[Cens. in Place/Why] China has the most sophisticated and extensive internet censorship regime in the world. Known as the Great Firewall of China, the measures put in place are directed towards the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) continued hold on power and information control.
China maintains that it is preventing its citizens from accessing harmful material from many Western and foreign sources, including social media, media sharing, video streaming sites, and online gaming.
Authorities in China work to shut down sites and individuals that are dedicated to creating circumvention tools.
Authorities also monitor and detain individuals who have sought out content that contrasts with the CCP’s political views or seek to protest against government
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Additionally, connectivity speeds in China average less than 4 Mbps. Fluctuating load times or session time-outs indicate throttling done by Chinese government censorship.
[Circ. Tools Used] Circumvention tools used to defeat the Great Firewall include: proxy server programs (i.e. Lantern, FreeGate, and Ultrasurf), paid VPN services (i.e. VyprVPN and HideMyAss), packet routing software (Tor), and content delivery networks (FreeBrowser).
[Regulatory Agency] China’s primary internet and information regulatory agencies include the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television.
[Internet Pen. Rate] About 49% of the Chinese population has access to the internet.
China has nine state-run ISPs, and three state-run mobile telecoms companies, which work to create a monopoly in internet access and connectivity.
[Recent History] China shut down internet access for the Xinjiang province in 2009 after ethically charged riots left hundreds dead. Research conducted by Renesys suggests that an internet shut down of the entire country would not only be costly to China’s economy, but also less likely to happen given the government owned ISPs and access nodes within the