麻豆传媒

CHINA鈥檚 system of 鈥減orous censorship鈥�, as Margaret Roberts puts it in her groundbreaking book, is more sophisticated and effective than is generally recognised. As a result, it fosters, at least on the surface, a surprisingly 鈥淲estern鈥� digital experience.

The Chinese party-state carefully supervises the discussion of 鈥渟ensitive鈥� topics, information about corruption and world views that might erode support for the regime or mobilise hostile collective action.

Yet the abundance of messages circulating daily online renders complete control of the internet unfeasible. Even if such control were achievable, no one would want it. At best, it would stifle economic and creative activity; at worst, it would prompt a destabilising social backlash.

So the party-state has developed a system to nudge citizens away from disagreeable information sharing, networking and activism. It hasn鈥檛 always operated smoothly: malfeasant officials have been exposed and the nuclear option of denying internet access to entire provinces has been required twice since 2009. It has, nonetheless, proved remarkably effective.

With colleagues聽 and Gary King, Roberts is responsible for some of the most methodologically sophisticated research conducted on the Chinese internet. In Censored, she provides a compelling but accessible account of this work, underpinned by surveys, experiments, analyses of social media data and close readings of propaganda directives.

鈥淰isible censorship only increases the number of people attempting to access real information鈥�

Her model of Chinese censorship rests on three pillars: fear, friction and flooding.

Credibly threatening punishment for the hundreds of millions of users sharing billions of messages every day is unrealistic, and the party-state doesn鈥檛 try. Its fear tactics target activists, online opinion leaders, journalists and academics, who are significantly more likely to be punished for 鈥渉arming the interests of the nation鈥� or 鈥渄isturbing social order鈥� than are regular users acting the same way.

For the masses, friction and flooding increase the cost of accessing information. Friction methods impose small inconveniences, from slow loading speeds and unfriendly web design to content blocking via the Great Firewall (easily circumvented by the determined). All of these reroute people to safe digital spaces by playing on their impatience and apathy.

Flooding, meanwhile, masks disagreeable information through the coordinated production and dissemination by both bots and humans of countervailing messages. These divert, dilute and distort any emergent discourse. Where public suspicions are raised, the blame can always be laid at the door of a faulty algorithm or the zealotry of a particular partisan.

Plausible deniability is important because, as Roberts shows, visible censorship only attracts attention and increases the number of people attempting to access real information. It also tends to stifle online discussion, which, in the absence of meaningful elections, is a crucial gauge of public opinion.

These tactics are likely to become ever more effective as digital surveillance is personalised, making it possible to administer to each user an appropriate dose of fear, friction and flooding.

Although it wears Roberts鈥檚 deep knowledge lightly, Censored represents the current state of the art in Chinese internet studies. Roberts also makes a convincing case for the relevance of China鈥檚 experience, often dismissed as too idiosyncratic for meaningful comparison. As other regimes, including some democracies, look with increasing interest to China鈥檚 sophisticated system of information management and its concept of 鈥渋nternet sovereignty鈥�, this book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the free flow of information.

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This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淲arning: diversion ahead鈥