China Digital Times

Key Focus

The site focuses especially on news items which are blocked, deleted or suppressed by China's state censors. In 2009, it published a set of documents leaked by a Baidu employee which revealed events, people and places that were deemed politically sensitive.

The types of words, phrases and web addresses being censored by the government include names of Chinese high level leadership; protest and dissident movements; politically sensitive events, places and people; and foreign websites and organisations blocked at network level, along with pornography etc. According to Freedom House, a US-based NGO, researchers at China Digital Times have reportedly identified over 800 filtered terms, including “Cultural Revolution” and “propaganda department”.

The site also publishes the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a wiki-based directory of subversive Chinese Internet language. The project is named after the Grass Mud Horse, whose name sounds similar to “fuck your mother” in Chinese (cǎonímǎ 草泥马), and which is one of the Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures.

China Digital Times has maintained ongoing coverage of the government clampdown on Chinese internet users – which includes imposing penalties of up to three years in prison for posting 'rumours' shared more than 500 times, or viewed by more than 5,000 people. The publication has also covered the backlash against increased censorship from China's independent media, and employees of state media.

Samuel Wade at China Digital Times observes that, among American internet companies, Wikipedia is almost alone in defying Chinese self-censorship demands.

Response by China

The China Digital Times website has been blocked in mainland China since 2006 and in response, Xiao launched a Chinese-language site in 2011. That site has since also been blocked, but numerous methods are used to ensure the site remains accessible in China – including email lists, social media and mirror sites.

A popular section on the site is ‘Minitrue’, which is short for ‘Ministry of Truth’. It makes a point of highlighting official government directives to media organisations, requiring them to censor or remove postings on sensitive matters. On the other hand, if a particular news event is favourable to the government, a directive will sometimes be issued that insists that this be "prominently displayed" on the home pages of online news sites.

In response to calls for a “Jasmine Revolution”, China has tracked and detained online activists; and routinely blocked services including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. At times, Virtual Private Networks, which are used to circumvent controls, have experienced blockages. Google has also accused China of blocking its Gmail service.

History

The website was started by Xiao Qiang at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley in the fall of 2003. Xiao has asserted that Chinese internet users are using digital tools to create new autonomous forms of political expression and dissent, “changing the rules of the game between state and society”.

An astrophysicist by training, Xiao has been affiliated with the university since 2003, as an adjunct professor both in the Graduate School of Journalism (2003–2011) and the School of Information (2012–present). He became a human rights activist in response to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and was executive director of the organization Human Rights in China from 1991 to 2002.

Xiao says that “the role of the Internet as a communications tool is especially meaningful in China, where citizens previously had little to no opportunity for unconstrained public self-expression or access to free and uncensored information…”

Staff

Sophie Beach is the Executive Editor of its English site, and her writing about China has been published in a number of publications including the Los Angeles Times, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post and The Nation magazine. The Translations Editor is Anne Henochowicz, an alumna of the Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy. She has written for other publications including Foreign Policy, The China Beat, and the Cairo Review of Global Affairs.

China Digital Times also provides content about China for The World Post, a partnership between The Huffington Post and the Berggruen Institute. The China Digital Times website is run by students of the university, with help from contributors from around the world.