often asynchronous, fluid, and bridge/network. Oreglia asks “but are these lasting networks?”

Only two women went to Internet cafes, which are male-dominated, dirty and not attractive. They would download music, use QQ, watch movies, but did little search. Learning how to search requires a community to teach you, and this seems to be lacking.

During the 2007-2009 longitudinal study, Song and Wu bought a laptop and stayed in touch with Wang. Oreglia hopes to continue watching how their behavior changes as they get older.
Jens Damm presents on Taiwan’s policy of multiculturalism and multiculturalism online. Damm examines how the Internet is used by different ethnic groups (Hakka, Aboriginal Peoples, Hoklo, Mainlanders, and other). He examines how new media affects collective/historical/cultural memory, comparing online and state sponsored multiculturalism, the eeffects of Web 2.0, particularly in the context of websites for Taiwan’s 4 ethnic groups.

Taiwan is 98% Han, which breaks down to 15% Hakka, 70% Hoklo and 13% Mainlander, with the remaining 2% as indigeneous Taiwanese. Multiculturalism became a major issue under President Chen Shui-bian who cast it as a form of patriotism. Multiculturalism is defined as including recognition by international law, which led to it becoming an instrument for independence movements. Chen announced multiculturalism as official policy.

Taiwan plays a major role in Asian mediascapes, such as soap operas, games and cosplay. The Taiwan Network Information Center http://www.twnic.net gives data showing 79% of households have computers, 71% internet access, 69% is broadband, and 105% have mobile phones. Young people use few blogs, but use Yahoo much as Mainlanders use QQ.

The Internet can be used by ethnic groups to explore their own “roots”. There are 4 million Hakka in Taiwan, and there are an increasing number of offline museums and administrative units related to Hakka which also have online presences. They often emphasize local historical roots, locating the Hakka within Taiwanese history and culture. Besides museum websites there are also literature sites (one mapping to geographic sites) and BBS. There are blogs about Aboriginal Peoples, usually in Chinese and not written by Aboriginals. Hoklo tend to have self-affirmative blogs, while Mainlanders are defensive.

Teng Xiaoyan looks at gender and online discussion forums. 48.5% of Internet users in China are women, but are they using forums to engage in public affairs? Are women equally represented in forums? Do they prefer different topics? Are they less agonistic? Are they more likely to dropout and stop logging in (for more than 3 months for this study)?

Teng examined Maoyan, Tianya and Sina forums from Dec. 2007 to June 2008, roughly 23,000+ reply posts by over 11,000 users. Gender information is provided by profiles, which is taken at face value since users can choose not to provide any answer to the gender question. Teng found women are highly under-represented in root posting, but more likely than men to post replies. Men tend to root post about politics, society and culture, with while women tend to post about emotional life, family life, environment, culture, and “others”, matching stereotypes. In terms of being agonistic or dissenting, women often matched men. Teng also found register rates were more important than dropout rates.

Professor Mo Qian couldn’t come, so David Golumbia is presenting alone. The Naxi bring up questions about the Internet’s ability to affect minority culture. The optimistic perspective says it could help disseminate Naxi culture, while the pessimist says globalization and cosmopolitanism could destroy it. Globalization advocates to say Naxi culture can only be viewed as “traditional” or “static”, which they argue presumes Naxi culture cannot be “modern”. Is there a way to understand them as no more or less modern than cosmopolitans? Naxi do not only use the Internet, but also describes Naxi culture from an outsider perspective for an outsider audience. Does this “museum-ize” Naxi culture?

Naxi pictographs are not a written language, but genuine pictographs. While important, these help museumize the Naxi and don’t provide a system of writing allowing Naxi to use their indigeneous language online. Moreover, introducing writing would fundamentally transform their culture. While Naxi Internet users usually speak the language at home, 13 use it at work or school, and only occasionally do they use it in email (usually using Chinese).

Asking them what is important to Naxi identity, they offered language, clothing, living habits, Dongba religion, holiday traditions or music. Clothing (or costume) was the answer from 83 participants, while music/arts was least mentioned. Clothing is a crucial way of displaying minorities to outsiders. In China particularly there are “minority parks”. With technological modernity, culture becomes costume as it formalizes identity according to rules and forms.

