Though it was touted as Beijing’s promotion of how the World
Wide Web should be run, but last week’s Chinese World Internet Conference
nothing more than an exercise in online hypocrisy?
By: Ringo Bones
When last week’s Mainland China’s World Internet Conference
was reported by the BBC back in December 16, 2015, many around the world see it
as the Beijing government’s “world view” on how the global internet community
should be run – i.e. the right of each country’s government’s right to impose
hard line online censorship. Ever since Xi Jinping became Mainland China’s
head-of-state, the country’s internet laws were further tightened by the
Beijing government. In Mainland China, spreading supposed “wild rumors” via the
internet – especially if it is a pro political opposition themed – carries a
mandatory 7 year prison sentence. But despite the Beijing government’s expressing
its right for world internet isolationism, was last week’s “Mainland China’s
World Internet Conference” nothing more than an exercise in on line hypocrisy.
Despite Mainland China being currently the world’s largest
online population given that an estimated 650 million or more Mainland Chinese
citizens are now regular internet users. Unfortunately, the “free world’s” top
social networks and entertainment and educational sites – like Facebook, You
Tube and Google just to name a few – can’t be accessed on Mainland Chinese soil
thanks to the “Great Firewall Of China”, which sees to it that the rest of the
free world’s internet traffic won’t be accessed on Mainland China. So effective
is their “Firewall” that even relatively harmless content – like the trailer of
the movie Garfield: A Tale Of two Kitties” that was released to the World Wide
Web some years ago got automatically blocked in Mainland China because the
Beijing government approved firewall – in the guise of their “Green Dam Youth
Escort” - apparently mistaken the color of Garfield’s fur as the vestments of
the Dalai Lama and thus flagging the movie trailer as a “rebellious Free Tibet
message”.
And even though there might be some merit to the Beijing
government’s argument that “all countries should be allowed to make its own
rules with regards to internet traffic within its sovereign territory”, what’s
politically and philosophically hypocritical – from a Western point of view –
on Beijing’s internet governance is that they are actively sponsoring
unscrupulous hackers that actively attack and commit digital vandalism and
other much worse cyber-attacks to political activists – especially exiled
Chinese dissidents now residing in more democratic countries – setting up sites
that criticize current human rights violations and other social ills on
Mainland China. One that has gained notoriety over the years was the Unit 61398
of the Beijing 50 Cent Cyber Army where a few even have United States Federal
Bureau Of Investigation arrest warrants issued against them for performing
brazen cyber attacks on official US Government websites. And by the way, the
Baidu Driverless Car – the Beijing government approved version of the Google
Driverless Car – debuted in the Mainland China World Internet Conference.
