Father Of The Great Firewall Defends Chinese Internet Censorship By Noting The US Does The Same Thing

from the not-quite...-but... dept

The LA Times points us to a fascinating (English-language) interview with the guy in China credited with creating that country's Great Firewall censorship system, named Fang Binxing. The interview has a bunch of interesting nuggets -- including the fact that he has 5 VPN accounts to get around his own Great Firewall. Though, to be fair, he insists that those VPNs are for research only, to make sure the Great Firewall is doing what it's supposed to do.

The report also notes that Fang appears to be widely hated throughout China. When he recently joined a Twitter-like Chinese "microblogging" clone, he was immediately attacked by angry citizens who hate the Great Firewall. I actually find this admission quite fascinating, because the Chinese government, for many years, has tried to spin things to the rest of the world by claiming that most Chinese appreciated the censorship, because it kept them focused/less distracted/less subjected to dumb TV. However, Fang's admission suggests a lot of people are not at all happy about the Great Firewall.

But, the most interesting point of all is how he defends the Great Firewall by claiming that pretty much every other country -- including the US -- does something similar:

Such a firewall is a "common phenomenon around the world," he argues, and nor is China alone in monitoring and controlling the Internet.

"As far as I know, about 180 countries including South Korea and the US monitor the Internet as well."

Of course, "monitoring" the internet, and totally censoring it are two very different things. Still, this does highlight a point we've made a few times around here. Every time the US does something that appears to weaken freedom of speech or set up some sort of censorship system like COICA, we have less and less credibility or leverage when it comes to other countries and trying to convince them not to censor online services.

Filed Under: china, fang binxing, great firewall