Security News > 2024 > February > China could be doing better at censorship, think tank finds

China's censorship regime remains pervasive and far reaching, but the bureaucratic apparatus implementing it is unevenly developed and is not always well funded, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The document analyzes censorship practices in the Middle Kingdom and concludes that "Despite the importance the CCP places on domestic information control, its censorship apparatus is unevenly developed and plagued by unfunded mandates."

While China's Central Propaganda Department, Cyberspace Administration, Ministry of Public Security, and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology all play their roles in online and offline censorship, the report finds they "Wield a number of overlapping and redundant capabilities."

"The practice of imposing unfunded mandates on local governments has resulted in suboptimal censorship implementation, with many localities being criticized by their supervisory propaganda committees for their 'careless' and 'half-hearted' approaches to information control," explained USCC. A lack of skilled staff is another problem, and as a consequence the organizations that implement censorship sometimes use part-time workers or volunteers.

One more efficient source of censorship is China's big ISPs and web giants, which have been told to keep their services clean and are doing so with either in-house or outsourced censorship teams.

The report also notes that China is trying to export its censorship schemes and propaganda-pushing ops.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/21/china_censorship_underfunded/