Multimedia Design, China, and Facebook - Essay Example

MULTIMEDIA DESIGN, CHINA AND FACEBOOK College Multimedia Design, China and Facebook China is among the countries that have conducted a thorough internet censorship especially for social media sites. The government of China has blocked over 200 internet sites preventing partial or full access of the sites by the public. The government of china has place laws and regulation to monitor any social sites that broadcast content that is sensitive to its politics and the morals of the society. Thousands of employees are strategically positioned to monitor the content, the internet usage and the site access of online sites. As the China government puts it, the Chinese population must stay from any internet sites that promote moral or political corruption. While many people feel that this is a conservative culture, the government sees it as a way of allowing the country to remain united. Facebook is one of the social sites that have been blocked in China as part of its internet censorship strategy (Loveland, G., 2009). Facebook is one of the social sites that gained a lot of public attention in China shortly after it was released. Many citizens of China subscribed into this social sites and at the end of one year Facebook was one of the most popular social sites. Although many people felt that Facebook would not survive the strict censorship of social sites by the Chinese government, it was not blocked until in the late 2009 when the government declared it as a source of moral and political disintegration of the Chinese public. Before blockage of Facebook, this site had proliferated among many users in the society. Since China is one of the countries that have superior technology development, the public have a higher access to internet either through the computers or mobile phones. It was a site that linked people together, maintained their social relations and raised the citizens’ political awareness. Since China is one of the countries that have suppressed the assertiveness of the people, people found Facebook as one of the weapons of political activism. Together with twitter, the sites were used to discuss political issues in Facebook. The youths were particularly engaged in the political agendas in China. Although the government consistently warned of abuse of social media, the Chinese citizens found it a fare ground to launch political campaigns. For instance, it was used during political strikes to spread information on political issues. For instance, in 2008, Xinhua News Agency in China reported that internet had to be blocked to avoid coordination of protesters in the western China. In this case, the government shut down the internet in all regions of China to ensure that the Chinese population did spread rumours over the strike. It was a strategy for the government to control the spread of information which often fuelled protests in China (Kotenko, 2013). Later in 2008, China reported to have blocked Facebook on grounds that the social site did not comply to the law of China on internet content. The Facebook blockage in China occurred after a series of riots in the country. Lum (2006) links the Facebook blockage in China to the increase in political unrest between the period when Facebook became popular in China and before the time it was blocked. The main reason why the government blocked China was a serious political unrest that occurred in Xinhua when the society was revolting against abuse of power. During this strike, the people used Facebook to spread the rumour of the strike long even before the strike started. During the strike, the citizens spread messages across the social media to inform each other on issues regarding the strike. The leaders of the strike used this site to coordinate all operations during this period. As a result, the strike was growing bigger and was threatening to take over the whole of China. The government felt that the site should be closed to control the way people coordinated the strike at such a sensitive moment. First, the country blocked the internet to ensure that nobody would access social media during this strike. Later, the governed announce that Facebook was banned. While the government stated that some regions could still access Facebook, Facebook reported that it was impossible to access Facebook in any region in China. Since 2008, Facebook has remained blocked until in the recent past when the government has promised to ease the law and allow its public to access Facebook from within the country. The act of blocking Facebook triggered a wide range of reactions from across the world. The Chinese public, especially the political activists criticized the action condemning it as an action that suppressed political assertiveness in the public. The political activists felt that the move was not meant to unite the people but to hold them against exercising their freedom to speak against the corrupt government. This action was seen as similar to the arrest of journalists and media broadcasters, which the government had done since the history of China’s corruptness. The international world reacted to this act of the government by portraying it as a denial of human rights. By doing so, the government denied the people the right of speech which the Chinese constitution had promised. As a result, the act was not peaceful but the government remained adamant to reverse the policy. To respond to this criticism, the government stated that it had remained strong on its internet censorship to maintain political order and to avoid political instabilities. They provided two reasons why the government had decided to block both twitter and Facebook. The first reason was that the social sites were allowing other nations to interfere with domestic politics, to which the government was opposed. As a result the media was becoming a threat to the wellbeing of the Chinese government (Beam, 2012). Secondly, the government stated that Facebook was corrupting the morals of the youth in this society and becoming a threat to the moral uprightness in the society. Although there are hopes that Facebook may be restored in China, there is no guarantee that the public in China will access this social site. In 2013, the government of China promised that it would ease the law in region commonly referred to as the Free Trade Zone. This means that those within the range of 17 square mile within this zone would be able to access Facebook and other social sites (Pagliery, 2013). The governments’ idea is to monitor the impact of these social sites in business as part of its test procedure. The government has promised to expand this operation in other areas if the test project in the Free Trade Zone will respond positively. This implies that the ban against Facebook may be lifted if it proves to have a significant economic impact in business. On this note, there is hope that Facebook may find its way back into China. Since Facebook has become the best advertisement media in the contemporary business environment it is possible that the government might lift the ban. However, it is not clear that the government of China is willing to lift bans in all the regions of China. However, there are reports that the public have found their ways round to access Facebook behind ban. Statistics indicate that Facebook users in China increased from 8 million to 63 million, which is 15% of the Chinese population. This means that the Facebook access rate in China will continue to rise despite the bans. However, it is more likely that the government of China will allow Facebook while maintaining a close censorship of the content on this site. Since the country has not announced any plans to withdraw internet censorship, it is likely that the censorship plans will continue even if Facebook is allowed. However, it is possible for Facebook to negotiate with the government of China to reach a concession on Facebook use in this country. Facebook CEO has expressed his commitment to connect the Chinese population to the rest of the world. Since China is one of the countries that have the greatest population in the world, it is a target market for many online service providers (Qiu, 2009). Therefore, it should be the top agenda of Facebook CEO to negotiate with the Chinese government. For instance, it would be possible for the government to lift the Facebook as long as the CEO applies filters to protect the Chinese community from immoral materials. If a concession is arrived that there is proper filtering of information in Facebook, it would be possible for the government to allow many other social media in China. Also, this would avoid the illegal access of Facebook that is now common in China. the increase in population of people accessing Facebook in China means that the society has developed software through which citizens can access Facebook, which against the ban. On this ground, it is clear that there are still hopes that Facebook can penetrate in China despite the strict internet censorship by the Chinese government. Bibliography Pagliery, M., 2013, China Lifts Facebook Ban-A Bit. Available at: < http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/24/technology/china-facebook/> Kotenko, J., 2013, Facebook Says It Remains Blocked in China Free Trade Zone. Digital Trends. Available at :< http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/in-chinas-new-free-trade-zone-you-are-free-to-facebook-all-you-want/#!AEwH0> Qiu, J., 2009, Virtual Censorship in China: Keeping the Gate Between the Cyberspaces. International Journal of Communications Law and Policy. Beam, C., 2012, Chinese Embassies Love Facebook – Even Though Chinese Government Citizens are Banned from it. New Republic. Lum, T., 2006, Social Unrest in China. Available at:< http://www.fas.org /sgp/crs/row/RL33416.pdf> Loveland, G., 2009, Facebook Being Blocked Across China. Available at: < http://www.examiner.com/article/facebook-being-blocked-across-china> Read More