Code Red: China’s Internet Revolution

Code Red finds a China at war with itself. The Communist Party maintains that with 450 million-plus Internet users, regulation of communication is critical to preserve “national harmony,” a euphemism for social and economic stability. Many Chinese citizens like Peter Guo are ingeniously circumventing the censors, energized by their newfound ability to express and communicate ideas and ideals on a mass scale. But others like Ai Wei Wei have been arrested for their actions online.

The proliferation of an inherently democratic technology in a society governed by a hierarchy is both thrilling and perilous. Over the last decade, the Chinese government has developed the world's most sophisticated system of Internet censorship. Instant and widespread communications empower individual citizens with a platform for self-expression, but those same exchanges give government regulators unprecedented power to monitor and silence persons it deems threatening. Has the internet revolutionized China or has China revolutionized the internet?