Shortly before the last post on the future of the news business model appeared on this site, an article in the Far Eastern Economic Review described a Chinese government backed market-based model for online censorship. The Chinese are apparently looking to outsource censorship. The concept is simple: instead of a fund containing money, Beijing prints a pool of demerits and merits. Earn enough merits and you get rewarded; accumulate enough demerits and you get punished accordingly.
In addition to employing “low-tech” means of repression, such as some of the world’s longest prison terms for “cyberdissidents,” the Chinese authorities have been at the forefront of a growing trend toward “outsourcing” censorship and monitoring tasks to private companies. As scholar Rebecca MacKinnon notes, “the process of web site censorship by which domestically hosted content [in China] is deleted completely or prevented from being published in the first place … is carried out almost entirely by Internet company employees, not by ‘Internet police’ or other government officials.”
Such aims are achieved via a sophisticated system that includes lists of taboo topics issued to private enterprises by government bodies like the Information Office of Beijing. If internet service providers (ISPs) or websites fail to comply with authorities’ orders, they are subjected to fines, have their servers confiscated by police, and can have their businesses licenses revoked by the authorities.
In this pseudo-commercial environment a news company’s success or failure rests on its ability to meet government censorship demands, rather than on the quality of its products or services. In the current economic climate, the vulnerability of private enterprises is likely to grow. As their profit margins shrink, so too does their ability to withstand political pressure.
As long as editorial content and payments flow through newspaper-like sites then Chinese government censorship efforts can be concentrated on pressure points to bring its punishments to bear. How vulnerable will other news models be? As the news models evolve in an industry in crisis, one First Amendment issue that should receive attention is how resistant any a future model will be against state/private coercion. For example, is a model in which the writer receives assignments and is remunerated by the readers themselves as vulnerable? What about other subscription systems? And what is to prevent powerful companies and Western governments (operating under the guise of preventing hate speech) from emulating the censorship model of the Chinese?
As technology changes the architecture of news gathering, analysis, distribution and payment the censorship model is likely to evolve too. It’s always been a race between the censors and the writers. Tomorrow will be no different.
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13 Comments
1. 907ie:“And what is to prevent powerful companies and Western governments (operating under the guise of preventing hate speech) from emulating the censorship model of the Chinese?”
Absolutely nothing to prevent it, it’s already underway.
May 7, 2009 - 2:28 pm 2. steeple:i’m feeling like i’m living in an Animal Planet episode where the lions stalk the herd of water buffalo (sorry for any visual connections you all might get by this portrayal; consider me a water buffalo too). are we going to let the slowest and weakest get picked off by the pack (which derives its power as or from the govt), or do we devise a more effective way to defend members of the herd? the examples of getting along to go along with likely keep growing. look what keeping quiet did for Ken Lewis.
rule of law seemingly being shoved aside by the rule of the jungle.
May 7, 2009 - 2:36 pm 3. Thrasymachus:Don’t anybody tell me the Obama administration doesn’t believe in the faith-based community. They are loathe to pay anybody to do their dirty work, as the progressive bloggers have complained. Nonetheless they can mount a pretty big attack on anybody they want. Carrie Prejean for example.
The only way this works though is if the target doesn’t want to fight. We need to stop being like Piggy in “Lord of the Flies” and start being more lke Rambo.
May 7, 2009 - 3:18 pm 4. Professor Guvinoff:The international money market will be trading one more currency, the moral token. Initial offering at $10 per kudos. Attaboys are convertible, but on a sliding scale, yet to be negociated at the IMF.
The question of how to prosecute moral tax evasion has not been settled, yet. Loopholes are under consideration for the benefit of for those who kindly attend to the needs of the planet by rejecting carbonated drinks.
May 7, 2009 - 3:28 pm 5. oMan:The cool thing about this “micropain” privatized incremental censorship model is that profit motives can drive the cube farms of censors, and eventually the fully-automated content ‘bots, that will destroy whatever remains of the fantasy of free expression. Further, none of the dings on one’s account will be sufficient in itself (or even disclosed, or disclosed timely) to enable one to challenge the ding and avoid being given that dreaded notice in the mail some month: Account Closed For Failure to Say Approved Things.
The exciting flip side of being down-dinged is, of course, to score up-dings and win valuable prizes by being a total craven mouthpiece for party doctrine.
I feel as if I’m living in a William Gibson novel.
May 7, 2009 - 3:32 pm 6. wretchard:The exciting flip side of being down-dinged is, of course, to score up-dings and win valuable prizes by being a total craven mouthpiece for party doctrine.
