Does China use panoptic methods to
censor the Chinese people online?
Samuel Hoh (BA)
Graphic Design
Panopticism
is the conceptualization of the Panopticon, which was a type of institutional
building designed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The
design consists of a circular structure with an “inspection house” or guard
tower at its centre. The Panopticon allows the guards to see the inmates that are
stationed around the perimeter without the inmates knowing if they are or are not
being watched as the guard tower would have slats or some kind of device that
only allows the guards to see out; “The Panoptic Gaze”. The cells were
typically well lit and meant that the inmates had very little privacy and could
always be monitored from the centre of the Panopticon. This differed from the
idea of a conventional cell where the inmate was underground in the dark and was
left to his own devices. The Panopticon in comparison to the dungeon - using
the traditional three functions to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide,
preserves only the first and eliminates the other two. The design and key feature was the element of
visibility, being one directional and not reciprocated from inmate to guard. The
idea that full lighting along with the monitoring of a supervisor serves to
strengthen power, rather then darkness, which ultimately protected the
prisoner, visibility being used a trap.
Panoptic institutions were
different in a way that there were no more bars, no more chains, no more heavy
locking devices; Foucault (1975) “all
that is needed is that the separations should be clear and the openings well
arranged. The heaviness of the old 'houses of security', with their
fortress-like architecture, could be replaced by the simple, economic geometry
of a 'house of certainty'. The efficiency of power, its constraining force has,
in a sense, passed over to the other side - to the side of its surface of
application.” As powerful the Panopticon is as a tool of penality and
punishment, Foucault comments on how easy it is to duplicate or use. The ease
in which it allows automatic power is one of the crucial points he puts
forward. “He who is subjected to a field
of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of
power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself
the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the
principle of his own subjection. By this very fact, the external power may
throw off its physical weight; it tends to the non-corporal; and, the more it
approaches this limit, the more constant, profound and permanent are its
effects: it is a perpetual victory that avoids any physical confrontation and
which is always decided in advance.” Foucault describes the design of the
Panopticon anthropomorphically, which gives you a sense of how it functions and
how the methodology may be implemented and forced upon a subject or prisoner. Foucault
comments on the subjective nature of the Panopticon with the individual’s
consciousness being key to control. Foucault also comments on the fact that the
perpetual victory is won without the use of force, which at the time was not
the normal procedure, which made the concept so unique. Dumm also comments on
the physicality’s of the Panopticon, (Dumm
2002) “The Panopticon is a building that ideally achieves the goal of perfect
surveillance over those who are enclosed within its walls by bringing together
in a single-space all of these modes of correction... Each person in it is
isolated from all other persons, yet all are potentially visible from the
central tower. The purpose of this surveillance is to disallow deviant
behaviour on the part of abnormal individuals. Confined in a cell, exposed to
the gaze of a supervisor,” The last point is the most relevant as it
contributes to the success of the Panopticon; communication within a Panoptic
building or Panoptic environment only allows one-sided communication with someone
as the focus of observation by someone they cannot see or observe mutually,
this creates a voyeuristic institution apart from the supervisor/observer
depends solely on the fact that the subject needs to know he may be being
watched. “The individual is the “object
of information, never a subject in communication” The individual is seen but
never sees those who watch.”
Staples describes a lantern
designed earlier by Bentham, which allowed guards in dark dungeons to remain
concealed but able to observe, continuing the theme of one sided observation.
Staple’s reinforces the concept of Panopticism specifically commenting on the
‘gaze’. (Staples 2000) “With this scheme, the inmates may
or may not be under constant surveillance; they just think or imagine that they
are. As Bentham put it, they are “awed to silence by an invisible eye.” The
inmates have therefore internalized what Foucault called ‘le regard’ or the
‘’gaze’ of the authorities, and, in effect, they watch and render themselves
docile. In this way, power operates without coercion, force or violence,
automatically and continuously; whether or not the tower is occupied at all.
With this technology, Bentham created an all-seeing, all-knowing ‘God’ that
was, in reality, nothing more than a dark spot in the lantern.”
Foucault (1975) “The Panopticon is a privileged place for experiments on men, and for
analysing with complete certainty the transformations that may be obtained from
them.” The inmate being under constant observation allows the observer to
collect extremely accurate information, which makes it a rich environment for experiment.
“The Panopticon may even provide an
apparatus for supervising its own mechanisms. In this central tower, the
director may spy on all the employees that he has under his orders: nurses,
doctors, foremen, teachers, warders; he will be able to judge them
continuously, alter their behaviour, impose upon them the methods he thinks
best; and it will even be possible to observe the director himself.” The ideas
that everyone can be visible and that the Panopticon will even supervise its
own operators, again highlighting the automatic functioning of absolute
surveillance. “An inspector arriving
unexpectedly at the centre of the Panopticon will be able to judge at a glance,
without anything being concealed from him, how the entire establishment is
functioning. And, in any case, enclosed as he is in the middle of this
architectural mechanism, is not the director's own fate entirely bound up with
it? The incompetent physician who has allowed contagion to spread, the
incompetent prison governor or workshop manager will be the first victims of an
epidemic or a revolt. The Panopticon functions as a kind of laboratory of
power. Thanks to its mechanisms of observation, it gains in efficiency and in
the ability to penetrate into men's behaviour; knowledge follows the advances
of power, discovering new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which
power is exercised.” From observing you are able to understand, and from
understanding it allows you to manipulate a subject. Foucault further comments
on the Panopticon being a self-regulating tool that anyone can control and
implement as long as you are in the centre and not on display. He uses a quote
from Bentham to suggest that maybe even Bentham didn’t realise how effective
and efficient his design would be. (Bentham)
"By every tie I could devise, my own fate had been bound up by me with
theirs”
The Panopticon can be applied into
different social contexts, for example schools and within the work place.
