Digital Surveillance in China: From the Great Firewall to the social credit system

Winnie Soon | 24.Jan.2017Aarhus Universitywww.siusoon.net

Research perspective as a Hong Kongese…

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Share a similar language system (the same base Chinese alphabet)…

Digital Surveillance in China

https://www.apc.org/en/node/14821

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Initiative on social-credit system

Internet Penetration in China and key milestones on technological development/related policies

real nameRegistration+ enhanced VPN blocking

join meetingabout social creditssystem at provincial levelThe term “Great Firewall”

was coined

Initiative on Golden Shield Project

Golden Shield Project in operation

Launched Google.cn

Guidelines on social-credit system

Target completion of social-credit system

Google.cn redirected to HK

Online Publishing Services Permit + ICP licence

Clean up campaign on unauthorized VPN providers

Michel de Certeau (1984)The Practice of Everyday Life

[A] tactic is determined by the absence of power just as a strategy is organized by the postulation of power.

(De Certeau, 1984, p. 38. Italics in original)

Strategies are operations:

- Defining how things work/operate (such as law, policy, firewall creation)

- Regarding Internet as an institutional space of authority- Allowing work to build upon previous work (De Certeau, 1984, p.

xix)

Tactics are resistance acts:

- Resistance stems from daily life practice- Tactics are improvisational and opportunistic (De Certeau, 1984,

p. xix)- Tactical practices operate within “the space of the other” (De

Certeau, 1984, p. xix)- Creative consumption- “A tactic is an art of the weak” (De Certeau, 1984, p. 37).

China’s state law - 1996Measures on the Regulation of Public Computer Networks and the Internet

Article 10: …No unit or individual may use the Internet to retrieve, replicate, create, or transmit information that harms national security, threatens social stability ….

Strategies…

China’s state law - 1996Temporary Regulations Governing Computer Information Networks and the Internet

No. 195: The State is in charge of overall planning, national standardization, graded control, and the development of all areas related to the Internet.

... No group or individual may establish or utilize any other means to gain Internet access.

The Golden Shield Project (2003 – present)Operated by the Ministry of Public Security

Controlling the flow of information through a censorship system, including:

• IP blocking• DNS Filtering and Redirection• URL and Packet Filtering• VPN/SSH Traffic Recognition• Speech and Face recognition

Strategies…

China Channel, 2008 | by Aram Bartholl, Evan Roth and Tobias Leingruber[Browser add-on]

Tactics…

CANNOT (2010) by Winnie Soon[5x Digital prints with screen shots]

Tactics…

Hundred degree can not search your thirty degree smile, 2016 by Miao Ying

LAN Love Poem-Holding a kitchen knife cut internet cable, a road with lightning sparks, 2014 by Miao Ying

Flowers all fallen, Birds far gone, 2015 by Miao Ying

LAN Love Poem-To be Missed is Another kind of Beauty, 2014 by Miao Ying

>> Interview with Ying Miao: https://vimeo.com/162455923

Tactics…

The Golden Shield Project (2003- present)Operated by the Ministry of Public Security

It is more than a mere technological project:

- Not only to control the access of ‘foreign’ information - But also discover the need to censor local contents (user generated

content) e.g P2P and internal/local servers

Strategies…

The Golden Shield Project (2003- present)Operated by the Ministry of Public Security

It is more than a mere technological project:

- Not only to control the access of ‘foreign’ information - But also discover the need to censor local contents (user generated

content) e.g P2P and internal/local servers

> 50-cent party members to influence Internet discussion> A culture of self-censorship (from individuals to companies)> Internet policing (estimated to contain over 200,000 workers)

Strategies…

Strategies…

http://firstmonday.org/article/view/2378/2089

Censored Censorship, 2010 | by Kim Asendorf[Net Art]

Tactics…

Weiboscope (2011-present) and WeChatscope (under pilot study) by Fu King Wa and his team @ HKU

Tactics…

Tactics are procedures that gain validity in relation to the pertinence they lend to time-to the circumstances which the precise instant of an intervention transforms into a favorable situation, to the rapidity of the movements that change the organization of a space, to the relations among successive moments in actions, to the possible intersections of durations and heterogeneous rhythms, etc.

(De Certeau, 1984, p. 38)

Specific event: Tiananmen Square Protest | 1989

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxDd82Myqis

Censored from sina weibo during 2013 - 2014

Tactics…

4.6.2016

Tactics…

//点 // // 点 // / 点 ///人 //

//点 // // 点 // / 点 ///人 //

4.6.2016

Tactics…

占占点占占人占点占6+4 6+4

8的平方 square of eight

viiv viiv (Roman numerals 6 and 4)

65-1 65-1

五四 +一个月 May Fourth + one month

https://qz.com/698990/261-ways-to-refer-to-the-tiananmen-square-massacre-in-china/

Strategies…

Sensitive keywords

What will happen soon?