I think that model is already partially in operation. Recently a Fox newsman was simply not called at a White House press conference because of his network’s refusal to carry a certain press conference. And certain journalists, whose names shall not be speculated upon here, may in fact be trying to brown nose their way into access by writing hagiographic accounts of certain politicians. I think this game has been played for a long time, on both sides of the aisle. However, the game has been intensifying lately.
May 7, 2009 - 3:54 pm 7. blert:The way some of my old posts disappeared from the Club…
I thought the ‘bots were already set loose.
The Morgan Hill attack is a cyber Pearl Harbor event. IMHO.
Is the CCP issuing cyber-letters of marque and reprisal?
Or is this a shadow cyber-levée en masse: an army of Wangs?
Am I being fed tainted Cookies?
It may come to pass that computer viruses become tracked like sexually transmitted diseases. The cyber interest may demand that sporulating laptops be detoxed after worm infestations by government certified snoops. The procedure being very much like a smog test.
The more we fight the last glow of Communism the more we slip down the Statist path.
If perfection is the enemy of the good…
Then Perfected Man is the enemy of Good Men.
Just how many Winston’s can the CCP set loose upon the Web?
May 7, 2009 - 4:04 pm 8. Gordon:#5,6–or, how about CNN in Baghdad during the war?
May 7, 2009 - 4:09 pm 9. whiskey:Obama can get away with not calling on Fox News because nearly all media people believe in the same things Obama does and worships the man as a living god.
That’s the attitude of many in America, Obama is extraordinarily popular personally, particularly among Women and Yuppies. Both of whom hate and loathe for obvious reasons the ordinary White Guy.
Carrie Prejean was defenestrated not because Obama ordered it, but because her opinions are anathema to most Media people, Women, and Yuppies, who are the real power centers in post-Christian, post-American America.
No one has to order people to do what they want to do anyway. And like it or not, Perez Hilton, real name Mario Lavandiera, has more power and influence than an inoffensive beauty contestant. Despite the latter’s views being more widely held. Power comes from key demographic sectors, media control, and PC enforcement.
May 7, 2009 - 5:38 pm 10. bogie wheel:Time to start working on the code, perhaps?
“Dear Leader” = “a real adder”
“Marxist” = “squeegee man”
With everything to be signed by “Charles U. Farley.”
May 7, 2009 - 5:43 pm 11. blert:Perez straddles a coordination node.
What could be more queer than putting a misogynist homosexual to judge normal young women?
May 7, 2009 - 6:19 pm 12. Kinuachdrach:“Power comes from key demographic sectors, media control, and PC enforcement.”
Whiskey, it might be more correct to say that the appearance of power comes from those things.
Certainly, the Obaminoids dominate the media — but who listens to the media any more? I am continually surprised in ordinary conversations with my fellow shoppers at how many people have already drawn the obvious conclusion about Obama’s vision. They don’t get invited to take part in polls, of course, but they are legion.
Chairman Mao had it right — power really comes out of the barrel of a gun. The concept may soon implant itself in Obama’s consciousness that he cannot automatically rely on the obedience of many of the people with guns — including the police & the military.
Uneasy sleeps the tyrant who knows that the New York Times is definitely on his side, but who wonders about the loyalty of the men with guns.
May 7, 2009 - 7:14 pm 13. JJRedFan:What would be the early trends or signs of a decision by O to rescind the 2nd item of the Bill of Rights?
Use proxies to buy up ammun ition of all types?
Create artificial shortages for manufacturers of wea pons and amm unition?
Use some hideous charnel house type slaughter by an apparent gun-nut as an excuse to ramrod thru new legislation? (”This is far too important to take the time to actually read the details!”)
Federal law to require all guns to be registered. period. no exceptions. Any Failure to reg ister any gun would be a felony?
Require all gun owners to provide a certified sample of an expended round (no small cost) to be stored like some criminal’s DNA sample?
That is, create a flurry of petty details in registration of any weap ons or am mo, where each item is a separate criminal offense if ommited
Hidden clause as a rider to some other bill, making it legal for authorities to make unannounced searches of any home to determine that there are no un-registered firearms. This provides opportunities to add other charges, like resisting arrest, etc. Probably be pretty easy to find some reason to confiscate ANY weapons or ammuni tion found “until their legitimacy can be established.” Guilty until proven innocent, and there’s no such thing as innocent.
If raids and arrests can be kept out of the news – an easy proposition, considering how the National News Agencies are so eager to abase themselves for the Saint – his goons could make a good start on dis-arming the population before anyone knows about it.
May 9, 2009 - 2:16 pmSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.