Who Not What: The Logic of China's Information Control Strategy

Mary Gallagher,Blake Miller

doi:10.1017/s0305741021000345

Mary Gallagher, Blake Miller

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741021000345

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Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, we examine how the Chinese state controls social media. While social media companies are responsible for censoring their platforms, they also selectively report certain users to the government. This article focuses on understanding the logic behind media platforms’ decisions to report users or content to the government. We find that content is less relevant than commonly thought. Information control efforts often focus on who is posting rather than on what they are posting. The state permits open discussion and debate on social media while controlling and managing influential social forces that may challenge the party-state's hegemonic position. We build on Schurmann's “ideology and organization,” emphasizing the Party's goals of embedding itself in all social structures and limiting the ability of non-Party individuals, networks or groups to carve out a separate space for leadership and social status. In the virtual public sphere, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to apply these principles to co-opt, repress and limit the reach of influential non-Party “thought leaders.” We find evidence to support this logic through qualitative and quantitative analysis of leaked censorship documents from a social media company and government documents on information control.

Highlights

In this paper, we examine how the Chinese state controls social media
We find that “reporting up,” which likely results in direct state repression or co-optation, is targeted towards influential public opinion leaders whose standing and influence may threaten the Party’s hegemonic presence in China’s online public sphere
We examine how the content and instruction text in logs are associated with the decision to “report users” or to send information about an individual user to a Beijing-based government affairs liaison who is responsible for coordination with provincial-level bureaucracies, the State Council Information Office and the Cyberspace Administration of China

Summary

Limitations and scope conditions of logs

Because these logs are from a single social media company, there are limits to the external validity of our inferences. Discussions in the big media should be verified first, posts with lots of retweets should be carefully reviewed Both the Yang Lan and Xu Zhiyong cases highlight the targeting of influential users as the regime seeks to control what is said and heard about China’s elite. In the handling of all three cases, Yang Lan’s citizenship, Xu Zhiyong’s trial and the intrigue over the Bo Xilai affair, commercial censors deleted or made secret information that could mobilize or incite public opinion, they reported influential users to the authorities, and they reported up data on public opinion.

Concluding Discussion

Findings

Conflicts of interest