- Also called:
- the Great Firewall of China
- Location:
- China
Great Firewall
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What is the Great Firewall?
China's Great Firewall is a regulatory and technological system that controls Internet content for users within the country. Initiated in 1998 with the Golden Shield Project, it selectively separates Chinese cyberspace from the outside world to prevent access to information considered detrimental to the country's interests.
The Great Firewall uses methods such as filtering keywords, blocking foreign websites and apps, blocking IP addresses, and Domain Name System (DNS) poisoning. It blocks content that may incite political resistance, reveal state secrets, or relate to pornography, gambling, or violence. Popular social media, streaming, and news sites are also blocked.
This has created a captive market, leaving Chinese users to use domestic alternatives.
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Why did China create the Great Firewall?
China created the Great Firewall to monitor, filter, and control Internet content for users within the country. Chinese leaders, while recognizing the potential value of the Internet for accessing global markets and technologies, were hesitant to risk their authority.
To gain greater control over the Internet, China's Ministry of Public Security initiated the Golden Shield Project in 1998 to control the flow of information. This project aimed to monitor citizens' Internet activity and block access to websites that did not align with the Chinese government's strict policies, resulting in the creation of the Great Firewall.
The Great Firewall serves to selectively separate Chinese cyberspace from the outside world and prevent Chinese citizens from accessing information deemed detrimental or potentially destabilizing to the country's interests. It blocks content that may incite political resistance, reveal state secrets, or relate to pornography, gambling, or violence.
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How does the Great Firewall control what people can see online?
The Great Firewall is China's system for Internet control, monitoring, filtering, and blocking content. It separates Chinese cyberspace from the outside world, preventing citizens from accessing information considered detrimental to the country's interests.
To achieve Internet control, the Great Firewall uses legislative and technological functions. The government mandates that companies self-censor public content to eliminate prohibited topics. Tactics include filtering keywords, blocking foreign websites and apps, and blocking IP addresses from certain regions. The system also employs advanced methods such as Domain Name System (DNS) poisoning and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). These techniques are applied by government authorities who inspect and control online communication.
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Which kinds of websites or content are usually blocked by the Great Firewall?
The Great Firewall is China's Internet control system that monitors, filters, and blocks content for users within the country. The Great Firewall prevents users from accessing content that may incite political resistance or reveal state secrets. It also blocks content related to pornography, gambling, or violence.
Popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Discord are blocked, along with streaming sites such as YouTube and Netflix, and news sites including The New York Times, Thomson Reuters, The Washington Post, and The Economist.
China mandates that companies self-censor their public content to eliminate prohibited topics. Methods of Internet control include filtering keywords, blocking select foreign websites and apps, and blocking IP addresses from certain regions.
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How do Chinese people try to get around the Great Firewall?
The Great Firewall employs legislative and technological tools to control internet access in China. It mandates that companies self-censor public content, and the government monitors content directly or via controlled internet companies. Tactics include keyword filtering, blocking foreign websites and apps, and blocking IP addresses.
Despite these restrictions, some Chinese users find ways around the Great Firewall. Protests have occurred, such as online activists gathering at Google's Beijing office after it was banned in 2010. Some use VPNs and other tools to bypass restrictions, though the government is continually developing methods to counter these circumventions.
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What effects does the Great Firewall have on Chinese society and communication with other countries?
The Great Firewall is China's system for Internet control, monitoring, filtering, and blocking content. It separates Chinese cyberspace, preventing citizens from accessing information considered detrimental or destabilizing by the government.
China mandates companies self-censor content, while the government monitors directly or via controlled Internet companies. Tactics include keyword filtering, blocking foreign websites/apps, and blocking IP addresses. The Great Firewall blocks content that could incite political resistance, reveal state secrets, or relate to pornography, gambling, or violence.
Human rights organizations criticize China for intrusive state surveillance and limiting access to information. Protests and resistance have occurred in response to censorship. Many technology companies have conformed to self-censorship to operate in China.
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Great Firewall, regulatory and technological system of Internet control used by the Chinese government to monitor, filter, or block Internet-based content for users within the country. The Great Firewall was deployed to selectively separate Chinese cyberspace from the outside world and to prevent Chinese citizens from accessing information that the government has deemed detrimental or potentially destabilizing to the country’s interests.
