2010年3月1日星期一

卫报:中国不能永远控制网络

纽约 ——谷歌因大声拒绝中国继续审查其搜索结果而广受称颂。谷歌是否会继续在中国经营仍无法确定,但无论如何中国的互联网政策不会发生多大变化。所有这些“外 来干涉”更有可能坚定中国政府绝不妥协的态度。
即使谷歌最终真的离开中国,事情也没有结束。西方企业可以从外部推动互 联网自由,提供具有实用价值的技术和使用这些技术的秘籍。这就是“推特外交”。


阻止中国民众进入某些网站的中国的“防火长城”基本上挡住了推特。但推特在技术熟练的 中国人中受到近乎宗教般的拥护,他们使用推特的决心超过了政府阻挡的力量。


这些“网民”借助代理服务器或虚拟专用网络越过防火墙,这些工具让他们像在国外一样浏 览互联网。本月初,中国的推特精英合力让防火长城登上了推特十大“热门话题”(或被提到最多的词汇)排行——因为推特在中国本应是无法登入的,因此这样一 种举动令人印象深刻。


推特允许人们将小段信息发送给海量人群,使中国人可以快速传播紧急新闻甚至是令人不安 的事实。“推特信息流可以比任何官方机构更加迅速,”长期处于中国互联 网运动前沿的北京记者迈克尔·安替(Michael Anti)说。“这也意味着民众可以比政府更快地获取信息,这确实为共产党带来了真正的危机。”


推 特也在保护公民个人时发挥了作用。博客写手彼得·郭(Peter Guo)称是推特将他救出了监狱。他说他在散布据称牵涉到当地官员犯罪的消息后被捕。他在去年7月被捕后用自己的手机在推特上发送了紧急求助信号,他的案 子很快吸引了国内国际的关注,而这也帮助他在被捕两个多星期后获释。


想象一下如果推特能为多数中国民众所用将会发生什么。问题在于很多中国人仍然缺乏能使 他们绕过防火长城的简单的工具。


当我询问郭国际社会能为让推特在中国普及做些什么时,他回答说我们可以“提供价格便宜 的虚拟专用网络。”他补充说外国企业可以提供安全性更高的浏览器,协助“中国民众绕过防火长城。”


政府也可以给予中国网民力量。哈佛大学伯克曼网络与社会研究中心总裁乔纳森·齐特赖恩 (Jonathan Zittrain)建议美国可以从某些基础的出资援助开始,推动“最初带给我们互联网的科技创新。”这可能包括中国的潜在“转折事件”,比如允许用户从一 台设备跳转到另一台设备,从而摆脱互联网服务提供商中间限制的专门的网状联络。


但是考虑到外国对中国施压的敏感性,尚不清楚西方政府能插手到什么程度。这也给了像推 特这样的企业用武之处。


即使推特的合伙创立者原本未必让它成为一种民主工具,但它已经负起了这样的职责。 2009年4月,摩尔多瓦的年轻人利用推特组织反对政府的抗议活动(相关阅读《摩尔多瓦的抗议爆发 推特推波助澜》)。两个月后,推特又协助伊朗民众举行集会,并在组织大选抗议活动过程中实现信息共 享。


现在,我们开始在中国看到类似的现象。11月,广州市民反对建造焚化炉的抗议活动成为 推特的热门事件。谈到推特在伊朗和摩尔多瓦抗议活动中所起的作用,推特 的合伙创始人杰克·多尔西(Jack Dorsey)告诉我,“这些都是民众自主发起的事件和活动,推特只是碰巧存在的一种使过程更加便捷的现成工具。”


推特或许会采取更积极的措施,推动国外的互联网自由。尽管没有透露具体的细节,但合伙 创始人兼首席执行官伊万·威廉姆斯( Evan Williams )不久前表示软件开发人员正在开发规避政府屏障的技术。(相关阅读《金融时报:Twitter 正在研发用于规避网络审查的新技术》)


谷歌在对待中国审查问题上的强硬立场或许本是好意。问题是现在却演变成了国家和国家之 间的对峙。中国显然无法忘记在外来入侵者面前那个“屈辱的世纪”,因此 绝不会听任美国的摆布。持有这种观点的不只是中国政府。现在,许多网民都在为谷歌的行为喝彩。但如果他们开始将谷歌看作美国政府的爪牙,那么这种情绪可能 在瞬间就会消失得无影无踪。


赢得中国互联网的猫鼠之战最终要依靠创新,而不是政治压力。世界应当继续用尖端技术冲 击中国和其他限制言论自由国家的市场。当然,审查者通常都会落后一步, 过滤信息并关闭网站。但中国的网民非常擅长利用可供利用的有限的工具。他们这么做,是在以一种缓慢但又不可逆转的方式改变着他们的国家。



