If you’re looking for Orwell’s 1984, go to China
I’ve commented a number of times here on the efforts of the Chinese government to control its population via the internet through control of the Weibo instant messaging app, or the four thousand censors working round the clock to monitor the activities of the country’s estimated three hundred million users, as well as the fact that the Chinese authorities employ more people to censor the internet than are enrolled in its impressive army.
Now, a new study published by three Harvard teachers, Gary King, Jennifer Pan and Margaret Roberts called “How censorship in China allows government criticism but silences collective expression”, which has already prompted extensive comment, paints a truly disturbing picture: each year, government employees dedicate part of their time to publishing no less than 488 million false updates on social media and other networks that they are paid fifty cents a piece for, earning them the bon mot of the Fifty Cent Party.
The updates are designed to distract attention from questions that could be damaging to the image of the authorities and in general to keep public opinion behind the decisions of the Chinese Communist Party. Contrary to what was initially thought, the job of the censors is not to censor criticism of the government per se, but instead to counter any attempts to organize people, regardless of their activities or beliefs. This practice is known as astroturfing, an activity that involves simulating the presence of a large number of people who support an idea or initiative, and which has been carried to its maximum potential by Beijing.
This is the nightmare vision created by George Orwell back in 1949 in his brilliant novel “Nineteen eighty-four” in which a Ministry of Truth is devoted to rewriting history so it fits government doctrine by keeping the masses entertained and misinformed, making sure in the process that its predictions appear correct and that it is never wrong.
China’s population of 1.4 billion effectively live in a parallel reality created by their government to give them the impression everything is fine. It’s quite likely that a good number of them are well aware that this is not the case, but who believe there is nothing they can do, given that in the final analysis, we’re talking about the country that has had the greatest success in history in bringing the largest number of people out of poverty, or simply because they have been convinced that there is no need to take any action. The media and the social networks have effectively been turned into a tool staffed by people whose sole job is to maintain the social order and to keep at bay any attempt to question things.
It’s worth reading the study in detail, particularly for those of us who have regular contact with Chinese national: the political equilibrium of the most powerful country on the planet is maintained by a vast army of part time community managers whose job is to reinforce the government line by actively participating in forums and discussions on the social networks and other areas of the internet.
In my conversations with my Chinese students, I am struck by the way that this mass censorship seems perfectly normal, institutionalized, a reality that isn’t going to disappear and that they deal with pragmatically. There is no point in challenging it: it’s there and there is no alternative.
In short, for almost one fifth of the planet, the internet is nothing more than a means of social control designed to promote government ideas on a scale that defies understanding. Hats off to the Chinese for bringing George Orwell’s dystopia to life.
(En español, aquí)
