Big data, for instance, is an invaluable resource for making predictions. Rather than limiting themselves to playing defense against opposition activity, PRC officials have employed digital technologies to monitor and control society, especially in the era of “big data,” artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT).īy leveraging information and resource asymmetries, state agencies and the companies that cooperate with them can turn these innovative technologies into tools for manipulating ordinary citizens. Xi has placed considerable emphasis on the concept of “internet sovereignty,” asserting the primacy of rules made by national governments and the authority of national-level regulators over web content and providers. Surveillance and intimidation are further supplemented by outright coercion, including police visits and arrests.Ĭhina’s current leader Xi Jinping, who ascended to the posts of PRC president and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary in 2012, has prioritized control over the information sphere in a bid to forestall challenges to the CCP’s legitimacy. Censorship and propaganda have gone hand in hand: Those who express unorthodox views online may become the subjects of targeted personal attacks in the state media. It has also increasingly combined an extensive physical infrastructure of surveillance and coercion with cutting-edge digital technologies. The Chinese government has set up a series of mechanisms aimed at asserting its dominance in cyberspace. Yet as the technologies that once promised to enable a free flow of information have spread, authorities have intensified their efforts to bend these systems to their own purposes. Between 19, he served as executive director of Human Rights in China, an NGO based in New York. He is also founder and editor-in-chief of the China Digital Times. Xiao Qiang is research scientist and director of the Counter-Power Lab at the University of California–Berkeley’s School of Information. Altogether, the agency reported, those using the internet in China numbered approximately eight-hundred million. cn country code), there were 29.7 million first-time internet users in China in the first part of that year. According to a mid-2018 estimate by the official China Internet Network Information Center (the body in charge of the. Over the last two decades, the use of internet and digital technologies in the PRC has been growing rapidly. In an environment where speech and access to information are heavily restricted, the internet has enabled citizens to get uncensored news, speak their minds, and even organize protests. Since the internet’s arrival in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1994, digital technologies have provided a critical channel of communication for Chinese citizens. In addition, officials are at work on a nationwide Social Credit System (SCS) intended to assess the conduct of every Chinese citizen. The new arsenal of the Chinese surveillance state includes mass video-surveillance projects incorporating facial-recognition technology voice-recognition software that can identify speakers on phone calls and a sweeping and intrusive program of DNA collection. Since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China has significantly increased controls over its already censored cyberspace-with a ruling that will allow jail terms for spreading “rumors” online, a cybersecurity law that will facilitate state control and data access, crackdowns on unauthorized VPN connections, and emphasis on the concept of “internet sovereignty.” At the same time, technological innovations in such areas as big-data analytics, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things are increasingly being harnessed to monitor the lives and activities of China’s 1.4 billion people.
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