本帖最后由 woikuraki 于 2012-3-31 23:25 编辑
【英语】http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/opinion/24kristof.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
【翻译】http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/43345/13419
Op-Ed Columnist
Slipping Over the Great Firewall of ChinaBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Nicholas D. Kristof
What makes the news from China is usually the bad news: the arrests,the raided churches, the blocked Internet sites, the overzealoussecurity goons. That’s the way journalism works — we cover planes thatcrash, not those that land.
Yet the underlying trend in recent yearsis the opposite. For all the continuing repression, Chinese live farfreer lives now than when I lived in Beijing in the 1980s and ’90s.Ordinary citizens can now easily travel abroad, choose their ownhousing and jobs, and move to whatever Chinese city they want to.
Then there is the Internet.
It’strue that the government censors critical Web sites and closes downtroublesome blogs. Yet there aren’t nearly enough censors to manage thejob, and many Chinese are quite adept at technological ladders over theGreat Firewall of China. Objectionable posts are deleted by censors,but then are quickly reposted on 50 different platforms.
This is acat-and-mouse game in which the spotlight is usually on the mice whenthey get caught: China has more Internet commentators in prison thanany other country. But the larger truth is that the mice are winningthis game, not the cats.
Over the last five years, I’ve regularlytested the Chinese Internet censors, trying to map the boundaries ofpermissible comment. The first time I did this, in 2003, all posts inChinese chat rooms had to go through a moderator. I would post criticalcomments (pretending to be Chinese) and they would go up only if theywere very polite and roundabout.
Then over the years the systemchanged. I found that my posts went online automatically, butmoderators kept watch on the forums and quickly deleted anything deemedsubversive. So, unless the moderator was off on a coffee break, sharpcriticisms would vanish within 10 minutes or so.
This year I foundthe openness continuing to expand. Direct denunciations of theCommunist Party and its leaders are not allowed in chat rooms, butimplicit criticisms of government policies are common.
I was able topost sharp criticisms and subversive statements even on The People’sDaily Web site. Some sites had automatic filtering that would catchtroublesome terms like “Falun Gong,” or “Tiananmen” or “human rights,”and in those cases the post would go to a moderator who would delete it.
Butit’s easy to defeat the filter software. On one site, for example, Igot around the filter by inserting a comma between the characters for“human” and “rights.”
Frankly, my subversive posts in the chat roomsprovoked yawns, because most netizens were less interested in politicsthan in finance. The chat rooms were sizzling with indignation at theplunge in the Chinese stock markets, and angry commentators weredemanding bailouts.
One person responded disdainfully to my post onhuman rights: “Who cares about that, when we’re all losing our shirtsin the stock market. We shareholders love the country, but the countrydoesn’t love shareholders.”
It’s also worth noting that many Chineseseem less distressed by Internet censorship than Americans. One studyfound that four out of five Chinese believe the Internet should becontrolled, partly because of concerns about pornography.
Aside frommy chat room postings, I also started Chinese-language blogs on thepopular Web portal Sohu.com and on the Chinese version of Yahoo — ittakes just a few minutes and no proof of identity to start a Chineseblog — to see what would be blocked. I posted entries criticizing theChinese leadership and calling for freedom for Falun Gongpractitioners. Nothing happened, so I pushed the limit and asked whatshould be done to commemorate the “Tiananmen massacre” of 1989.
Allmy posts on the blogs went up instantaneously and have remained up forthe last week; I find it impossible to be censored. The reason issimple: nobody reads my Chinese blogs. China has around 30 millionactive blogs, and as long as they don’t trigger political problems, thegovernment doesn’t care. (State Security will presumably now find themand shut them down.)
I also saw firsthand how young Chinese arefearless on the Internet in a way that bodes trouble for theauthorities. A young Chinese woman was helping me post my incendiarycomments so that they didn’t have a strong American accent, and when Istepped away for a few minutes, she idly experimented on her own. WhenI returned, she gleefully nodded at the screen.
“Hey, look, this went up,” she said, pointing: “Let’s overthrow the Communist Party!”
Horrified,I asked her to delete the post immediately so that we wouldn’t both bearrested for counterrevolutionary offenses. She did so with a shrug,clearly thinking: What wimps these Americans are ...
I invite you tocomment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, andjoin me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.
