China’s ambitions to tighten up regulation of the Internet have found a second wind in old fears – terrorism and fake news.
Chinese officials and business leaders speaking at the third World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen last week called for more rigid cyber-governance, pointing to the ability of militants to organise online and the spread of false news items during the recent US election as signs cyberspace had become dangerous and unwieldy.
Ren Xianling, the vice-minister of China’s top Internet authority, said on Thursday that the process was akin to “installing brakes on a car before driving on the road”.
Ren, number two at the Cyber-space Administration of China (CAC), recommended using identification systems for netizens who post fake news and rumours, so that they could “reward and punish” them.
The comments come as US social networks Facebook Incorporated and Twitter Incorporated face a backlash over their role in the spread of false and malicious information generated by users, which some say helped sway the US presidential election in favour of Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Over the last year, China has formalised a series of Internet controls, including a controversial cyber-security law passed earlier this month, rules that overseas business groups say could block foreign firms from the market.
Some fear such controls could, however, hinder the growth and innovation that is boosting Chinese influence in global tech.
The Wuzhen conference, held annually in the picturesque town outside Shanghai, gave a glimpse of China’s tougher new stance; in past years attendees were given unfettered access to websites normally blocked by China’s “Great Firewall”, including Google and Facebook, but not this year.
President Xi Jinping addressed the conference in a short video speech on Wednesday, repeating calls to respect “cyber-sovereignty” – the imposition of government controls over cyber-space within China’s borders.
Cyber-sovereignty is seen as a direct challenge to the US-led view, which encourages non-government stakeholders to take the lead in governing specific Internet industries.
“The value of the Internet comes from its flexibility,” said Jared Ragland, senior director of policy for the Asia-Pacific region at software lobbyist group BSA. “We don’t think it would be helpful to start treating it like a public utility that can be walled off behind borders.”
China’s new cyber-law, which comes into effect in June next year, has sparked concerns of heavy-handed surveillance and local data storage requirements.
China’s Internet regulator says the law does not target foreign firms and is designed to mitigate cyber-terrorism threats to “critical infrastructure”.
UN officials attending the conference are also currently weighing the possibility of a multilateral cyber-terrorism treaty, though a stalemate over the definition of cyber-terrorism has hampered efforts, a UN officer told Reuters.
Despite the recent regulatory chill, several leading foreign tech firms joined the conference, including representatives from Facebook, International Business Machines Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated and Tesla Motors Incorporated.
On Thursday, Reid Hoffman, chairman and co-founder of LinkedIn Corporation, a professional networking site, praised China’s “hustle” and “pragmatism” in a speech on digital globalisation.
The following day, regulators ruled to block the company’s site in Russia, a country that also champions cyber-sovereignty.
China’s top tech firms also rallied behind Beijing at the event, lending support for the recent cyber-security regulations and pointing to the role of social media in Trump’s election as a cautionary tale in the fight against fake news.
Ma Huateng, the chairman and chief executive of Tencent Holdings Ltd, which oversees China’s most popular social networking app, WeChat, said that Trump’s win sent an “alarm” to the global community about the dangers of fake news, a view echoed by other executives at the event.
“(Trump’s popularity) reinforces wariness about how much freedom should be allowed in the use of the Internet in China,” says Jingdong Yuan, an associate professor at Sydney University specialising in Asia-Pacific Security.
Controls can have downsides for innovation, however.
Baidu Incorporated, which held the first public trial of its autonomous cars in Wuzhen, has met with roadblocks due to recent restrictions on autonomous vehicles.
“In China a few months back they just have a new regulation that banned the testing on highways, so we only do it in the streets now,” said Wang Jing, the vice-president of Baidu’s autonomous driving unit. “I don’t know why.”
“If you (regulators) want to have this kind of driving in China early on then you’ve got to support us,” said Wang.