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Vivian Wu

Three layers of censorship, numerous agencies  ensure Web is free of banned topics

The only explanation Beijing lawyer Pu Zhiqiang  received as to why three of his blogs were suddenly removed from the popular internet portal sohu.com was a vague message from a website administrator that 'it was ordered by authorities from above'.

Mr Pu has since  launched a fourth blog and registered six others. He created his first blog last year to post articles  about freedom of speech and publication, as well as to discuss contentious legal topics, but found many of the articles were quickly removed.

'Let's see how many blogs they can shut down without giving me a responsible explanation,' he said.

'I expect to be told what articles might irritate the 'invisible upper authorities', what censorship criteria are applied, and what prompted the removal of my blog containing all the articles - articles which should be regarded as my publications and deserve legal protection.'

But Mr Pu has had little luck uncovering the identities of the 'upper authorities'  or what criteria they are applying.

The term 'upper authorities' describes a secret labyrinthine world  of dozens of administrative  departments responsible for censoring the internet, particularly blogs. They censor the nation's online writers but offer bloggers no recourse  when their works are suppressed.

Even with the skyrocketing growth of blogs on the mainland - 17 million and counting by the end of last year -   the country's censors  maintain one of the harshest grips on content in the world.

Industry sources say  internet censorship is not  a  single barrier, but a multi-layered structure with messages and articles  undergoing at least three layers of  vetting by squadrons of internet police and officials from various administrative departments.

'Every day, up to 100,000 messages uploaded to sohu.com are deleted by internal censors,' said one blog editor at the site.

Content is initially checked by censorship software that looks for key words that are deemed offensive.

'Each website has a filtering engine which automatically filters and blocks messages containing sensitive key words,' he said.

This layer of vetting is usually apparent when a blogger cannot upload an article.

The second layer of restriction is conducted  by a special team of censorship editors who read all chat room messages and blog articles and delete any offensive content that the software fails to pick up.

'This layer of censorship is initiated when the filtering software cannot decide whether an article containing sensitive words is offensive. There are many words which may have a bad meaning depending on the context,' the editor explained.

Some of these words are gong chan dang (the party), zheng fu (the government or authorities), or Mao Zedong , and must be examined by editors.

He said articles containing such words were temporarily transferred to a database for individual checking by censors.  These editors might delete a piece because it is offensive or because they are in a bad mood or bored.

Articles with sensitive key words are then subjected to a third layer of censorship, which can be conducted by internet police officers, as well as officials from the Central Publicity Department, the State Council Information Office, the Ministry of Information Technology, or local communications administrations. All are authorised to censor at this level, and, conceivably, all could do it at the same time.

Officials are stationed onsite at the most popular portals  to monitor and 'co-operate' with the website's editors and ensure no offensive messages are published.

If an offensive article reaches this stage, administration officials will tell editors to delete it or remove the entire blog, as was the case with Mr Pu.

Websites must also abide by numerous administrative rules and regulations determining what internet service operators and their staff can and cannot do.

Censors working at sohu.com constantly receive updates on banned topics via their mobile phones and instant messaging tools, the sohu.com editor said.

The blocking process is based on criteria drafted by officials, but  in-house website editors are given nothing on which to  base decisions except a list of key words. Instructions to delete content are conveyed orally or covertly so there is no paper trail if bloggers complain about the removal of their work.

A website manager at a popular blog service said the list of banned words  was updated daily, sometimes within a single shift.

He said he received several e-mails daily from different administrations informing him about the latest key words, topics or events banned on the internet.

'I recently received an instruction saying [US President George W.] Bush had sent a Lunar New Year's greeting to Chinese migrant labourers, so the  characters for 'Bush', 'Chinese migrant labourers', and similar phrases were blocked.'

Peking University law professor He Weifang  said the mainland's internet industry was governed by too many administrative organs  eager to control and squeeze profits out of the industry.

Professor He said they could issue rules to govern content, but, generally,  there were no unified regulations and all the agencies could waive their responsibilities due to the lack of explicit legislation in the area.

The ability to arbitrarily exercise power over content gives censors extraordinary influence over the internet on the mainland, but the censors themselves 'live like rats', earning less than 3,000 yuan a month, according to one editor.

'Reading and deleting messages hour after hour, day after day, for little pay is menial work. Our faces are green from lack of sunshine and lack of self-respect,' the editor said.

'The internal censors have no  respect for their jobs. Deleting other people's blogs is like stealing. It's shameful and not worth talking about.'



Internet police keep tight grip on blogs