Mohammad Zainal Abedin, NY
A report on Chinese government control on social media urged the Chinese and international community to play their role to ensure freedom of opinion.
The report “Forbidden Feeds: Government Controls on Social Media in China ‘was released in New York.On this occasion The Overseas Press Club (OPC) of America & PEN America co-sponsored a discussion on Tuesday, March 13 at Club Quarters of Manhattan, New York.
The main theme of the discussion was on China’s Social Media Censorship Creates Dilemmas for Writers. The report was prepared and published by PEN America.
The panelists discussants were Kaiser Kuo, co-founder of Sinica podcast, a current affairs podcast in Beijing, Clay Shirky, faculty in Interactive Media Arts at NYU Shanghai, James Tager, senior manager of free expression programs at PEN America and Edward Wong, an international correspondent for The New York Times addressed the event as panelist discussants.
Minky Worden, Director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch acted as moderator.
The discussants basically expanded and included their own opinions and experiences what were vividly narrated in the report.
The 90-page report will help demonstrate how, under the tenure of President Xi Jinping, the Chinese government’s control over the social media space in the country has both tightened and expanded. The Chinese government is wielding its ability to surveil and censor as a way to control civic discussion online, to prevent dissatisfaction and dissent, and to protect the reputations of its highest members while ensuring that influential social media users are cut down to size.
PEN America’s report includes an examination of how such censorship impacts the lives of Chinese writers and artists, for whom social media is often a creative and financial lifeline. For writers and other creatives, the censorship of their social media presence is an erasure not just of their opinions, but of their work and their creative expression. The vague and broad nature of China’s censorship rules means that the ‘red lines’ of posting or conversing on social media are continually drawn and re-drawn, and authors and bloggers are increasingly faced with the dilemma: self-censor, withdraw from the conversation, or leave the country. At a time when the line between a writer’s official work and his or her social media presence is increasingly blurred, censorship and surveillance of social media means that there is no safe outlet for uncensored expression.
The report includes comprehensive interviews with writers, poets, artists, and others whose lives have personally been impacted by this system of censorship, as well as interviews with anonymous employees at Chinese social media companies. The report will also include an Appendix of cases of Chinese citizens who have been detained or convicted based on their social media postings over the past six years, demonstrating the destructive effect these censorship rules can have on peoples’ lives.
The report and the discussants as well put forwarded some suggestions and recommendations to address the situation in China.
It urged China to comply with guarantees of the rights of free expression contained in Chinese Constitution and international human rights institutions; end the practice of widespread state surveillance of online speech; end the practice of blacklisting websites and preventing website access.
The report suggested the US government to publicly speak out in support of free expression and press freedom in the U.S. and around the world.
It also urged the international community to refuse to participate in China’s World Internet Conference unless and until it is re-oriented as an event that acknowledges and respects international human rights guarantees.
(Zainal Abedin is a journalist based in New York, USA)