Development of the Great Firewall
In the late 1990s the number of Internet users grew rapidly in China. While Chinese leaders understood the potential value that the Internet could provide by granting greater access to global markets and technologies, they were reluctant to jeopardize their authority and control. To gain greater control of the Internet, in 1998 China’s Ministry of Public Security began an initiative called the Golden Shield Project to control the flow of information. The project sought methods to control and monitor citizens’ Internet activity and prevent people from reaching websites that did not conform to the Chinese government’s strict policies. The result of this project was the virtual boundary known as the Great Firewall.
Overview
The Great Firewall uses a variety of legislative and technological functions to achieve the goal of Internet control. China’s government has mandated that companies are responsible for their public content; therefore, companies must self-censor their public-facing content to eliminate prohibited topics or obscene material. The content itself is directly monitored by the government or by the government-controlled Internet companies that serve China’s users. Key tactics of Internet control include filtering keywords, blocking select foreign websites and apps, and blocking IP addresses from certain regions. By law, the Great Firewall prevents users from accessing content that may incite political resistance of any kind or would reveal state secrets. Content related to pornography, gambling, or violence is also blocked by the Great Firewall.
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More technologically advanced methods are continually being employed as part of the Great Firewall, some of which are often used by malicious hackers. Though the full scope of the Great Firewall’s methods is only known to those who operate and manage the system, security experts have been able to surmise some of the methods. Through a tactic known as Domain Name System (DNS) poisoning, for example, the government can instruct its Internet service provider companies to block or redirect DNS queries sent to banned websites. Information shared on the Internet in China is also subjected to a monitoring system that uses sophisticated Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) techniques to review the metadata of each data packet (a short fixed-length section of data transmitted as a unit) exchanged when a user requests to visit a website. The Great Firewall can also block traffic to a web address by interfering with its network connections through a method known as a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) reset attack. These techniques are applied by government authorities who inspect and control online communication.
The combination of the techniques employed by the Great Firewall affects a massive amount of content from around the globe. Popular social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Discord are blocked by the Great Firewall. Streaming sites such as YouTube and Netflix are also forbidden, as are news sites such as The New York Times, Thomson Reuters, The Washington Post, and The Economist.
The Great Firewall has created a captive market of isolated users in China who are left with no choice but to use the domestic alternatives to the blocked international sites. China effectively has built an Internet within the Internet. In doing so, it has allowed the presence of a number of websites that offer services that mirror those provided by some of the external websites that it has banned. Chinese users have access to WeChat and Weibo for social media and messaging. There are also several music streaming services available in China, including Baidu Yinyue, KuGou, and QQ Music. Moreover, there are China-only video streaming services such as Bilibili and Youku. Baidu, a popular search engine, meets the government’s strict requirements by adjusting its algorithms to censor its search results.
Criticism and concerns
Many human rights organizations have criticized the Chinese government for the rigorous and intrusive state surveillance employed by the Great Firewall. Critics have argued that by imposing the intensive censorship of the Great Firewall, China has limited its citizens’ ability to freely access information sources.
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The Great Firewall’s application has also been the subject of domestic protests and resistance. When China banned Google in 2010 because the company refused to comply with government demands to filter search results, online activists gathered at Google’s Beijing office and handed out flowers in symbolic protest. Additionally, Fang Binxing, a computer scientist who was instrumental in the creation of the Great Firewall, was pelted with eggs and shoes by a student when giving a speech at Wuhan University in 2011.
Despite the criticism of the Great Firewall, many technology companies have acquiesced to the Chinese government’s self-censorship regulations and developed different versions of their products tailored for users in China. The Microsoft Corporation, for example, has created a modified version of its Web search engine, Bing, to comply with Chinese regulations. Both Amazon.com and Google also have established separate sites that are in accordance with China’s self-censorship regulations.
Hong Kong and Macau, both of which are special administrative regions of China, have had relatively lower levels of Internet censorship compared with that of mainland China. However, there is growing concern about increasing censorship in Hong Kong. In June 2020 the Chinese government passed a series of national security rules relating to Hong Kong, which experts believe could increase the level of Internet censorship in the region.