The complicated relationship between Chinese Internet users and their government

by David Herold 01/08/2013

Chinese citizens are being encouraged by the government to engage and complain online. Is the Internet just a space to blow off steam, or is it really capable of ‘changing’ Chinese society, as many have assumed?

by David Herold 01/08/2013

David: For our research, we surveyed postgraduate students from all over China who had come to Shanghai to study. We asked them five questions to which they provided mostly rather lengthy answers. Despite them being young university students and being very active online, their answers managed to surprise us. Notably, the young Chinese who took part in our research felt very ambiguous about the Internet and its supposed benefits for individual people in China. They appreciated the greater freedom the Internet offered when compared to offline China, but were very wary of others abusing this freedom to their detriment. Ed: In your paper you note that the opinions of many young people closely mirrored those of the government’s statements about the Internet—in what way? David: In 2010 the government published a White Paper on the Internet in China in which they argued that the main uses of the Internet were for obtaining information, and for communicating with others. In contrast to Euro-American discourses around the Internet as a ‘force for democracy,’ the students’ answers to our questions agreed with the evaluation of the government and did not see the Internet as a place to begin organising politically. The main reason for this—in my opinion—is that young Chinese are not used to discussing ‘politics’, and are mostly focused on pursuing the ‘Chinese dream’: good job, large flat or house, nice car, suitable spouse; usually in that order. Ed: The Chinese Internet has usually been discussed in the West as a ‘force for democracy’—leading to the inevitable relinquishing of control by the Chinese Communist Party. Is this viewpoint hopelessly naive? David: Not naive as such, but both deterministic and limited, as it assumes that the introduction of technology can only have one ‘built-in’ outcome, thus ignoring human agency, and as it pretends that the Chinese Communist Party does not use technology at all. Given the intense involvement of Party and government offices,…

Politics & Government

Chinese Internet users share the same values concerning free speech, privacy, and control as their Western counterparts

by Gillian Bolsover 17/07/2013

Many people—even in China—see the Internet as a tool for free speech and as a place where you can expect a certain degree of privacy and anonymity.

by Gillian Bolsover 17/07/2013

There are now over half a billion Internet users in China, part of a shift in the centre of gravity of Internet use away from the US and Europe. Image of Pudong International Airport, Shanghai, by ToGa Wanderings.

Ed: You recently presented your results at the OII’s China and the New Internet World ICA preconference. What were people most interested in? Gillian: A lot of people were interested in our finding that China was such a big online shopping market compared to other countries, with 60% of our survey respondents reporting that they make an online purchase at least weekly. That’s twice the world’s average. A lot of people who study the Chinese Internet talk about governance issues rather than commerce, but the fact that there is this massive investment in ecommerce in China and a rapid transition to a middle class lifestyle for such a large number of Chinese means that Chinese consumer behaviours will have a significant impact on global issues such as resource scarcity, global warming, and the global economy. Others were interested in our findings concerning Internet use in ’emerging’ Internet countries like China. The Internet’s development in Western Europe and the US was driven by people who saw the technology as a platform for freedom of expression and peer-to-peer applications. In China, you see this optimism but you also see that a lot of people coming online move straight to smart phones and other locked-down technologies like the iPad, which you can only interact with in a certain way. Eighty-six percent of our Chinese respondents reported that they owned a smart phone, which was the highest percentage of all of the 24 countries we examined individually. A lot of these people are using those devices to play games and watch movies, which is a very different initial exposure to the Internet than we saw in early adopting Western countries. Ed: So, a lot of significant differences between usages in emerging versus established Internet nations. Any similarities? Gillian: In general, we find that uses are different but values are similar. People in emerging nations share the same values concerning free speech, privacy, and control…

Politics & Government

Is China changing the Internet, or is the Internet changing China?

by Bill Dutton 12/07/2013

By 2015, the proportion of Chinese language Internet users is expected to exceed the proportion of English language users.

