Democracy Dies in Darkness — Collective Action and Authoritarian States
Chapter 19 of the reading discusses a typical example of the collective action problem: a large scale demonstration against a repressive government could effectively undermine its legitimacy. However, the number of protesters planning to attend the demonstration is unknown and a weak demonstration could cause every protesters get arrested, should the protesters show up at the event?
In fact, in many cases, due to the limited connections between protesters, demonstrations could be unlikely to success. A major reason is that the authority could deliberately sabotage the links and edges among protesters by measures like mass surveillance system and internet censorship apparatus. This blog will elaborate on China’s internet censorship and how it prevents the collective actions of civilians.
The news report shows that unlike former presidents, President Xi has his own vision for the future of China’s internet. The previous administrations are focused on building a firewall that blocks the internet traffic and restricts civilians access to international websites, especially news channels. However, Xi dedicates to reflect his political values and standards on the virtual world. To meet his goal, China has developed monitor content and block “inappropriate” contents within China’s own internet traffic. Instead of merely deleting posts, the party puts more efforts on manipulating contents to serve for the interest of the rulers. In 2015, China has a launched a program called the Grand Cannon, which is capable of adjusting and replacing content as it travels around the internet. For example, if the tendency on China’s twitter is about criticism to the government or advocating potential demonstrations, the program could rapidly identify the source and replace the tendency with other neutral contents.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown