Locking the barn door after the memo has been posted

Feb. 19 - Wonderful account in today's Washington Post concerning The Click That Broke a Government's Grip (free registration may be required.) The story illustrates the futility of locking the barn door after the horse has bolted - or censoring something after it has already been posted on a computer system, copied and sent through text messaging and email, and posted on bulletin boards.

An attempt to intimidate writers of the newspaper China Youth Daily by docking their pay if their articles upset party officials was leaked by Li Datong, senior editor of the paper, who had posted a letter on the newspaper's computer system which exposed and attacked the move. The capability of the internet to spread information quickly fully earned its nickname "information highway" as attempts to censor the letter could not catch up to its distribution.

It's no secret that China has, with damnable complicity from Google, Yahoo, et al.,

a censorship system that includes a blacklist of foreign sites blocked in China and filters that can stop e-mail and make Web pages inaccessible if they contain certain keywords. Several agencies, most notably the police and propaganda authorities, assign personnel to monitor the Web.

The system is far from airtight. Software can help evade filters and provide access to blacklisted sites, and Internet companies often test the censors' limits in order to attract readers and boost profits. If an item isn't stopped by the filters and hasn't been covered in the Friday meetings, the government can be caught off guard.

That is what happened with Li Datong's letter. Minutes after he posted it, people in the newsroom began copying it and sending it to friends via e-mail and the instant messaging programs used by more than 81 million Chinese.

Attempts to stop the letter were too little too late, and we can credit the slowness of bureaucratic response (yes, even bureaucratic lethargy has an upside!)

It was midafternoon before someone in the party bureaucracy decided Li Datong's letter should be removed from Chinese cyberspace and government officials began calling executives at the major Web sites.

Some said they were contacted by the Beijing Municipal Information Office, others by its national-level counterpart, the State Council Information Office. None reported receiving a formal notice or any legal justification for the decision. As usual, they were just told to delete the offending material.

There are at least 694,000 Web sites in China, according to official statistics, and the party didn't try to contact them all. They called the most popular sites in Beijing first. Hours passed before some smaller bulletin board sites were notified. Forums with national audiences in other cities received calls only at the end of the day.

[...]

Even as Li's memo began disappearing from some Web sites, it went up on others the authorities had not contacted. Shortly before 10 p.m., it was posted on the popular Tianya forum. At 11 p.m., it became a featured item on Bokee, China's top blog and portal site.

[...]

The next morning, officials continued calling Web sites, but readers started posting the memo on sites that had already removed it. Some Web site managers said they tried to drag their feet or leave copies on less prominent pages. One said the memo was viewed 30,000 times before he took it down.

It's a long read but well worth it.

Posted by: Debbye at 11:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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