作者简介:Emily Parker,一名亚洲社会中心在中美关系上的资深研究员,正在写一本关于民主和互联网的书。

来源说明:本文1.0版本来源辛迪加项目。译者的志愿者对此作了校对。

收录说明:本文已经收录到“译者文集”中,同时进入“
译者频道—— 时事评论”、“译者频道—热点专题—互联网与政治”、“辛迪加项目”索引。

China can't control the net for ever

Twitter and Google are helping to end China's stranglehold on information and accelerate the process of democratisation

Emily Parker 


Google has been widely celebrated for its loud refusal to continue censoring its search results in China. It is still unclear whether Google will continue to operate in China, but in any event we are not about to see much change in China's internet policy. More likely, all this "foreign meddling" will merely cause the Chinese government to dig in its heels.

Even if Google does ultimately leave China, the game is not over. Western companies can promote internet freedom from the outside, by providing useful technology as well as the keys to access it. Call this "Twitter diplomacy".

Twitter is largely blocked by China's "great firewall" (GFW), which prevents Chinese people from accessing certain sites. Yet Twitter has an almost religious following among tech-savvy Chinese, whose determination to use the service outstrips authorities' efforts to block access to it.

These "netizens" surmount the firewall by way of proxy servers or virtual private networks (VPNs) that allow them to browse the web as if they were outside China. Earlier this month, Chinese twitterati helped get the GFW on to the list of Twitter's top 10 "trending topics" (or most tweeted terms) – an impressive feat given that Twitter is supposed to be inaccessible in China.

Twitter, which lets people send bite-size messages to large groups, allows the Chinese to quickly disseminate urgent news or even uncomfortable facts. "Twitter can create a faster information flow than any official agency," says Michael Anti, a journalist in Beijing who has long been at the forefront of the Chinese internet movement. "That means people would get information faster than the government. That's a real crisis for Communists."

Twitter also helps protect individual citizens. Blogger Peter Guo claims that Twitter got him out of jail. He says he was arrested after spreading word about a crime that allegedly involved local officials. He tweeted an SOS via his mobile phone after he was arrested last July, and his case quickly attracted both domestic and international attention, which helped secure his release a little over two weeks later.

So just imagine if Twitter were available to the larger Chinese population. The problem is that many Chinese still lack the simple tools that would enable them to get past the GFW.
When I asked Guo how the outside world could make Twitter more accessible in China, he replied that we could help by "providing affordable VPN service". Foreign companies, he added, could make available more secure browsers that would help "Chinese people to circumvent the GFW".

Government can also play a role in empowering Chinese netizens. Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, has suggested that the US, for example, could start with some basic funding for the kind of "science and technology innovation that gave us the internet to begin with". This could include potential "game changers" in China such as ad hoc mesh networking, which allows users to communicate with one another by hopping from one device to the next without an internet service provider in the middle.

But, given the political sensitivities of foreign pressure on China, it is unclear how far western governments will be able to go. That is where companies like Twitter come in.

Even if Twitter's co-founders did not necessarily develop it to be a tool of democratisation, that is precisely what it has become. In April 2009, young people in Moldova used Twitter to organise protests against their government. Two months later, Twitter famously helped Iranians assemble and share information during their election protests.

Now, we are beginning to see a similar phenomenon in China. In November, citizen protests against the construction of an incinerator in Guangzhou became a widely tweeted event. Referring to protests in Iran and Moldova, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey told me: "These are all events and movements that people chose to make happen, and Twitter was a tool that happened to be there to make it more easy."

Twitter may now be taking more aggressive steps to promote internet freedom abroad. Co-founder and CEO Evan Williams recently suggested that software developers were working on technology to evade government barriers, though he did not give specific details.

Google's adamant stance on Chinese censorship may have been well-intentioned. The problem is that the standoff has now taken on the tone of a state-to-state confrontation. China, apparently still reeling from a "century of humiliation" at the hands of outsiders, will not be pushed around by America. This view is not limited to the Chinese government. Right now, many netizens are applauding Google's move. But if they begin to perceive Google as a pawn of the US government, this sentiment could turn on a dime.

Ultimately the Chinese internet cat-and-mouse game will be won with innovation, not political pressure. The world should continue to flood the Chinese market, and those of other countries that restrict freedom of expression, with cutting-edge technology. Of course, censors will often be just one step behind, filtering information and shutting down sites. But Chinese netizens are remarkably adept at using the limited tools available to them. In doing so, they are transforming their country in a slow but irreversible way.

• Emily Parker, a senior fellow at the Asia Society's Centre on US-China Relations, is writing a book about democracy and the internet.
• Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010