In a game of cat and mouse, some Chinese have still found ways around censorship, only to have the government respond with new screening technologies. Traditionally, China’s army of censors have used word-screening software to identify objectionable content on social media, so some people began posting photos or videos (rather than text) as a way around that. In response, cyber police seem to have developed the ability to delete photos from social media chats in real time as they’re being transmitted.
This suggests that the government has developed software to do this screening, rather than relying on human censors, according to Citizen Lab, a human-rights research group that tracks internet censorship. And that has some people concerned.
“If you hire a million network police, it still wouldn’t be enough to filter 1.4 billion people’s messages,” Bao Pu, a Hong Kong-based publisher, told the Wall Street Journal. “But if you have a machine doing it, it can instantly block everything.”
With China’s population becoming increasingly internet-savvy, some wonder whether China’s attempt to control the web can ultimately succeed.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” says Parker, the internet expert. “I think China is cracking down on the internet because they understand how powerful—and how potentially threatening—the internet is.”