by Bill Dutton 12/07/2013

The rising prominence of China is one of the most important developments shaping the Internet. Once typified primarily by Internet users in the US, there are now more Internet users in China than there are Americans on the planet. By 2015, the proportion of Chinese language Internet users is expected to exceed the proportion of English language users. These are just two aspects of a larger shift in the centre of gravity of Internet use, in which the major growth is increasingly taking place in Asia and the rapidly developing economies of the Global South, and the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India—and China. The 2013 ICA Preconference “China and the New Internet World” (14 July 2013), organised by the OII in collaboration with many partners at collaborating universities, explored the issues raised by these developments, focusing on two main interrelated questions: how is the rise of China reshaping the global use and societal implications of the Internet? And in turn, how is China itself being reshaped by these regional and global developments? As China has become more powerful, much attention has been focused on the number of Internet users: China now represents the largest group of Internet users in the world, with over half a billion people online. But how the Internet is used is also important; this group doesn’t just include passive ‘users’, it also includes authors, bloggers, designers and architects—that is, people who shape and design values into the Internet. This input will undoubtedly affect the Internet going forward, as Chinese institutions take on a greater role in shaping the Internet, in terms of policy, such as around freedom of expression and privacy, and practice, such as social and commercial uses, like shopping online. Most discussion of the Internet tends to emphasise technological change and ignore many aspects of the social changes that accompany the Internet’s evolution, such as this dramatic global shift in the concentration of…

Development

The scramble for Africa’s data

by Linnet Taylor 08/07/2013 1 Comment

As Africa goes digital, the challenge for policymakers becomes moving from digitisation to managing and curating digital data in ways that keep people’s identities and activities secure.

by Linnet Taylor 08/07/2013 1 Comment

Africa is in the midst of a technological revolution, and the current wave of digitisation has the potential to make the continent’s citizens a rich mine of data. Intersection in Zomba, Malawi. Image by john.duffell.

After the last decade’s exponential rise in ICT use, Africa is fast becoming a source of big data. Africans are increasingly emitting digital information with their mobile phone calls, internet use and various forms of digitised transactions, while on a state level e-government starts to become a reality. As Africa goes digital, the challenge for policymakers becomes what the WRR, a Dutch policy organisation, has identified as ‘i-government’: moving from digitisation to managing and curating digital data in ways that keep people’s identities and activities secure. On one level, this is an important development for African policymakers, given that accurate information on their populations has been notoriously hard to come by and, where it exists, has not been shared. On another, however, it represents a tremendous challenge. The WRR has pointed out the unpreparedness of European governments, who have been digitising for decades, for the age of i-government. How are African policymakers, as relative newcomers to digital data, supposed to respond? There are two possible scenarios. One is that systems will develop for the release and curation of Africans’ data by corporations and governments, and that it will become possible, in the words of the UN’s Global Pulse initiative, to use it as a ‘public good’—an invaluable tool for development policies and crisis response. The other is that there will be a new scramble for Africa: a digital resource grab that may have implications as great as the original scramble amongst the colonial powers in the late 19th century. We know that African data is not only valuable to Africans. The current wave of digitisation has the potential to make the continent’s citizens a rich mine of data about health interventions, human mobility, conflict and violence, technology adoption, communication dynamics and financial behaviour, with the default mode being for this to happen without their consent or involvement, and without ethical and normative frameworks to ensure data protection or to weigh…

Governance & Security

Time for debate about the societal impact of the Internet of Things

by Jeremy Crump 22/04/2013

As the cost and size of devices falls and network access becomes ubiquitous, it is evident that not only major industries but whole areas of consumption, public service and domestic life will be capable of being transformed.

by Jeremy Crump 22/04/2013

The 2nd Annual Internet of Things Europe 2010: A Roadmap for Europe, 2010. Image by Pierre Metivier.

