Surprise: Beijing Court Sides With Victim Of Internet Censorship

from the didn't-expect-that dept

Wed, May 27th 2009 8:15am — Mike Masnick

Lots of people know about the infamous "Great Firewall" of China, where internet censorship is quite common -- and citizens are, at times, encouraged to help alert authorities to any questionable content online. Government-directed censorship is quite common and expected, so it's a bit surprising to see a Beijing court side with the victim of censorship (via Michael Scott). The case didn't directly involve the government, but an ISP that took down the website of an economics professor, Hu Xingdou, who often discussed corruption and police brutality on his website. Of course, one of the ways in which the gov't gets the Great Firewall to work is by threatening to hold ISPs liable if they don't censor unwanted content -- so those ISPs have plenty of pressure to over-censor to avoid liability. However, in this case, the court actually found that the ISP failed to show proof of "illegal content" on the professor's website while also failing to show that it had first asked the professor to remove any illegal content, as required by its terms of service.

As the article notes, this may now put ISPs in something of a bind. The gov't may hold them liable if they fail to censor certain content, but the courts may push back and hold them liable for being too aggressive in their censorship.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: censorship, china

13 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Rob R. (profile), 27 May 2009 @ 8:22am

Damned if you do...
and damned if you don't.

I'm glad censorship is not in effect here in the US - yet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- sea man, 27 May 2009 @ 12:22pm
  
  Re: Damned if you do...
  Sure it is. Just look at Craigslist for one. I'm sure there's more.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ima Fish (profile), 27 May 2009 @ 8:26am

News from the Future...
Beijing China - Associated Press - May 28, 2009: Members of China's Beijing Court were arrested today for treason and anti-governmental activities, including ruling in favor of a known anti government activist. Trials were conducted this morning where each judge was found guilty. Executions are set for this afternoon.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Tgeigs (profile), 27 May 2009 @ 8:57am
  
  Re: News from the Future...
  I was thinking the EXACT same thing. Either that or that they were going to use this as an excuse to further sieze control over the ISP (if they aren't already in total/complete control).
  
  Nothing says "you should let us nationalize this company" like "Hey, we're just doing it to protect your freedom". in fact...that sounds kinda familiar.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Designerfx (profile), 27 May 2009 @ 8:49am

hmmm
This is quite interesting. Although a long stretch I wonder if people will consider this the first step towards fighting censorship in a way?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anshar (profile), 27 May 2009 @ 9:17am

Makes Me Wonder...
just how specific or vague China's laws are in defining "illegal content". After all, for an ISP to provide proof of the content should be no effort at all. That leads me to assume the trouble was with proving the illegality of that content.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Feeble, 27 May 2009 @ 11:43am

hmmm
>The case didn't directly involve the government What the heck are talking about. FTA: "A Beijing judge has ruled that an internet hosting company was wrong to close a prominent government critic's website over allegedly illegal content"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mike Masnick (profile), 27 May 2009 @ 12:31pm
  
  Re: hmmm
  >The case didn't directly involve the government What the heck are talking about. FTA: "A Beijing judge has ruled that an internet hosting company was wrong to close a prominent government critic's website over allegedly illegal content"
  
  The case was between the guy and the ISP, not the gov't. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous12, 27 May 2009 @ 1:16pm

This isn't that surprising actually. The Chinese court system is trying to establish itself. Lots of things are promised in China's constitution, that the Communist Party has no intent to enforce. The courts however, have been trying to become more legitimate, and due to the complicated and often disjointed structure of China's legal system, this is the result. China's courts are probably currently the only place in China to get a fair shake actually. It's complicated, but this basically is due to the difficulty in managing ove 1 billion people. The Communists can allow both things (semblences of Democracy and Authoritarian rule) to some extent, because they are forced too. They constantly are balancing how far is too far. If they don't let some form of justice occur, they know they could be put in a precarious position, so they're constantly adjusting the balance of power, while always holding the reigns at the national committee level. Simple isn't it? ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Farnsworth, 27 May 2009 @ 6:06pm
  
  Re:
  I would imagine governing a billion+ people be hard regardless of the political system.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous12, 27 May 2009 @ 1:20pm

This also has to do with what we don't know. The officials being criticized could have gotten on the wrong side of the national authorities, or were doing something that didn't fit with the Communist Committee's plans, so the criticism is allowed. It isn't actual freedom of the press, but it is manipulated by the Central Committee to APPEAR that way. It's a very cleaver means of affecting control of the population, while at the same time coddling them. By allowing a little criticism, they hope to stem the tide of the millions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous12, 27 May 2009 @ 1:20pm

This also has to do with what we don't know. The officials being criticized could have gotten on the wrong side of the national authorities, or were doing something that didn't fit with the Communist Committee's plans, so the criticism is allowed. It isn't actual freedom of the press, but it is manipulated by the Central Committee to APPEAR that way. It's a very cleaver means of affecting control of the population, while at the same time coddling them. By allowing a little criticism, they hope to stem the tide of the millions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 28 May 2009 @ 2:07am

Precedent?
The case would only create a bind if it set a precedent. I'm not sure if Chinese courts work on the principle of precedent, the way Anglo-Saxon ones do. Lots of European ones don't, for example.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]