Effects Of Media Censorship In China

Introduction:

This report talks about media censorship in China. It informs readers about how media is controlled in China, what effect it has on the people and how people have adapted to the idea. The report will also discuss the positive and negative aspects of media censorship. The report will focus mainly on internet media

Issues and Background to the debate:

What is the Issue and what started the debate around this issue?

The issue is that media in China has been under strong censorship ever since the Chinese Communist Party came into power. Information and news available to citizens is limited to what the government thinks is appropriate for them to know. But then, media Censorship is a direct violation to the freedom of expression.

The

People in China are restricted on the kind of posts they can put up on social media. Anti-government posts are deleted as soon as noticed. On Weibo, the Chinese version of Facebook, any posts that are anti-government in nature or that are calling for collective protests of all sorts are deleted and depending on the severity of the post, the person may have suspended internet or could even be jailed.

Censorship in china is violating people's right to information by simply hiding valid information. Baidu, China's version of Google is known to simply hide facts about events and leaders. When Tiananmen Square (Where the pro democratic protests occurred in 1989) is searched on Baidu, the only information provided with tourist related facts or general information about it. Information about The Tiananmen square incident of 1989 is completely non-existent on the search engine. Hence the general population that would have tried searching about it, will learn nothing through Baidu and the only way to find out would be through other people, which could be unreliable in factual terms. (Margolis,

Strict censorship policies has led to a decline in the number of websites. This has lowered competition levels and in turn increased traffic on SOHU and SINA, hence increasing their revenues (Rapoza, 2011)

According to Kaifu Lee, Founder of Innovation Works, censorship can provide a structure to assure local technology firms. His opinion is that censorship will avert competition from other international competitors. Bill Bishop, editor of Sinocism also has similar views. He says that if it wasn't for the Great Firewall, some of the services in China would either cease to exist or have very low market shares. (Bao, 2013)

Conclusion

In a nutshell, this report talks about how media censorship affects the Chinese society. There are two differing opinions to this, the first one sides on the disadvantages of media censorship and the second one, the advantages of it. Although both opinions are definite in nature, more research needs to be