On 17 April 2013, the US Federal Trade Commission published a call for inputs on the ‘consumer privacy and security issues posed by the growing connectivity of consumer devices, such as cars, appliances, and medical devices’, in other words, about the impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) on the everyday lives of citizens. The call is in large part one for information to establish what the current state of technology development is and how it will develop, but it also looks for views on how privacy risks should be weighed against potential societal benefits. There’s a lot that’s not very new about the IoT. Embedded computing, sensor networks and machine to machine communications have been around a long time. Mark Weiser was developing the concept of ubiquitous computing (and prototyping it) at Xerox PARC in 1990. Many of the big ideas in the IoT—smart cars, smart homes, wearable computing—are already envisaged in works such as Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital, which was published in 1995 before the mass popularisation of the internet itself. The term ‘Internet of Things’ has been around since at least 1999. What is new is the speed with which technological change has made these ideas implementable on a societal scale. The FTC’s interest reflects a growing awareness of the potential significance of the IoT, and the need for public debate about its adoption. As the cost and size of devices falls and network access becomes ubiquitous, it is evident that not only major industries but whole areas of consumption, public service and domestic life will be capable of being transformed. The number of connected devices is likely to grow fast in the next few years. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that while a family with two teenagers may have 10 devices connected to the internet, in 2022 this may well grow to 50 or more. Across the OECD area the number of…

Collective Action, Governance & Security, Publications

Papers on Policy, Activism, Government and Representation: New Issue of Policy and Internet

by David Sutcliffe 16/01/2013

Investigating the relationship between Internet-based applications and data and the policy process.

by David Sutcliffe 16/01/2013

We are pleased to present the combined third and fourth issue of Volume 4 of Policy and Internet. It contains eleven articles, each of which investigates the relationship between Internet-based applications and data and the policy process. The papers have been grouped into the broad themes of policy, government, representation, and activism. POLICY: In December 2011, the European Parliament Directive on Combating the Sexual Abuse, Sexual Exploitation of Children and Child Pornography was adopted. The directive’s much-debated Article 25 requires Member States to ensure the prompt removal of child pornography websites hosted in their territory and to endeavor to obtain the removal of such websites hosted outside their territory. Member States are also given the option to block access to such websites to users within their territory. Both these policy choices have been highly controversial and much debated; Karel Demeyer, Eva Lievens, and Jos Dumortie analyse the technical and legal means of blocking and removing illegal child sexual content from the Internet, clarifying the advantages and drawbacks of the various policy options. Another issue of jurisdiction surrounds government use of cloud services. While cloud services promise to render government service delivery more effective and efficient, they are also potentially stateless, triggering government concern over data sovereignty. Kristina Irion explores these issues, tracing the evolution of individual national strategies and international policy on data sovereignty. She concludes that data sovereignty presents national governments with a legal risk that can’t be addressed through technology or contractual arrangements alone, and recommends that governments retain sovereignty over their information. While the Internet allows unprecedented freedom of expression, it also facilitates anonymity and facelessness, increasing the possibility of damage caused by harmful online behaviour, including online bullying. Myoung-Jin Lee, Yu Jung Choi, and Setbyol Choi investigate the discourse surrounding the introduction of the Korean Government’s “Verification of Identity” policy, which aimed to foster a more responsible Internet culture by mandating registration of a user’s real…

Politics & Government, Publications

New issue of Policy and Internet (2,3)

by David Sutcliffe 04/11/2010

We are pleased to present five articles focusing on substantive public policy issues arising from widespread use of the Internet.

