Beijing operates the control of the network and more professional – especially in social media. Here, the country is also much about his political strategy award, my researcher.
In February last year a scandal brought throughout China to falter. The popular politician Bo Xilai had sawed off a Topmitarbeiter, which then his ex-boss accused of murder, which in turn led to crash en Bos (and the condemnation of his wife).
Garry King, a researcher at Harvard University, believes that he has developed software that monitors the censorship of the Chinese government in local social media offerings, an early warning system in case Bo was: Days before the big scandal have indications that as an important political event is imminent .Five days before his Bo staff absÃĪgte, Kings software showed the beginning of a rapidly rising curve censorship. The proportion of blocked postings on social media output growth, a trend that lasted several days. According to King, it had already been similar pattern several times before big political news in the country. “There are examples showing clear that the Chinese government is about to act.” King keeps his tools for one of the best methods to date to predict Beijing’s larger strategic steps without external signs otherwise result.
King saw the names of dissidents days were censored suddenly before her arrest. An increase in the general Internet censorship, as was observed before the end Bos, went ahead and fixed the name of the famous artist Ai Weiwei in 2011. The censorship took hand off, when the Chinese government was in June 2011, shortly before the surprising announcement of an agreement with Vietnam, which defused a hot dispute over oil rights in the South China Sea. King believes that online censorship now than tool is used to dampen the public reaction to major news or form. Also, for it speaks that no longer all negative comments will be blocked, but only those that require collective action. The censorship in the Chinese social networks are less well known than what is known as the Great Firewall which blocks access to Western sites like Facebook and Wikipedia of Internet connections in China. But meanwhile the monitoring of social networks for the censors has become at least as important. Social media is attractive to people in a country are strictly controlled in the conventional media and the Great Firewall directs the interest on sites that are located within its borders. Scientific works as the King, the trace, which disappear postings of social media services in China, allow a closer look at how the censorship system in the country works. The main theory: The measures are now sophisticated and efficient – and are used selectively a! nd with caution to control the online public in the countryThe most popular social media offer in China microblog networks. called Weibos which approximately correspond to what is known in the west by Twitter. Around 270 million people take part because, according to government figures. In China, all microblog offers must establish an internal censorship team that gets then given by the government is a direct line that sensitive postings will be blocked. Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo gather according to their own statements, the most active users. Your team censorship deal reportedly up to 1000 people.
These troops can react quickly, as a study of 2.38 million postings on Sina Weibo last year showed. 12 percent were blocked it – in a very short time. “It’s about minutes or hours, not days,” says Jed Crandall, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, who participated in the study along with colleagues at Rice University and Bowdoin College. Previous studies examined only for deleted posts at intervals 24 hours or even longer periods still. The assumption that the censorship mainly runs manually, but is probably wrong. “There must be some automated tools that can help. Otherwise, would be a censorship on the same level as we have observed it is not possible.” Crandall has also collected evidence such as censorship measures are used to to control the direction of public opinion, rather than just turn off sensitive issues. A software of the researchers showed how it was possible the censors, successfully turning around the bad online sentiment after a serious train crash in July 2011. Then they retreated slowly, because the policy drew Weibo discussion in a different direction. “It shows that there is a kind of PR occurs, use the censors,” says Crandall. “They slow down the online debate until it hits the news cycle – when turning back the positive themes that people can say whatever they want.” Other studies show that the censorship not only by the mere content a post! ing is determined. One study, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University had conducted on Sina Weibo 56 million messages in the last year, showed that the origin of a person affects the probability of being censored. Around half of all posts from Tibet and the neighboring Qinghai region with problematic applicable terms were deleted while it was only 12 percent of the contributions from Beijing and Shanghai. Nele Noesselt, a researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, studied recently the general attitude of the Chinese government to social media. Your Result: The Communist Party sees it now as a way to gain political legitimacy. Widely visible to respond to public opinion – even if this was pre-filtered by censors – can still provide citizens criticism. Noesselt also determined that Beijing is increasingly mitmischte in social media – according to official figures, there are 80,000 government’s own AccountsThis does not mean that China’s social web could really totally under control.. Online debates tend to be chaotic and to change quickly. Differing opinions exist in the Weibos – also because users invent code words to avoid direct censorship. But the results of King, Crandall and other researchers also make it clear that the study of censorship in real time can be an important predictive tool, as the policy will operate.
Crandall is currently working with the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto together, which is monitoring the observance of human rights in digital media. It should be to distill trends and political goals of the Weibo-censorship. King continues to work on their own investigations and his ideas have been the interest of a U.S. government agency awakened. With this, he does not want to call closer, he speaks now. It was also there looking for software developers to develop a censorship monitoring software. It is unclear to what to serve them, but King is sure that the ever-changing social media censorship in China is a valuable signal. “If I had to negotiate with the Chinese government, I would hang myself before our curves on the wall.” <- AUTHOR MARKER DATA BEGIN -> ( Tom Simonite ) / (bsc)<- RSPEAK_START -> <- AUTHOR-DATA-END-MARKER - ! ->
<- googleoff: all ->
