Based on the topic of Cyberspace and the Concept of Democracy (Wrote by Fred Evans), An considerable paragraph shows at below:
"Many commentators acknowledge that cyberspace and the internet have a "dark side" ...... the technocrat control, panoticism or pervasive surveillance by the government or by corporations and escapism"
The above statement obviously described the China's internet circumstance. The example is that most of famous online companies have banned in China, such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Youtube. So people can not use these website in China, because of these websites includes some speeches or imformations which include positive influences to Chinese government. The government is the unique party in the China, so the party does not want to listen any bad words about it and the party chose escapism, which avioid to listen a positive information or new vioices make by people dont like them, but these people are still exist. In this year's July, the world's biggest research engine company Google, left the Chinese market, because Chinese government try to "technocrat control" in Google's company, so Google believe that they need to be democracy, because their service aim is to give people speech of freedom and voices and identity, as Fred Evans wrote in his topic "our voice is our identity", so Goole insisted to service "voices" to the Chinese people, finally, they have to leave the Chinese market by the government's power.
However, I believe that China's democracy of internet could be change in the future, because the country is still a developing country, the mainly things of the country is to increase the economic, maybe after few years, when China become to the developed country, the democracy of people and internet could be released naturally.
Comments
The block of facebook gave me a hard time to keep in touch with my friends when I back home. I think the block maybe helpful on protect the government, but it is not quite necessary, since there are software to open the lock and access the websites as usual. And when people are eagerly to do that, they are longing for information on those block websites, and among in that group, the percentage of looking for negatives information are larger. So normal users do not usually think too much on solve the lock issue, they are just upset by government policy. I do understand the reason for the government to do so, especially after riot last summer, and Internet was totally block from Xinjiang area for almost a year. And I'm sure the unlock of facebook, youtube will be soon. But I do not think block could be that effective method as government expected.
To think from the view of blocking of politics view, usually the results are not good, no matter from reality block or online block. For example, North Korea blocked itself for decades and development within the country is fundamental. Especially under information era, sometimes the key point of being on top is know information on both positive and negative sides, to know better of competitors will doing better on self=protection. China also had block whole country for a long period in history, during that time the UK started industry revolution, so by the time China realized what is going on in the rest of world, it was too late for it to catch up. Then if a country block information nowadays, the outcome will damage itself. And Internet is a main way to exchange information in fact. So my first point is political block is not a wise strategy.
My other point is about ideology of nationalities. Usually when people know about a common language, they could talk everything, share minds, in order to reach a better understanding of a same concept. Diversity background people work together could expand viewing. Internet offers an environment for people to do so without limits of location. However, the nationality ideology could be less or more consciousness comparing with face to face communication. So people who are easily defense their home countries and people who are careless about their nationalities are two big part of group when online communication involved. However under no matter which ideologies, stability of government will be threaten. Then politic issue rises when government under pressure. Without any governing, stability of internal environment will be harmed. With controlling, government might push residents in another side and also could lead to damage of internal environment.
Is there any neutral solution for that case, which minimize harm for both government and individual? That is my wondering.
I'm really glad to hear Chinese people's opinions on Chinese policies; most of my information comes from American, British or Japanese sources. The Canadian newspaper I read online has a very strange thing happening in its comment board, in that any article about China gets hundreds of comments by people claiming to be Chinese students, and that are all along the lines of 'how dare Westerners criticize the Chinese Communist party', even though most articles in Canadian newspapers are very pro-China. It does give the impression that 5 pro-China Communist Part activists sitting in an office have created hundreds of avatars to blast the newspaper comment boards with, although what anyone would accomplish by doing this is beyond me.
Most of the Chinese people I have met feel that the opening up of the country to the internet is inevitable, and would benefit the country more than it could harm it. I hope that's true, but on the other hand I don't trust politicians of any kind to act in the best interest of the people, or their country, when working in the best interest of themselves is so much easier.
Huijie, I like your last question. I think Japan has been trying to walk that line very much; the government is paternalistic and tries to protect its citizens from harm (as do the corporations), yet it tries to be a free country. Unfortunately, this system doesn't work well. What ends up happening is you have a very large free uninformed population, who aren't good at exercising their freedom. For example, Japanese history textbooks have no mention in them about the terrible things Japan DID do in the past, so the free citizens don't understand at all why other Asian countries are still angry, and they feel 'bullied'. On a large scale, this doesn't help diplomacy in the region. The reason why important information is left out of the textbooks, according to the official line, is that it is too shocking to teach to children, even 16 and 17 year-old children. To be fair, there is nothing shocking about any other countries in the textbooks either. Today I taught a lesson on African American music history, and I started by explaining where the Africans came from, why, and what their life was like under slavery. It was obvious from the students' reaction that they had never learned any details about what apartheid is like, only that it is wrong. They looked confuses and hurt that people would do such bad things to each other.
But even adults, who have access to all kinds of information, don't go looking for it because they don't know it's there. Since they live in a free country, many people assume that what they learned in school is what they need to know. Here is a good example of how the Japanese government deals with information.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/column/news/20101111p2a00m
Thanks Dakun, Huijie and Bo. Here are my thoughts on the positive and negative affect of Government influence on the internet
In the white paper, Rory provided insight that the Internet would be not started in absence of government funding “….vast expanse of Government R & D” (Borsook, 1996). Despite the associated regulation with the internet, Borsook comments that this had led to the “the inheritors of the greatest government subsidy of technology and expansion in technical education the planet has even seen….” And follows this up with “….I know without the Government, there would be no Internet….”(Borsook, 2000).
But does this mean Governments have the right to subsequent regulation the internet? Or is economic regulation a better way to go?
Borsook, suggests that those who have made money from the internet have a great influence in its regulation “As surely as follows wealth, those who make money
(high technolocrats)…. are beginning to try to influence the world beyond VDTs” (Borsook, 2000).
Does self-regulation work?
There was a comment yesterday in the media about whether Google TV should be blocked by other organisations. Maybe this is this the right approach?
Out of control ‘Markism’ (Nolin, 2010) can result in surveillance and legal regulation, which can ultimately manifest itself in the form of an “Oracle”. Is the role of an oracle to counteract online behaviour such as flaming and deception? Evans reminds us that a virtual voice is not always a virtuous one.
Or maybe Oracle is something ‘darker’ which counteracts the affect of a “multi-voiced body itself” (Evans, 2010)? Thinking about earlier weeks on EPS, (e.g. the digital divide), it seems that “hetroglossia” (the opposite of an oracle) which can support a social language, may also be able to support multi-language voices to develop, promoting accessibility.
What's also fascinating is that China has expanded the travel possibilities for its people in recent years, and enabled more study overseas by people like yourselves - where you can see and read everything UK people can, because you're physically here. One might think that wanting to restrict certain kinds of information would require greater restrictions to travel and foreign study too.
Again its great to hear some first hand accounts of the "freedom of the internet in China" issue. It will be interesting to see how things change in the future as there certainly does seem to be a whole lot of change going on in that region.
Ultimately I would see the internet as a fundamentally liberal structure even when under the control of oracles such as governments. Maybe it is because it was born in the democractic west, maybe because it was born (or at least grew up) in cooperative academia, the essence of the "public space" that is dialogic and the idea of the "the interplay of equally audible voices" is at the heart of the system and the internet culture that exists around it. Yes oracles will come along (both in democratic and non-democratic communities) who will try to "limit the creation of new voices and the degree of the community's metamorphosis" but ultimately the nature of the internet will mean that these voices will still be heard.