proposal


 * [[file:CCT 205 proposal - group 17.doc]]

Internet Censorship in China

Q1.What is the history of this issue? ** Internet censorship refers to the controlling information that is distributed on the websites accessible to the society. It is usually a government of the certain countries that "censor" the flow of information and decide what would be "appropriate" or "not appropriate" for the community. Censorship has started in as early as 1559 when Pope Paul IV banned a book from being distributed (Newth, 2001). At the time, instead of the government being the stakeholders of censorship it was the church stating that it nothing can be printed without its permission. However, nation by nation started to move that control over to king where Charles IX of France, among others, decreed that nothing was to be printed without his permission (Newth, 2001). As internet users in China grew significantly in fast speed since they opened the internet and the web for public use in 1996, the Chinese regulations on internet censorship became much stricter as well. Because of that growth in users and material that would ultimately be posted the government of China built a very sophisticated and multilayer-ed system for monitoring activities on the internet in order to protect themselves and other political areas. Not only has the Chinese government gone so far in censoring the internet in way that many would call challenging, but they have also controlled any messages that carry out on almost any mobile devices. The examples include the complete shutdown of data centers housing the serves for websites and commenting forums in 2007; blocking of Youtube, Twitter, Blogspot, Hotmail, Google, and so on.

The main stakeholders in the censorship in China are the governmental agencies. The agency that holds control over internet censorship would be the GAPP; the General Administration of Press and Publication which has control to block sites and take away material from the public. Another governmental agency that holds a stronger claim to censorship would be the CPD; the Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department. The CPD, more or less, guides the GAPP into what to censor and what not. The reasoning behind that would be the fact that the party was to keep its "clean" image. It wants to stay away from the "bad guy" image. The CPD guides other agencies on censoring to "restrict coverage of politically sensitive topics—such as protests, environmental disasters, Tibet, and Taiwan—which could be considered dangerous to state security and party control." The public is being blinded and lied to on what is truly happening. ( Zissis & Bhattacharji, 2008) When any new discussion or news that's posted on the web concerning the government or any political view that puts the Chinese's governmental image in position to become tainted, the government is fast to react towards it and block the entire site to where it was posted from the beginning, resulting in the hiding of this information or opinion from any spectators. By doing so the government stops the information reaching the public, possibly changing their views on the political party and eventually leading to the loss of votes. Other stakeholders might be Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman in Harvard Law School, who are doing a comprehensive study about Internet censorship in China. They point out that CCP (Chinese Communist Party) effectively blocks a range of websites which contain “sensitive contents” related to politics, but things are not going well when they attempt to restrict access to sexually explicit material on Internet. (Abbott, p. 131) As a comparison, the Internet providers in Canada, such as Bell, Bell Aliant, MTS Allstream, Rogers, Shaw, SaskTel, Telus, and Videotron set forth a project, “Project Cleanfeed Canada”. (Wikipedia, 2010) They are voluntary to block hundreds of “alleged child pornography websites”. (Wikipedia, 2010) This project is encouraged by Canadian government.
 * Q2. Who are primary stakeholders (e.g., those who have some opinion/influence regarding the issue)? What are their positions?**

China has gone so far in their censorship that people started to wonder if there were any sites that weren't blocked. In 2009 most of the popular social networking sites and search engines have been blocked in China. In March Youtube was blocked claiming that Youtube has allowed the uploading of "untrue" or "lying" footage that shows security forces beating Tibetans in Lhasa the previous year. Then in June it was Flicker and Twitter. Google and its services such as GoogleMail or Gmail had their turn in June, as well. And by July Facebook was off-limits to the public. ( Branigan, 2010  ) Not only has the Chinese government blocked sites but it has proposed to have controversial internet filters installed in PC devices known as Green Dam. However, the proposal was dropped later in August. ( Branigan, 2010  ) As a reaction to this extreme censoring, the public and the companies being blocked are acting out. People have heated discussions on the constant blocking which, ultimately, become blocked by the government. Such actions keep building up the tension between the public and government which would lead to breakout in within the public. The public, at the end, resorted to laying flowers at Google's office in Beijing symbolizing its "Death", reacting in silence (Wikipedia, 2010). Not only have these agencies blocked "scandalous" sites, but they've also passed on laws that prevent people from posting unverified news and information about disasters, riots, emergencies and if someone were to break that law, also known as the "Emergency Response Law", he or she would be fined a sum that would reach up to $12,500 (Wikipedia, 2010). Google, among other corporations, has tried to fight against the extreme censorship in China, but like many of the other instances where people reacted against this issue, the government censored all kinds of information regarding this event (Wikipedia, 2010). All stories on Google's reaction were hidden and concealed from the public and just waiting to be forgotten.
 * Q3.What events and conflicts are shaping your issue at present?**