Emily Hannum, the respondent, points out that Golumbia’s remarks intersect with concerns about economic migration, and asks if by examining if Naxi are modern, is he using the very juxtaposition he criticizes? What about other examples of being ethnic and cosmopolitan simultaneously? How were the choices of identity offered determined and selected, and were they open ended?

Regarding the digital divide and gender, she asks about the sociopolitical background of the two types of migrants, whether there are “migrant magazines” or the use of other older media technology as in some other countries?

For multiculturalism in Taiwan, it reminded her of Dru Gladney’s work on inter-Han interaction. Are there materials related to transnational aboriginal movements in use as well? And what are the differences in terms of demographics and age compared to Korea and China, since Korea has a similar demographic profile.

For women and discussion forums, she asks about methodology. Are they getting a self-selected group of women who are “out” about being women?

Liveblogging begins at 10:45. Also, keep an eye on Ethan Zuckerman’s blog, who is here and has marathon liveblogged many a conference.

Sharon Hom could not make it.

The Global Network Initiative is a cooperative effort between NGOs and the private sector devoted to “creating a collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector”.

Colin MacLay focuses on corporate responsibility, and invites us to examine the issues of free expression and privacy in terms of Lessig’s four forces (law, infrastructure, commerce and norms). The problems of censorship and freedom of expression is not a China-specific problem but a global one. Governments are all recognizing the impact of Internet users, the role companies can play in furthering government interests. The goal of the initiative is that by learning from one another in creating a code of conduct, the groups involved could collectively move forward effectively. They found that no single sector alone, investors, companies, academics or human rights groups, could make things happen and so you found competitors and opposing groups sitting together discussing these issues.

Rebecca MacKinnon asks Leslie Harris what her response is to the assertion that GNI is a fig leaf providing cover for participating companies and organizations. Harris says there is always a tension to the group given their disparate interests, but they have struck some balance and would not be participating if they believed the effort was a fig leaf. The Initiative, unlike other multi-stakeholder movements in other areas, is very much focused on government power rather than corporate behavior alone.

Harris is then asked to clarify the nature of the code of conduct, and she says it is not simply a list of what is right and wrong, but rather best practices, internal safeguards, legal guidelines, how best to enter a new market while respecting these issues. It is more a way of doing things, rather than commandments of what can or can’t be done in country X. MacLay adds that no one yet knows precisely what should be done, no static solution, and so rather they created a community, platform and approach for these problems.

MacKinnon asks Bob Boorstin what impact GNI has had on Google and its work in China. Boorstin thanks Annenberg, and also says he’s the proverbial fire hydrant at the dog show – and a “technological idiot”. Boorstin just came back from Google’s China office, but has been there a dozen times since 1979 and appreciates the changes of the past 30 years. Why would Google join GNI? First is the albatross “Don’t Be Evil”. This is a government problem – if governments didn’t ask for censorship, Google wouldn’t bother. Second, there is strength in numbers. GNI is more than the sum of its parts in terms of leverage. Third, Google wants more approaches like The Millenium Challenge under Bush. Fourth, Google is in GNI as a defensive move against critics, though many of those will give no quarter. GNI is the first time that Google has decided at an executive level to allow outsiders to come in two years and judge them. As a non-Silicon Valleyite, Boorstin emphasizes that the Valley tends to say “look at our cool product. Buy it and leave us alone”, and so this is a big step for Google.

What difference has GNI made within Google? Googlers (what employees are called) have very strong opinions, and many would have never gone to China. GNI provides a certain baseline charter by which to discuss these issues internally, and raises the volume of such discussion. GNI language has been incorporated into the employee code of conduct, another difficult step. It also helps regularize Google’s process for dealing with these issues, whether its in China, Thailand, Turkey or Italy.

Boorstin asks why are there no Asian and European members in GNI, and can it expand to other sectors beyond the Internet, such as telecoms which handed over lots of data to the Justice Department.

Isaac Mao once wrote a letter to Google criticizing some of its actions in China. He points out that China is a complex and enormous space with various actors. Google was blocked in China in 2003, before it had a China office. By 2005, the Chinese government was upgrading the filtering and monitoring systems for the Internet. As an MNC, Google has more access to government officials than most of the rest of us. At Mao’s level, he sees more administrators and Internet entrepreneurs struggling to survive when their business model clashes with government restrictions. When doing business in China, Mao has three suggestions. First, when Google was first blocked, Internet users protested and this is even more true now when you could say there is an “Internet Republic of Caonima”. You need to interact more with Internet users. Second, they ought to find better, more creative solutions to satisfy both users and the government – a savvier middle ground. Third, he suggests that Google increase Adsense payments to Chinese bloggers to increase revenue and profile.

