DIGITAL CENSORSHIP IN CHINA CASE STUDY
Digital Censorship in China Case Study
Robert Roberts
Southern New Hampshire University
DIGITAL CENSORSHIP IN CHINA CASE STUDY
What would you recommend to Google's CEO about how to proceed? What are the
dangers involved in Google's current strategy?
Given Google's dependence on the Chinese market and the fact that their rivals have
already complied with Chinese laws, I think we must comply with their requests. To provide a
recommendation to the CEO, I'd advise finding another way to inform customers about the
Chinese government's limitations. As an alternative, customers may visit the site and be informed
that it is blocked in China, allowing all searches to return all results but restricting access. There
seems to be a trend in China toward making it harder for international companies such as
Google, Apple, and Facebook to operate there. For example, Google landed itself in hot water
back in 2010, "Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market
by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker
attacks," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the official as saying, but identifying the persor
only as being "in charge of the Internet bureau under the State Council Information Office" M.
(2010, March 23). This rendered them inaccessible now, and Google does not now have much
flexibility with China's laws.
However, google has been working on two projects since 2013. "Jigsaw's DDoS
protection service, Project Shield, is effectively preventing censorship-inspired DDoS attacks
and recently helped to repel an attack on Brian Krebs' blog Contributor, M. B. G. (2020, March
31). For good reason, we have been suspicious of foreign businesses' advances to the Chinese
market. Censorship in China has had minimal impact on global companies such as Apple and
LinkedIn. Others conceal their true intentions behind the language or technology they use. When
it comes to establishing a market presence, businesses often go to considerable efforts to meet
the government's requirements. Google has managed to differentiate itself from the pack in terms
DIGITAL CENSORSHIP IN CHINA CASE STUDY
of search results because of its history of attempting and failing in the Chinese market. Not
because they attempted and were unsuccessful, but because they did not attempt and were
censured.
Should companies like Cisco be concerned that their routers are being used to filter out
sensitive content in countries like China? Are they complicit in China's censorship regime?
Cisco, on the other hand, has every reason to be worried about the Chinese government
enforcing censorship measures via its routers. Human rights groups from all over the globe are
now pursuing Cisco for its role in China's censorship legislation, which should worry them.
Censorship is reportedly being used to increase router sales to China, with the promise of a
"Great Firewall" that would allow the Chinese government to impose restrictions on the content
of websites accessible from inside the nation. Cisco deserves the international condemnation it is
currently receiving because of its