by David Sutcliffe 04/11/2010

Welcome to the third issue of Policy & Internet for 2010. We are pleased to present five articles focusing on substantive public policy issues arising from widespread use of the Internet: regulation of trade in virtual goods; development of electronic government in Korea; online policy discourse in UK elections; regulatory models for broadband technologies in the US; and alternative governance frameworks for open ICT standards. Three of the articles are the first to be published from the highly successful conference ‘Internet, Politics and Policy’ held by the journal in Oxford, 16th-17th September 2010. You may access any of the articles below at no charge. Helen Margetts: Editorial Vili Lehdonvirta and Perttu Virtanen: A New Frontier in Digital Content Policy: Case Studies in the Regulation of Virtual Goods and Artificial Scarcity Joon Hyoung Lim: Digital Divides in Urban E-Government in South Korea: Exploring Differences in Municipalities’ Use of the Internet for Environmental Governance Darren G. Lilleker and Nigel A. Jackson: Towards a More Participatory Style of Election Campaigning: The Impact of Web 2.0 on the UK 2010 General Election Michael J. Santorelli: Regulatory Federalism in the Age of Broadband: A U.S. Perspective Laura DeNardis: E-Governance Policies for Interoperability and Open Standards

Conferences

Internet, Politics, Policy 2010: Closing keynote by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

by Professor Tobias Escher 17/09/2010

What he sees at stake is power because of the permanent threat of our activities are being watched by others—not necessarily now but possibly even in the future—can result in altering our behaviour today.

by Professor Tobias Escher 17/09/2010

Our two-day conference is coming to a close with a keynote by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger who is soon to be joining the faculty of the Oxford Internet Institute as Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation. Viktor talked about the theme of his recent book “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age” (a webcast of this keynote will be available soon on the OII website but you can also listen to a previous talk here). It touches on many of the recent debates about information that has been published on the web in some context and which might suddenly come back to us in a completely different context, e.g. when applying for a job and being confronted with some drunken picture of us obtained from Facebook. Viktor puts that into a broad perspective, contrasting the two themes of “forgetting” and “remembering”. He convincingly argues how for most of human history, forgetting has been the default. This state of affairs has experienced quite a dramatic change with the advances of the computer technology, data storage and information retrieval technologies available on a global information infrastructure. Now remembering is the default as most of the information stored digitally is available forever and in multiple places. What he sees at stake is power because of the permanent threat of our activities are being watched by others—not necessarily now but possibly even in the future—can result in altering our behaviour today. What is more, he says that without forgetting it is hard for us to forgive as we deny us and others the possibility to change. No matter to what degree you are prepared to follow the argument, the most intriguing question is how the current state of remembering could be changed to forgetting. Viktor discusses a number of ideas that pose no real solution: privacy rights – don’t go very far in changing actual behaviour information ecology – the idea to store only as much…

Environment, Publications

New issue of Policy and Internet (2,2)

by David Sutcliffe 19/08/2010

We are pleased to present six articles which investigate the role of the Internet in a wide range of policy processes and sectors.

by David Sutcliffe 19/08/2010

Welcome to the second issue of Policy & Internet for 2010! We are pleased to present six articles which investigate the role of the Internet in a wide range of policy processes and sectors: agenda setting in online and traditional media; environmental policy networks; online deliberation on climate change; data protection and privacy; net neutrality; and digital inclusion/exclusion. You may access any of the articles below at no charge. Helen Margetts: Editorial Ben Sayre, Leticia Bode, Dhavan Shah, Dave Wilcox, and Chirag Shah: Agenda Setting in a Digital Age: Tracking Attention to California Proposition 8 in Social Media, Online News and Conventional News Kathleen McNutt and Adam Wellstead: Virtual Policy Networks in Forestry and Climate Change in the U.S. and Canada: Government Nodality, Internationalisation and Actor Complexity Julien Talpin and Stéphanie Wojcik: Deliberating Environmental Policy Issues: Comparing the Learning Potential of Online and Face-To-Face Discussions on Climate Change Andrew A. Adams, Kiyoshi Murata, and Yohko Orito: The Development of Japanese Data Protection Scott Jordan: The Application of Net Neutrality to Wireless Networks Based on Network Architecture Alison Powell, Amelia Bryne, and Dharma Dailey: The Essential Internet: Digital Exclusion in Low-Income American Communities