Internet Filtering in China in 2004 2005
investigate alleged violations.
66
Beginning in 2000, China required ISPs to track their users' account
numbers, when users are online, and the sites customers visit.
67
ISPs must maintain detailed logs on
subscribers' Internet usage for 60 days, and can be held responsible if their customers use the ISP's
systems to violate laws.
68
Because of these laws, ISPs often implement their own monitoring and
censoring functions, further limiting subscribers' access to information.
69
d. Cybercafes
While many Chinese citizens, especially in major cities, have home broadband or dial up Internet
connections, a substantial number of users continue to visit cybercafes only some of which are licensed
that have become plentiful in recent years.
70
China periodically increases its supervision of Internet
cafes, which are known as Net bars or wangba.
71
In 2001, the State Council conducted a three month
investigation into public Internet providers, closing over 8,000 Internet cafes.
72
Police installed filtering
software to block pornography and other harmful information at roughly 5,000 cafes in Liaoning
province alone.
73
Government regulation and surveillance of cybercafes increased dramatically following
a fire in a Beijing cybercafe in 2002; subsequently, the state shut down 150,000 unlicensed cybercafes.
74
China continues to scrutinize and shut down cybercafes. Between October and December 2004, China
closed over 12,000 Internet cafes in a wave of increased enforcement, targeting in particular those located
near primary and middle schools.
75
Children under age 16 are banned from cybercafes,
76
where customers
often play violent video games.
77
All cafes are required to install software that blocks Web sites purportedly containing
pornographic or subversive content.
78
Cafes must keep detailed logs linking users to the pages they
visited and recording access to any blocked pages; these records are reported to the Public Security
66
Human Rights Watch, Freedom of Expression and the Internet in China.
67
State Council, Administration of Internet Information Service Procedures, September 2000; Human Rights Watch,
Freedom of Expression and the Internet in China.
68
Human Rights Watch, Freedom of Expression and the Internet in China.
69
Human Rights Watch, Freedom of Expression and the Internet in China.
70
In November 2004, China reported inspecting 1.8 million cybercafes. Xinhua News Agency, China Closes 1,600
Internet Cafes in Six Months, Xinhua Economic News Service, Nov. 1, 2004.
71
See Wangba Crusade, Red Herring.
72
Human Rights Watch, Freedom of Expression and the Internet in China.
73
Human Rights Watch, Freedom of Expression and the Internet in China.
74
Alfred Hermida, Behind China's Internet Red Firewall, BBC News Online, Sept. 3, 2002, at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2234154.stm.
75
Associated Press, China Shuts Internet Cafes, The Guardian, Feb. 15, 2005, at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1414734,00.html.
76
China Gets Tough on Cyber Cafes, BBC News World Edition, Dec. 27, 2002, at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia pacific/2608305.stm.
77
Wangba Crusade, Red Herring, Feb. 17, 2005, at http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=11300.
78
Hermida, Behind China's Internet Red Firewall.
11