
An analysis of censorship in Chinese open source projects - wslh
https://citizenlab.ca/2018/08/an-analysis-of-censorship-in-chinese-open-source-projects/
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forkLding
Speaking from what I know and have read, the Chinese govt. keeps things
intentionally ambiguous and doesn't directly apply censorship on Chinese web
apps and mobile apps like Wechat unless there is something critical or someone
popular is saying censored words. They however do issue instructions and
specific lists of social and political keywords that need to be censored,
although as noted by Citizen Lab, content critical of the govt. can still
exist which keeps things confusing.

Thus, what the Chinese govt. does instead is that they expect the companies to
self-censor by hiring their own censorship department or content moderation
department that includes political censorship to meet the Chinese govt.'s
censorship rules. As well, adding to this, the Chinese govt. usually only
establishes ambiguous guidelines that encompass wide range of things like can
not offend "Chinese culture" or "Socialist values" so that companies usually
over-enforce and over-censor to make sure they don't get fined or their
operating licence revoked. Essentially if they get fined or punished, either
the app/website shuts down because they can't meet the censorship standards or
they remove the users creating the offending material or change a lot of
things until they meet censorship standards (although they or the users
involved would likely still be "banned" for several years to make an example).

Citizen Lab also points out that censored keywords on different Chinese
corporate internet platforms differ likely due to the company's own approach
and censorship department. Quote: "We compare our dataset to previously
extracted keyword data from chat applications used in China and find very
limited keyword list overlap within SVPs and between other platforms. This
result substantiates previous findings that suggest companies are only given
general directives from authorities and have a degree of flexibility in the
implementation."

Thus the difference in the documents could largely be explained by the fact
that open-source projects from developers and companies follow the same
standards where company employees/content moderators or volunteer moderators
compile their own lists or the lists are compiled depending on company or
organization policy and purpose. Likely because these organizations do not
want to be fined or shut down due to breaking censorship.

References: [http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/10/china-the-art-of-
ce...](http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2010/10/china-the-art-of-censorship/)

[https://citizenlab.ca/2015/08/every-rose-has-its-
thorn/](https://citizenlab.ca/2015/08/every-rose-has-its-thorn/)

[https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003390/for-chinas-web-
platfo...](https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003390/for-chinas-web-
platforms%2C-the-future-is-sanitized)

[https://citizenlab.ca/2015/06/jason-q-ng-on-chinas-
censorshi...](https://citizenlab.ca/2015/06/jason-q-ng-on-chinas-censorship-
of-online-sexual-innuendo/)

[https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003310/the-people-paid-to-
he...](https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003310/the-people-paid-to-hear-pillow-
talk)

[http://www.sixthtone.com/news/751/internet-star-papi-
jiang-c...](http://www.sixthtone.com/news/751/internet-star-papi-jiang-
censored-for-foul-language)

[https://citizenlab.ca/2018/08/cant-picture-this-an-
analysis-...](https://citizenlab.ca/2018/08/cant-picture-this-an-analysis-of-
image-filtering-on-wechat-moments/)

[http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1000440/chinas-online-
multimed...](http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1000440/chinas-online-multimedia-
sector-bans-portrayal-of-homosexuality)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/21/china_pact/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/21/china_pact/)

[https://citizenlab.ca/2013/07/using-the-china-chats-
surveill...](https://citizenlab.ca/2013/07/using-the-china-chats-
surveillancecensorship-keyword-list-analyzing-blocked-terms-search-result-
numbers-and-overlaps-of-censored-terms-between-services/)

[http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001621/chinese-people-
trust-t...](http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001621/chinese-people-trust-their-
media-much-more-than-youd-think)