The internet has brought about the information revolution which encourages the free spread of knowledge and information locally and internationally. The destruction of many censorship laws is vital to society. While the censorship of inappropriate information is the key to the healthy growth of a nation, many websites that disperse information that encourage the free speech of others should be embraced. While understanding that demolishing censorship laws in a powerful nation like China isn't easily attainable, the goal is to spread awareness of the issue. Using online advocacy campaigns to grasp the attention of not only Chinese people in and outside of China but our whole Canadian community, it could bring about awareness that may play a large role in the destruction of internet censorship in China and many other nations. Due to many opinionated sites being blocked by the Chinese government, as a community, the goal should be to reach out to our community. Knowledge amongst our society would motivate many Human Rights Campaigns to play a role in demolishing internet censorship and mental slavery in troubled nations like China. Ultimately, we would like the audience to embrace this issue and react against, to speak out and bring attention to the fact that the public's right of freedom of speech is being taken away. Not only is the right to freedom of speech and opinion is being violated but people's education, in some ways, is being threatened. Most people use Google as their main search engine that would help in research, education, and other related realms. Youtube has many beneficial aspects when concerning education, too. It can help in educating students in a much simpler and more interactive way. It's also a place where freedom of expression is apparent where people have the chance to stretch their creativity. Finally, seeing how China is a powerful nation when concerning technology and things along those lines, it's quite shocking to see the strength of censorship that they apply on their public. Such challenging and strong censoring might cripple the evolving of China in one way or the other. It would definitely affect the technological advance that China is obviously characterized with.
 * Q4.Where does your group stand regarding this issue? What position are you going to be advocating? What would you like to have your target audience do about it?**

__ Objective __ Our objective is making more and more Chinese people aware of that the government keeps them from those blind spots for politics purpose. We need to show them the truth and they need to fight for their freedom using the Internet. We would also like to change those strict censorship laws that are affecting the public and China as nation negatively. Our goals are exposing the information and history to Chinese people, which were hidden by government, and help companies, such as Google, fight against censorship. Finally, we hope that the Chinese government could unblock those overseas websites and open their people to free thought. Audiences are overseas Chinese and people in mainland China, as well as everyone in Canada and the world. It's a serious issue that would inevitably affect everyone sometime in the future. Government shouldn’t control Internet just for their own politics purpose; people have the right to know, the right to express, the right to speak out freely, and a right to their own opinions. **__ Strategy __** Posting videos on Youtube would educate the public outside of China on the extreme censoring that the Chinese web goes through. Facebook groups encourage people to engage in the issue.  Because of the strict censorship from government in China, it is difficult to carry out our idea inside China.  We won’t use any public media to approach our audience. We will convey our message to mainland China through overseas Chinese, such as distributing flyers or word-of-mouth. We also can provide some proxy servers to Chinese so that they can access to those banned websites.  We can build a discussion forum and ask people leave their comments about our campaign.
 * Q5. Communication Strategy? ie. the plan for how you'll be engaging your target audience! >>> objective, goals, audience, key messages, strategy, tactics, measurement**
 * __ Goals __**
 * __ Target audience __**
 * __ Key message __**
 * __ Tactics __**
 * __ Measurement __**