Social Credit System(2020)

“construct a social credit environment of sincerity, self-discipline, trust-keeping and mutual trust.”

(State Council, 2014)

Social Credit System(2020)

Basic info:Official announcement: 2014 Target implementation: 2020 Citizen: 1.3 billion+ Identification: credit/citizen score (based on id number)Coverage: Individual, companies and institutions (*sectoral credit information systems)

Scope of the system:Politics, Business, Society, Justice

Consequences:Rewards: incentivise trust-keeping (*rewards for reporting individuals)Punishment: punish trust-breaking (*establish blacklist systems, market withdrawal mechanisms, policy support, administrative approval, public service market access etc)

Black Mirror: Nose Dive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgLYHM6evt8&t=34m20s

Key insights:

- Tactics are resistance acts, emerging from every day practice and accompanying by the asymmetrical balance of power.

- Tactics are targeted, capturing the opportunistic time/space.- An urgency to develop an archive of tactical practices (in relation to

digital surveillance in China).

Ref:• Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System (2014-2020):

https://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/planning-outline-for-the-construction-of-a-social-credit-system-2014-2020/

• Government Requests Report (Facebook): https://govtrequests.facebook.com/• State Council releases guidelines on establishing individual credit system:

http://english.gov.cn/policies/latest_releases/2016/12/30/content_281475528903041.htm • A brief history of China’s campaign to enforce real-name registration online:

https://www.techinasia.com/history-chinas-campaign-enforce-realname-registration-online • Annual Report on the Development of China’s Special Economic Zone (2016)• Measurers on the regulation of public computer networks and the Internet (1996):

http://www.asianlii.org/cn/legis/cen/laws/motropcnati718/ • A history of Google in China:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/faf86fbc-0009-11df-8626-00144feabdc0.html?ft_site=falcon#axzz4VwNKKQR5

• Miao Ying: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2015/jul/08/artist-profile-miao-ying/• Background of Jun fourth: https://botanwang.com/node/10883• China’s Golden Shield: Is Cisco Systems Complicit? http

://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2015/03/china%E2%80%99s-golden-shield-cisco-systems-complicit

• China Imposes Broad New Restrictions on Publication of Internet Content: http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=fa85e3a8-21d4-445c-85bb-2d7b66b57262

• China’s Censorship 2.0: How companies censor bloggers by Rebecca Mackinnon http://firstmonday.org/article/view/2378/2089

• 工业和信息化部关于清理规范互联网网络接入服务市场的通知 : http://www.miit.gov.cn/n1146295/n1652858/n1652930/n3757020/c5471946/content.html

Appendix

http://video.eblcu.cn/cls/201103/course/3-1/img/4.jpg

Pictorial Chinese Characters…

People

Tactics…

Weibo Credit(2011-present)

[Weibo, social media]

Strategies…

Sesame Credit Scores(2015-present)

[Payment App]

Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate of the Chinese Alibaba Group

Strategies…

Social Credit System(2014-2020)

“All levels’ People’s Governments must first and foremost strengthen their own sincerity construction, and drive the establishment of an sincerity consciousness in all of society and an increase in the levels of sincerity through honest governing by governments. Take the lead in using credit information and credit products in administrative permission, government procurement, tendering and budding, labour and employment, social security, scientific research management, cadre promotion and appointment, management and supervision, application for government financial support and other such areas, and foster the development of a credit services market.” (State Council Notice, 2014)

Strategies…

Social Credit System(2014-2020)

“When people's behavior isn't bound by their morality, a system must be used to restrict their actions”

- Chinese Academy of Social Science, 2015

“Especially given the speed of the digital economy it is crucial that people can quickly verify each other’s creditworthiness. The behavior of the majority is determined by their world of thoughts. A person who believes in socialist core values, is behaving more decent.”

- Professor Wang Shuqin, 2015

“It is clearly an attempt to create a new citizen”

-Researcher Rogier Creemers, 2015

Strategies…

Recording the individual credit records

Improving individual information security

Promoting sharing of individual credit information

Perfecting the incentive and punishment mechanisms of individual credit (e.g joint punishment)

Guidelines of the social credit system (2016)

http://english.gov.cn/policies/latest_releases/2016/12/30/content_281475528903041.htmhttp://www.chinalawtranslate.com/creditmechanisms/?lang=en