Same Tongzhi, Different Destiny Examining the Gay Website Regulations in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan

Abstract

This study investigates the similarities, differences and implications of the Internet regulations in four Chinese societies, with particular regard to gay website regulations. In reality, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have different political systems, ideologies and perspectives toward the role of law in society. These differences are also reflected in their Internet regulations. Compared to the prosperity of gay websites in Hong Kong and Taiwan, gay websites in Singapore and China continue to be fragile, but are steadily marching out of the closet encumbered by outmoded ideas of social control. Although it is very strictly-regulated in Singapore and China, the two governments are pragmatic and succeed in their policies because they impose strictures on gay website users who have to develop their own self-censorship. The growing commercialization of the gay space in Chinese-speaking cyberspace marks a paradoxical development of the internet where state control, a degree of freedom of expression, and self-censorship coexist. Even gay users in China and Singapore have tried to use the Internet as a mode of alternative expression, with some success and some failure in the face of government hostility.