Internet Filtering in China in 2004 2005 

5. C

ONC LUSIO N

China makes a systematic, comprehensive, and frequently successful effort to limit the ability of 

its citizens to access and to post on line content the state considers sensitive.  At the level of legal 

regulation, China has a complex, overlapping system of laws, regulations, and informal methods that 

attempts to prevent the creation and distribution of banned material.  At the technological level, the state 

employs a sophisticated infrastructure that filters content at multiple levels and that tolerates 

overblocking as the price of preventing access to prohibited sites.  Importantly, China's filtering efforts 

lack transparency: the state does not generally admit to censoring Internet content, and concomitantly 

there is no list of banned sites and no ability for citizens to request reconsideration of blocking, as some 

other states that filter provide.  The topics defined as sensitive, or prohibited, by China's legal code are 

broad and non specific, and enforcement of laws such as the ban on spreading state secrets discourages 

citizens from testing the boundaries of these areas.  China's legal and technological systems combine to 

form a broad, potent, and effective means of controlling the information that Chinese users can see and 

share on the Internet. 

Moreover, the research we have conducted over several years   both individually as institutions 

and collectively as the ONI   demonstrates increasing sophistication of China's filtering regime.  Its 

filtering system has become at once more refined and comprehensive over time, building a matrix of 

controls that stifles access to information deemed illegitimate by authorities.  Considering that China's 

growing Internet population represents nearly half of all Internet users worldwide, and will soon overtake 

the United States as the single largest national group of Internet users, such extensive censorship should 

be of concern to all Internet users worldwide.  China's advanced filtering regime presents a model for 

other countries with similar interests in censorship to follow.  It has also shown a willingness to defend 

and even promote the principles of its filtering regime to international venues governing global 

communications, such as the World Summit of the Information Society.   While there can be legitimate 

debates about whether democratization and liberalization are taking place in China's economy and 

government, there is no doubt that neither is taking place in China's Internet environment today. 

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