Michel Foucault is the original theorist who commented on panopticism as a
social theory in Crime and Punishment. A number of authors have also considered
how panoptic methods can make individuals and groups of people sensor
themselves.
In the UK the Internet is generally
free and open to us, which means we can search it endlessly, trawling through
content in a cumulative fashion. In China the opposite reality exist, with the
Internet being heavily censored and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,
independent bodies and Internet Service Providers. The Chinese government
believes Internet regulations and laws should exist to decide what is deemed
acceptable web content. The extent to the policing in China is considered the
heaviest in the world. China also has the largest imprisoned journalists and
cyber dissidents.
Censorship is the control of
information and ideas that circulate within a society. Censorship targets
information and ideas, which are deemed to be objectionable or offensive.
Gilc.org states why and what the Chinese government seeks to target for censorship,
which is traditionally similar if not parallel to the ideas of which lead to
the design of Panopticon. (Gilc.org 2004), “the rationales for censorship have varied; with some censors
targeting material deemed to be indecent or obscene; heretical or blasphemous;
or seditious or treasonous. Thus, ideas have been suppressed under the guise of
protecting three basic social institutions: the family, the church, and the
state.”
On the 16th March 2002, a self-governing body called The
Internet Society of China created and made a public pledge, which aimed to
force self-discipline on the Chinese Internet Industry. It is an agreement
between the regulators and companies that operate sites in China. By agreeing
to the pledge Chinese companies agreed to prevent and identify the transmission
of information that the authorities rule as objectionable, breaks the law,
spreads superstition or jeopardizes state security. From 2006, the pledge had
apparently been signed by more than 3,000 entities operating websites in China. The method of
censorship in China is commonly referred to as the ‘Great Chinese Firewall’,
just as the Chinese built The Great Wall of China to defends its citizens from
external threats, ‘The Great Chinese Firewall’ thusly named because it serves
the same function but digitally blocking web content, the majority of it
international. The scale of censorship in the People’s Republic of China
is huge. It is commonly believed that there are “more then 30,000 Internet police.” - (The Guardian 2010) their
responsibilities are to fight cybercrime, enforce censorship, monitoring and
also spreading propaganda.
Although 30,000 Internet Police
officers seems like a tremendous amount of manpower capable of enforcing the
Internet laws of the PRC, it wouldn’t be if the Chinese people didn’t actively
regulate themselves as well. China has more then 500 million Internet users
online and rising and it would be impossible to censor the Internet if the
Chinese didn’t generally comply. (Farivar and Cerf 2011), “The Chinese system relies on a classic psychological truth:
self-censorship is always far more comprehensive than formal censorship. By
having each private company assume responsibility for its corner of the
Internet, the government effectively outsources the otherwise unmanageable task
of monitoring the billions of e-mails, news stories and chat posting that
circulates every day in China”
Farivar and Cerf begin to answer
the essay title, unravelling some of the Panoptic methods the Chinese
government uses. Mason further comments on the Panopticon, reinforcing the
efficiency on the design. (Mason 2002), “The
fact that the inmates know that the supervisors can see what they are doing,
that enables the panoptic institution to effectively control a large mass of people.”
(Farivar Cerf 2011), “There’s a
randomness to their enforcement, and that creates a sense that they’re looking
at everything.” Farivar and Cerf further explain the fact that the Chinese
government can and do ‘turn every rock’, the idea is set in the internet user
that potentially that are being watched, even when they are not.
Foucault again comments on the
efficiency on the panoptic method, which you can apply to the PRC. (Foucault
1975), ‘The ideal point of penality today
would be an indefinite discipline: an interrogation without end, an
investigation that would be extended without limit to a meticulous and ever
more analytical observation, a judgement that would at the same be the
constitution of a file that was never closed”
The defining mechanism on panopticism
is the enigma of surveillance. It is no mystery to the Chinese people that the
Internet they use is heavily censored and monitored rigorously. The government
doesn’t hide the fact that they penetrate every aspect of the PRC’s Internet
but instead seeks the opposite, they rely on the PRC knowing they are being
constantly analysed and studied with nowhere to hide online. This is a more
productive method of administration.