【译言翻译: 蔓珠莎华】
是什么使得来自中国的报道多为负面新闻呢?比如逮捕,查抄教堂,屏蔽互联网网站和保安暴力值勤。而这正是新闻媒体的谋生之道——我们报道失事的飞机,不是安全着陆的那些。
然而,最近几年情况发生了微妙的变化。尽管全面的压制一直存在,但是今天中国人的生活比起上世纪八、九十年代我呆在北京的时候自由多了。普通的市民出国旅行并不困难,他们可以自主选择居所和工作,随意迁移到国内任何想去的城市。
现在,还有了互联网。
政府对于持批评意见的网站严格审查并且关闭引起争议的博客确实不假。不过似乎审查人员人手不足,而很多熟练掌握技术手段的中国网民能够轻易翻越网络管制长城。有异议的帖子被管理员删除,但很快又被转帖到五十个不同的网络平台。
在这场猫鼠大战中,被捕获的老鼠赢得广泛关注。在中国因为网络言论而获罪入狱的人,比起其它任何国家都要多。但是,更为显著的事实是,在这场大战中获胜的是老鼠,并非猫。
在过去的五年中,我定期测试中国互联网的审查,试图探寻出政府对于网络评论容忍程度的边界何在。2003年我第一次这么做的时候,所有中文聊天室的帖子必须首先通过管理员。我假装成中国人发表批评言论,但是只有特别节制有礼和迂回婉转的帖子才能贴上去。
几年以后,这套监管体制有所改变。我发现帖子可以自动显示出来,但是管理员一直盯着论坛,会迅速删除被视为煽动性的危险言论。因此,除了管理人员稍作休息的功夫,尖锐的批评会在十分钟之内消失。
今年,我感到网络的开放程度正在持续增加。聊天室里不能发表针对共产党和领导人的直接谴责,但是对于政府政策的含蓄批评则十分常见。
甚至在人民日报的网站,我都可以贴上尖锐批评和反动言论。一些网站会自动过滤掉会引发麻烦的关键词,比如“法&轮&功”,或者“天&安&门”,或者“人&权”,含有这些字眼的帖子会报告给管理员,然后被删除。
但是,这种过滤软件很容易对付。举个例子,在一家网站,我在“人”和“权”两个汉字中间加上逗号,绕开了过滤器。
坦率的说,我的危险言论在聊天室里无人理睬。因为大多数网民对于政治的兴趣不如财经。聊天室里群情激奋,满是对中国股市狂跌的怨气,所发的帖子内容多是要求政府救市。
有人轻蔑地回应我那个关于人权的帖子:“当我们在股市上连内衣都输掉了的时候,谁还在乎这些?我们股民爱国家,国家却不爱我们股民。”
值得注意的是,对于互联网监控这个问题,许多中国人似乎并不像美国人那么沮丧。有研究表明,部分出于对色情内容的顾虑,五分之四的中国人相信有必要对互联网进行控制。
除了在聊天室发帖子以外,我还在人气很高的门户网站搜狐和中文雅虎上开设了中文博客,经过几分钟的注册,并不需要提供任何身份证明,就可以开始写中文博客了——试试看什么内容会被屏蔽掉。我贴上了关于批评中国领导和呼吁给予法**练练习者自由的帖子。什么异常也没有发生。于是我继续试探底线,提出了这个问题:为了纪念1989年“天&安&门%屠%杀”,我们该做些什么。
我博客上所有的文章都即时发表,而且一直保留到上周。我发现这些内容肯定没有被审查过。原因很简单:没有人阅读我的中文博客。中国大约存在着三千万活跃的博客,只要它们没有引发政治问题,政府不会关注。(想必这样国家安全局才有可能发现并且关闭它们。)
我也亲眼目睹了中国的年轻人在互联网上是何等无所畏惧,而这很可能在将来给政府制造麻烦。 一个中国女孩帮助我发表那些煽风点火的言论,让措辞不带美国腔。在我走开的几分钟里,她偷闲试着贴上自己的批评。等我回来,她正愉快地对着屏幕点头。
“嗨,来看,这个发上去了。”她指着说,“让我们推×翻×共×产×党!”
我惊恐地让她马上删掉那个帖子,免得我们两个因反革命罪而被捕。她耸耸肩照做了,显然在想:多没劲的美国人啊……
[ 本帖最后由 帅锅 于 2008-9-4 18:34 编辑 ] |