WASHINGTON—According to official news outlets of the Chinese government, the Beijing's Municipal Public Security Bureau announced on August 28 that virtual police for Internet have been introduced to combat illegal Internet activities. Critics of this new brand of law enforcement suggest that this is yet another tool implemented by the Chinese authorities to enforce control over the Internet.
Human rights organizations and critics noticed very early on that when it came to investing manpower and technology in regulating and controlling Internet use, China leads the world. The Chinese communist regime has spent an enormous amount of money to import and conduct research on hardware and software to monitor and control the spread of information on the Web in China.
In addition, police departments in various Chinese cities have absolute power in controlling local Internet information service agencies. The regime gives local officials the authority to delete any information found on the Internet that they deem potentially harmful. Police officers can also delete any information they think tarnishes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s image in any way. Furthermore, these local enforcers can forbid writers from publishing articles on the Web.
In fact, since the Internet was introduced to China in the 90s, Chinese police departments have been working in secret to craft the Internet to their specifications. They did not tell the public of their systematic censorship, nor did they admit to or explain their conduct. Now, that the Beijing Police Department—following the lead of the Shenzhen Police Department—has become involved in the so-called virtual police campaign, the once secret operation has become more public.
Beijing Police Officials held a press conference regarding their virtual police campaign, claiming this new measure purports to both "start an open control over the Internet by law, as well as enforce the construction of Web culture."
According to China's official news outlets, the purpose of the virtual police program is to combat nine types of illegal Internet activities, these include: theft, fraud, pornography, terrorism and other activities that damage public well-being. But critics suggest that the program has a more self-serving agenda.
Qin Geng is an online writer. One of his essays criticized the CCP, labeling the government a dictatorship that refuses democracy. The essay caught the attention of real security officers who then forbid Qin from publishing any online content in the future.
"Police cracking down on Internet crimes should be considered a good thing," said Qin. "However, it is the police who are committing the worst Internet crimes, as they liberally trample on the freedom of speech protected by the Chinese Constitution. They deprive citizens of their rights of freely sending and receiving information over the Web, and they seriously compromise the channel through which people send and receive information."
"Damaging the Internet, damaging this information tool, stopping information from being freely spread, stopping information from being sent and received—or at least restraining the public from receiving information in a timely fashion—these phenomena have been existing in China for a long time," continued Qin.
Some experts in China's Internet development point out that the Chinese authorities block tens of thousands of Internet sites. While some of these sites include pornography—the content of which the authorities proudly and publicly admit to eradicating—many other banned sites focus on news and political debate and have nothing at all to do with pornography.
Many intellectuals both inside and outside of China have complained that the communist regime blocks so many Internet sites that could be of value to the Chinese people, including those of many academic institutions. Even the Columbia University website is blocked in China. Critics say that such conduct hurts the development and improvement of Chinese society.