Min Jiang (2007), Foucault (1975)
and Zhiqun Zhu (2011) comment on the equilibrium of power. Zhigun Zhu (2011)
p232-234, “While Chinese authorities are typically unable to take down content
posted on overseas web servers, they alternatively have been able to pressure
local web companies and internet service providers to keep “undesirable”
content off the web as much as possible… Chinese web companies have been
willingly or unwillingly following the “guidance” of the various governments
agencies simply because the government ultimately controls the fate of these
companies.” In other words they either obediently do whatever they are told
to do by the government or they simply face being cut off. What option do businesses and agencies within
the Internet industry have apart from to obey or face the consequences of their
actions under the current government ideology? It is understandable why they
would co-operate and it reinforces the idea of the infinite power that
Foucault’s panoptic theory comments on.
(Foucault 1975), “The relation of
each individual to his disease and to his death passes through the
representatives of power, the registration they make of it, the decisions they
take on it.” This creates an institution that ultimately multiplies the
authorities power. (Min Jiang 2007) “Automatic
functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent
in its effects even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection
of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary;” In China this
could further the support the efficiency of censorship implementation online.
Automatic functioning power which actually makes implementation not always
necessary, instead the government scare people into thinking they are being
watched when they might not be, this mimics the idea of the lantern and the
dungeon. (Foucault 1975) “That this
architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power
relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates
should be caught up in a power situation of which they themselves are the bearers.”
This is another explanation of why the Chinese engage in self-censorship and in
cases actively partake in the censorship of other Chinese Internet users.
Internet, companies have the power
to monitor us; generally this is for the purpose of advertising specifically to
sell us new products that we might potentially buy. This is achieved by
analysing the data we input through websites such as Google. The chances are if
you have been searching for a certain type of wrist watch for example, there is
a strong possibility that somewhere on a webpage that you visit in the near
future there will be an ad at the side of the page is somehow watch related.
The point of this explanation is to
conceptualise the idea of a government that is fundamentally involved in a
similar but far more extensive process of online analysis for the key objective
of controlling its citizens. (Foucault 1975)
“The practice of placing individuals under ‘observation’ is a natural
extensions of a justice imbued with disciplinary methods and examination
procedures” China is the largest exporter in the world with a prosperous
economy based upon hierarchies both in the workplace and socially. The people
who manufacture goods exported abroad operate under the exact regime of floor
worker-to-managing directors (skipping the other positions); Internet Police
officer to the man who makes the decisions; consequences to floor worker. This
structure parallels the system in place which is censorship online, a flow of
data forming information, (Foucault, 1975), “The surveillance is based on a system of
permanent registration: reports from the syndics to the intendants, from the
intendants to the magistrates or mayor. At the beginning of the ‘lock up’, the
role of each of the inhabitants present in the town is laid down, one by one;
this document bears ‘the name, age, sex of everyone, notwithstanding his
condition”
(Taras, Bennet and Townsend 2004) “Information technology makes possible new
degrees of control by management over the worker, affords new ways through
which the least movement of the worker can be monitored.” With technology
advancing so quickly people are left at the mercy of the developers and
administrators. There is a level of trust that that generally exists between
the two - in the UK , but in China this is not so. This is supported by (Jiang 2007),
“Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon,
when applied in the Internet environment, alerts us to the fact that the
Internet can be used as a mechanism of surveillance and control contrary to the
conventional wisdom that the Internet liberates. In the authoritarian context,
the mechanism of government control may be enlarged.”
Zhu (2011) p232-234 “Content filtering is not only implemented
at the “national gateway” level, but also throughout the public Internet access
facilities in China. In 2003 alone, for example, the internet police closed
down almost half of the country’s 200,000 Internet cafes and installed
surveillance cameras and filtering software in the remaining establishments.”
The surveillance, methodology and collection of information in the PRC sounds
exactly like the Omni presence Foucault suggests within ‘Discipline and
Punish’, which you cannot avoid or ignore utilising an incredible budget and
hands on implementation.
(Foucault 1975), “While, on the one
hand, the disciplinary establishments increase, their mechanisms have a certain
tendency to become 'de-institutionalized', to emerge from the closed fortresses
in which they once functioned and to circulate in a 'free' state; the massive,
compact disciplines are broken down into flexible methods of control, which may
be transferred and adapted.” This could explain various technology driven
methods, regulating body’s use; one technique they do use is simply blocking
search terms and deleting content. This manages both international and domestic
websites. Politically sensitive words for example ‘Tiananmen Square protest’ (student-led popular demonstrations in Beijing,
spring of 1989) will provide no results. The end of Foucault’s
quote might be another explanation of the extensive success of implementation
of panoptic methods by the Chinese Government. “Sometimes the closed
apparatuses add to their internal and specific function a role of external
surveillance, developing around themselves a whole margin of lateral controls.
Thus the Christian School must not simply train docile children; it must also
make it possible to supervise the parents, to gain information as to their way
of life, their resources, their piety and their morals.”
Censorship
and panopticism go hand in hand with the ultimate purpose being to terminate or
correct certain behaviour. In relation to the Internet in China, censorship is
used to filter ‘abnormal’ information. The Chinese government relies on
self-censorship and the panoptic theory. The Chinese Internet is the 21st
century platform that was once the late 18th century Panopticon,
replacing the guard in the central tower with a guard that may or may not be
behind the screen.
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