In response, Boorstin agrees that it would be great if Google could find more ways to deliver regular services (as found outside China). Google has promised never to have a “Shi Tao” moment. Second, Boorstin asks “how can a U.S. company compete with a Chinese company (in China)?”

MacKinnon asks Ang Peng-Hwa about criticisms that there is no Asian participation in this all-Westerner endeavor, and whether it can be truly global?

Ang: Yes.

GNI is not about what companies must do. What can be done in the U.S. can’t be done in Singapore. Trade is vital to Singapore, being 160% of GDP, so it works differently. So GNI is about process, which produces different results in different countries. You can’t publish Mein Kampf in Germany or step on a coin (with the King’s face) in Thailand, and no set of static rules (as mentioned by MacLay) can encompass this. Ang doesn’t see global censorship, but rather the Internet maturing and the realization that online and offline media function differently, like rules for riding horses would be inappropriate for the car at the turn of the 20th century.

When China censors, it has a strategic aim to support Chinese business, such as undermining Google to strengthen Baidu, says Ang. GNI does not seem appropriate for small business. He suggests that for some of Boorstin’s problems, such as the lawsuit in Italy involving YouTube, laws must be made to address third party liability (or lack thereof).

Colin MacLay points out that GNI is based on various international standards such as the Declaration of Human Rights and related covenants, and is not based only on U.S.-centric laws or platforms. Also, government can be bad, but also be confused and simply do things badly. Do we think we should be regulating the Internet as media, or as expression? Do we need to have a debate on this? Media regulation and human rights seem to be converging (along with privacy and transparency). And yes, there are no small companies in GNI and there should be.

MacKinnon calls on Michael Anti in the audience for a personal experience on blog censorship, as his MSNSpaces blog was shut down in 2005 and he spoke to Congress saying Chinese Internet users are not a doll for Westerners to dress however they want. Anti says that Google products such as Gmail and Google Groups are really vital to those who seek free and secure tools for civil society. Anti feels that Google and other large companies should have a social contract with civil society netizens, where netizens accept Google’s cooperation with the government and Google provides as many tools as possible to them. Boorstin, boringly, agrees. He also points out that Google has a program to give Adwords away for free to NGOs in different countries, including China.

Professor Michael Price asks if Congress has been involved, and other forms of approach. Second, he asks “what is the jurisprudence of the figleaf? What is their function? What is the positive side? They cover what we know is there. We should explore the function of figleafs.” Hilarity ensues.

Leslie Harris explains that GNI has not taken hold in Europe, where these are not seen as problems, while in America it has focused companies attention on the U.S. government, which has also increased the impression that this is a U.S. plan.

Ang Peng-Hwa brings up the movie Red Cliff II, that the generals can’t tell the prime minister about a problem because he’s busy with a woman. In the book, the prime minister is singing, asks an advisors frank opinion and chops off his head when his truthful opinion displeases him. Then the generals approach him – what would you say? Boorstin thinks Chinese netizens know whats under the figleaf and have no illusions.

Isaac Mao is asked what he would do if he ran GNI. He says that an Asian regional group could be formed, as many of these cultures are accustomed to being more controlled, and could find more common ground. But he feels that this should come after a global, universal framework, which could help especially in a country on the scale of China. Ang Peng-Hwa agrees about localization, and wants to start a Singaporean EFF called Committee of IT Experts, because you can’t use the word “freedom” in Singapore without being misunderstood. The stronger the censorship, the weaker the civil society, and so in Asia civil society is unlikely to create such a group.

Li Hongmei asks about skepticism that companies can balance profit-seeking and social responsibility, and why does Boorstin and others think Internet companies can do this while others cannot, especially given the reputation of Chinese companies such as Sanlu?

Boorstin hates the term “social responsibility” because it puts CSR aside and doesn’t integrate it into daily work. MacLay adds that it should not be about “do-gooding”, but about good practices. Boorstin points out that GE pitched its push for green tech as being about making money, not doing good, and that is more realistic, believable and effective.