Baidu Pushes Back On Chinese Gov't Investigation By Freeing Up Images Related To Tiananmen Square

from the power-play dept

Fri, May 6th 2016 8:33am — Mike Masnick

So we've talked a lot about the Great Firewall of China and how it works. Contrary to what many believe, it's not just a giant government bureaucracy blacklisting content, but a huge ecosystem that partially relies on unpredictability and the lack of intermediary liability protections online. That is, rather than directly say "this and that are blocked," the Chinese government will often just let companies know when they've failed to properly block content and threaten them with serious consequences. Because of this, you get a culture of overblocking, to avoid running afoul of the demands. This is one of the reasons why we believe that strong intermediary liability protections are so important. Without them, you're basically begging for widespread censorship to avoid legal consequences.

And, in many ways, it works quite well in China. Yes, sophisticated users know how to use VPNs and proxies and to get around the blocks, but many people do not. But something interesting is happening in China right now, as one of the largest and most successful internet companies there appears to be challenging the censorship regime. First, it's important to recognize that in China, one subject that is absolutely, without question, censored, is anything relating to the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989. On the internet in China, it's as if the event never happened. People have tried workarounds, using euphemisms and wordplay, but eventually those get disappeared down the memory hole too. There was even that time the censors banned the term "big yellow duck," after people replaced the famous tanks in the "tank man" photo with giant rubber ducks:

But something odd happened yesterday. Suddenly, on Baidu (which is like the Google of China), searches related to the tank man and other symbols of the Tiananmen Square protests were showing up on Baidu. Clay Shirky, who has been living in China recently, posted details on his Twitter feed, which is well worth reading:

China's https://t.co/G1q2OYdfSV unblocks search results for 虫堂臂挡车 (known to us as tank man, from Tiananmen massacre) pic.twitter.com/DU2X3RZnWv
— Clay Shirky (@cshirky) May 6, 2016

It appears that this is something of a reaction to the Chinese government announcing that it will be investigating Baidu's advertising practices, following the death of a young man from cancer, who had kicked up quite a lot of attention after he had tried an "experimental" cancer treatment he discovered via an ad on Baidu. When it didn't work, he blamed Baidu for allowing the ad, and when he passed away there was a public outcry. In response, the government announced plans to investigate Baidu's ad practices. It appears that Baidu loosening the padlocks on Tiananmen Square might be a response to that, which lots of people seem to think is playing with a fire in a manner that will almost certainly leave the company burned.

This is a direct & blatant refusal to play by the rules. Baidu has a lot of power behind the scenes, but even then, this looks like treason.
— Clay Shirky (@cshirky) May 6, 2016

This will probably end soon - hearing from friends in Beijing that some searches are censored again - but it will cause months of trouble.
— Clay Shirky (@cshirky) May 6, 2016

Young, educated Chinese are so used to cat and mouse censorship that when they see something like this, they screenshot immediately.
— Clay Shirky (@cshirky) May 6, 2016

At a conservative guess, there've been a billion screenshots taken of various banned images, jokes, and memes during the last day.
— Clay Shirky (@cshirky) May 6, 2016

Shirky has a lot more to say, including some further speculation that perhaps there was growing tension from last year, after the Chinese government basically made use of Baidu to fire a denial of service at GitHub. The fact that the packets came via Baidu was, as Shirky notes, a PR blackeye for Baidu at a time when the company wants to expand beyond China. Shirky also deleted a tweet that originally said "this has to backfire," noting how central media and internet censorship is to the current regime.

The brief dropping of the censorship appears to be (again, Shirky notes no one knows for sure -- but many people seem to believe) Baidu trying to let the Chinese government know that it has become powerful enough to make trouble for the government, so it's not just a one way street in terms of who holds the power. Of course, that seems like an incredibly risky move to make if you really don't have enough power to stand up to the government.

We may never know all the details of what's going on, but it's a brief, if fascinating, view into some of what's going on in China today with the Great Firewall, and the increasing power of some of its most successful companies. But it's also a reminder of why we should be so thankful for strong intermediary liability protections in the US, and how not having such protections is a sure path to 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: ads, censorship, china, clay shirky, great firewall, intermediary liability, investigations, power, search, tank man
Companies: baidu

11 Comments

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

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2016 @ 8:51am

The guy calls it "treason". Sorry, no, simply letting people see these images is not treason. If they think people thinking about this will cause unrest, then maybe they shouldn't have massacred all those people.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2016 @ 8:56am

Re:
"trea·son
noun
the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government."

Where the government of China sees itself AS the country, I think there's a good chance they will see it and treat it as treason whether you think it qualifies as treason under your own personal definition or not.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2016 @ 8:58am

Re:
also, one of the secondary definitions:
"the action of betraying someone or something."
Pretty sure this qualifies. Remember that even beyond whatever you personal definition is, there's a difference between the common definition and a legal definition.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
limbodog (profile), 6 May 2016 @ 9:03am

Someone's gonna get shot
And their family billed for the bullet.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 6 May 2016 @ 10:04am

But it's also a reminder of why we should be so thankful for strong intermediary liability protections in the US, and how not having such protections is a sure path to censorship.

Which are under fire, because copyright. There are indeed many ways to impose censorship.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2016 @ 11:12am

Re: Re:
Treason depends on where you're standing. I imagine to a patriotic Chinese citizen, their government might appear quite treasonous for massacring unarmed citizens protesting their government's wrongdoings.

And as we are currently seeing in our own countries, when the people of a country become too lazy and distracted to actively participate in their own governance, their government can be co-opted by individuals motivated primarily by personal gain with little care for the greater public good.

For example, many in the US government support the passage of the TPP which will almost certainly export a significant number of jobs and give large corporations the means to coerce governments (via ISDS) into not passing laws that serve the greater public good if those laws are perceived to adversely affect profits.

Now, if the US government is causing harm to its own people - and then writes laws to prohibit public comments critical to the TPP - and then I break those laws by posting critical comments - which of us is more a traitor?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2016 @ 11:33am

Re:
Treason from the perspective of the Chinese government? The person doesn't seem to be particularly against Baidu's actions, at least not on principle.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Whatever, 6 May 2016 @ 6:46pm

If you disagree with government, work to get the laws changed. This sort of reckless lawbreaking will be severely punished and those involved deserve everything that's coming to them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2016 @ 8:55pm

Re:
...said the Chinese intelligence agent.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 May 2016 @ 11:30pm

Re:
What can you do that is legal, when criticising the government itself illegal?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rekrul, 6 May 2016 @ 11:36pm

Re:
The guy calls it "treason". Sorry, no, simply letting people see these images is not treason. If they think people thinking about this will cause unrest, then maybe they shouldn't have massacred all those people.

"Treason" is whatever the government wants it to be.
[ link to this | view in thread ]