What’s on the other side of the great firewall? Chinese Web users’ motivations for bypassing the Internet censorship

Abstract

Firewall bypassing is referred to as the behaviors of Internet users who resort to any software or proxy to get access to the websites or online resources that are blocked by the Great Firewall (GFW). Under the uses and gratification framework, a web-based survey (N=319) was conducted to explore Chinese Internet users’ motivations of bypassing firewall in and outside Mainland China. The findings showed that Chinese Web users bypassed the firewall in China mainly for information and socializing, and bypassed outside China primarily for entertainment. Comparison between the motivations for bypassing GFW in and outside China was conducted among the participants who had experience in both cases. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.