Internet Censorship in China

Abstract

Internet censorship has been a popular topic both in academia and in the popular press. A fundamental question that has not been fully addressed is how censorship is perceived by people who experience it. A person may exhibit pro- or anti-censorship attitudes, but it is possible that (s)he may not even be aware of its existence. In this study, we report results of a large-scale survey on Chinese Internet users' experiences with Internet censorship. The results show that users' demographic backgrounds, Internet usage experience, and personality influence their attitudes toward censorship. Those who score high on authoritarian personality measures tend to support censorship. Attitudes toward censorship change so that over time it is viewed as more normal, which suggests a “normalization” process. We discuss how these findings can generalize beyond the Chinese context to other societies in which Internet censorship can exist.