B. Theory Application
3. Architecture’s Impact on Human Behavior
Some researchers have argued that the goal of Internet filtering is to “shape citizens’
information environments and thereby alter behavior.”109 From the direct and indirect evidence shown below, the Internet filtering has affected the Chinese netizens’ behavior in some ways. If users fail to open a webpage, most of them would try to visit another substitute rather than to wait110. For those who are aware of the government filtering and censorship, they may still feel frustrated when continuously being blocked from the content they wish to browse.111 Although sophisticated users can always circumvent the Internet filtering technologies and reach the blocked foreign sites,112 it is undoubted that the filtering system has effectively prevented most Chinese end users from accessing foreign websites that the authority deems inappropriate113
Together with other regulations and monitoring techniques imposed by the government, the Chinese are using the Internet in the way that the authority plans.
According to a 2005 study conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Science, most . This is just one aspect of how architecture regulates behavior. However, the most profound consequence of this architecture is not that it stops immediately citizens’ access to sensitive foreign content, but is that it is gradually shaping human behavior in cyberspace.
compromise between its desire to control the Internet and the need to become more competitive in the industry…China’s model [is] a blend of economic openness and strict control over politics and dissent”).
108 Lijun Tang & Peidong Yang, Symbolic Power and the Internet: The Power of a “Horse”, 33 MEDIA, CULTURE &SOC'Y at 675, 679 (2011).
109 Bambauer, at 383.
110 ZITTRAIN,supra note 96, at 105.
111 Bambauer, at 392.
112 Nawyn, supra note 18, at 514.
113 But see Zittrain, supra note 96 (optimistically and theoretically arguing that unsavy users can easily learn how to get around blocks).
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Chinese Internet users look for entertainment, rather than political discussions.114 Some more recent research also reaches similar conclusions that the Chinese neticizens are more interested in the playfulness than in the politics.115
Influenced by the filtering architecture and perhaps some other factors, not many Chinese Neticizens are interested in seeking out political information online.116 For those Chinese browsing news online, they have developed a quite strong preference in domestic news than in other Chinese or non-Chinese news sources.117 Even university students, who are aware of technologies, such as proxy servers that enable circumvention of Internet filtering, are not interested in taking advantage of these technologies to reach blocked foreign websites.118 Even for those technologically savvy Chinese young people who access blocked websites, such actions are just a game without much political interest.119 This phenomenon also echoes Lessig’s argument that we cannot conclude that effective control of code is not possible only because complete control or perfect does not exist.120
114 MacKinnon, supra note
By shaping citizens’ online behavior via Internet architecture, the Chinese
59, at 33; see also Ian Weber & Lu Jia, Internet and Self-Regulation in China:
The Cultural Logic of Controlled Commodification, 29 MEDIA,CULTURE &SOC'Y 772, 772 (2007) (reporting that "entertainment is one of the main drivers of China's internet development"). Nonetheless, this statement does not mean that Chinese Internet users do nothing but play. In fact, a new form of online activism is rising in China. See YANG,supra note 9, 28-31 (2009).
115 See e.g. Li, supra note 107, at 75(stating that “[t]he folk society, the central figure of the Chinese web, once demonstrated the aspiration for civic virtue as well as the capacity to organize democratic practices and to generate deliberative discussions, now is preoccupied with a crave for mind paralyzing fun time);
Wang & Hong, supra note 34, at 75-77 (finding that political interest is absent in the Chinese blogosphere).
116 In making this argument, we do not mean that Chinese people are not at all interested in engaging in online political discussions. I only want to point out that many of them may lose interested in finding online sensitive political information.
117 Daniela Stockmann, What Kind of Information Does the Public Demand? Getting the News During the 2005 Anti-Japan Protest, in CHANGING MEDIA,CHANGING CHINA 175, 188 (Susan L. Shirk ed., 2011).
118 MacKinnon, supra note 59, at 33.
119 Wacker, supra note 11, at 72.
120 LESSIG,CODE VERSION 2.0, at 57.
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government has slowed down the Internet’s impact of being a tool for political change,121 and, thus, reinforce its political authority.122
Nonetheless, it would be too naïve to jump to the conclusion that Internet filtering and other government’s measures can completely eliminate subversive online content.
Netizens in China have worked out some ways to avoid their online expressions being filtered out. For example, homophony has become an important weapon for Chinese netizens to fight against the government’s Internet filtering efforts. The pronunciation of
river crab in Chinese is he xie, which is similar to that of harmony. Therefore Chinese
netizens use river crab to replace harmony when they are mocking at the government use of Internet filtering to create a harmonious society.123 Another popular term used by Chinese netizens is grass-mud horse, the pronunciation of which is cao ni ma, a near homophone of “fuck your mother” in Chinese.124 Other popular homophony in China include du cai (meaning poisonous jackal, a homophone of dictator or dictatorship) andmin zhu (meaning talking pig, a homophone of democracy).
125
121 MacKinnon, supra note
In most cases, homophony will not cause comprehension problem, but it is very difficult for the government to ban all the homophony keywords because the Chinese language is abundant in homophones.
59, at 34.
122 In making this argument, we do not mean that Chinese citizens in the People’s Republic of China are not interested in engaging in online political discussions. We only wish to point out that many of them might lose interested in finding sensitive political information online.
123 See e.g. Dong Han, “Use” Is An Anagram of “Sue”: Cultural Control, Resistance, and the Role of Copyright in Chinese Cyberspace, 7 GLOBAL MEDIA &COMM. 97, 108 (2011); Hongmei Li, Parody and Resistance on the Chinese Internet, in ONLINE SOCIETY IN CHINA:CREATING,CELEBRATING, AND INSTRUMENTALISING THE ONLINE CARNIVAL 71, 78-79 (David Kurt Herold & Peter Marolt eds., 2011);
Qiang, supra note 6, at 210; Tang & Yang, supra note 108, at 680; Michael Wines, A Dirty Pun Tweaks China’s Online Censors, N.Y.TIMES, Mar. 11, 2009, at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast.html.
124 Tang & Yang, supra note 108, at 679-80.
125 Wei Ji Bai Ke, Bai Du Shi Da Shen Shou [Hundred Poisonous Ten Mythical Creatures], at
http://cn.uncyclopedia.wikia.com/index.php?title=%E4%BC%AA%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%87%E5%BA
%93:%E7%99%BE%E6%AF%92%E5%8D%81%E5%A4%A7%E7%A5%9E%E5%85%BD&variant=zh (last visited Aug. 15, 2011).
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Obviously, in the short run, the Internet’s role in enabling a public discourse around political and policy debates in China will be limited because of governmental control.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to assess whether and how circumvention of the Chinese Internet filtering will make a difference in the long run.