Memes

Here's a paper covering the topic from a few years ago.. It goes through the history, motivations, and effects of the Golden Shield Project. It also briefly covers the opinions from people on both sides of the firewall and tries to remain neutral as it's a research communication. Download the PDF to read.

What the paper doesn't cover deeply is what information the CPC has chosen to censor and why. Materials subversive to the stability of their country. From whom? Of what nature? What historical precedent exists that would have made them want to do this in the late nineties?

Exploring the history of interactions between socialist countries and liberal countries will shed light on this. I'd also suggest looking into examples of censorship in western liberal countries and contrasting them with censorship in China.

Your reply pointed to a lot of assumptions from the Western liberal perspective, which is actively antagonistic and hostile towards China. If the only perspective you ever consume is from states who consider China a threat to their power, then of course you will hold a negative bias towards China.

The more you study, the better you will understand. If you approach the topic wanting to demonize China, you won't learn anything. There's a lot more to unpack here including Western media bias and leftist theory beyond Marx. This is just a stepping stone to understanding.

If you don't know the purpose and goals of the project that the firewall is part of, then you don't understand why China has a firewall.

Tell me, are you really free or do you assume you are free because you've always been told you are free and you've only ever heard one definition of freedom? To me, the illusion of freedom of speech, the illusion of freedom of choice, and being told to choose between a handful of shitheads who don't represent or act according to how I would like to see our society run is not freedom. It's just authoritarianism from a different source. It's who has power that matters to me. I'd rather be held accountable by my peers than by a bunch of chucklefucks who only see me as an expendable resource.