The Amateur

Computerist

Spring 2016 The Internet, Netizens and China 2005-2015 Volume 27 No. 1

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

International Origins of the Internet and the Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5

WGIG: China On Internet Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15

China-CSNET E-mail Link History Corrected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 19

Origins of Internet and Emergence of Netizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 32

Anti-CNN: Media Watchdog & Netizen Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 44

Power of Chinese Netizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 48

Netizens Challenge Media Distortions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 52

First Netizen Celebration Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 58

China in the Era of the Netizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 60

My Thinking on Netizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 65

Proposal for World Internet Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 67

Introduction

This issue of the Amateur Computerist documents an important

achievement of Internet development that took place in the period

extending from November 2004 through December 2015, a period of a

little over a decade. During those years Internet users especially in China

exercised a more active and broader form of citizenship giving a preview

of what netizenship might in the future be able to do for a society.

The issue begins with “The International Origins of the Internet and

the Impact of this Framework on Its Future,” a talk presented at Columbia

University to an audience of librarians in November 2004. The talk

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Page 1

introduced the World Summit on the Information Society of which Part 2

would be held in Tunis Tunisia in November 2005. The talk put the

upcoming Summit in the broad context of the development of the Internet.

The talk referred to some of the speakers at a UN sponsored meeting

held on September 20-21, 2004 in Geneva, Switzerland, preparing for the

Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). One of the speakers

quoted was Madam Hu Qiheng, who included in her speech her

appreciation of the Internet. She said: “The Internet is a resplendent

achievement of human civilization in the 20

Century.” She explained why

“government has to play the essential role in Internet governance…

creating a favorable environment boosting Internet growth while protecting

the public interests.” Madam Hu was speaking as the head of the delegation

from the People’s Republic of China. The text of her talk on Internet

governance appears as the second article in this issue.

The next article, “The 1987 Birth of the China-CSNet Email Link and

How Its History Got Corrected,” describes how an international e-mail link

between China and the rest of the online world was made possible by a

Chinese-German research collaboration in the 1980s. By the time of the

Tunis Conference, however, this was not the history being told in China.

A two-day side conference held just before the Tunis WSIS Summit

was called the Past, Present, and Future of Research in the Information

Society (PPF). A panel at this conference held on November 14, 2005 was

titled “The Origin and Early Development of the Internet and of the

Netizen: Their Impact on Science and Society.” On this panel, a paper on

the German-Chinese Collaboration presented the evidence to correct the

inaccurate narrative circulating in China. In the audience were some

members of the Chinese delegation to the WSIS conference, including

Madam Hu. After a brief discussion of the two views of how China became

connected to international e-mail, Madam Hu said she would encourage

that there be an investigation into the disagreement and if the narrative that

was being told in China was not accurate, she would help to get it

corrected. The article in this issue describes how between 2005 and 2007

this correction was made.

The fourth article in this issue is a talk presented at the Tunis panel

“International and Scientific Origins and the Emergence of the Netizen.”

It documents the vision that set the foundation for the Internet. Also it

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describes a serious problem that computer pioneers recognized in their

efforts to develop computer and Internet technology. As an example, JCR

Licklider one of the most influential people in the history of computer

science spread a vision from the early 1960s of universal connectivity

which helped guide the development of the Internet. He believed that there

would be a need for the public to be involved in the considerations and

decisions regarding network development. He recognized that there would

be problems with pressure being put on government from other sectors of

society and that active citizen participation would be needed to counter

these pressures. Licklider realized there would need to be a public spirited

online citizenry which would actively take up to solve problems when they

developed.

Just such a public spirited online citizenry had developed by the early

1990s. One researcher in 1992-1993, Michael Hauben observed the

emergence of this public spirited online citizenry. He proposed the name

“Netizen” to describe these online citizens. Describing netizens, Hauben

wrote:

Netizens…are people who understand it takes effort and action

on each and every one’s part to make the Net a regenerative and

vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide

to devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our

world, a better place.

Subsequent articles in this issue include several that document some

of the netizen developments that took place in China over the course of the

2005-2015 decade. For example, in 2008 netizens in China and Chinese

speaking netizens from around the world created the Anti-CNN web site.

Two of the articles in this issue describe the Anti-CNN web site, set up to

counter false narratives spread in the western media in response to violent

riots that took place in Lhasa in March 2008.

The article in this issue “China in the Era of the Netizen” documents

other examples of netizen activities in China, from the July 2009 English

language edition of the Chinese magazine NewsChina. The title of that

issue is “The Netizens’ Republic of China.” It includes an article on

“Netizens, The New Watchdogs.” That article describes the importance of

the practice of Chinese netizens engaging in online supervision of public

officials toward creating more democratic governance in China.

Page 3

Then on September 14, 2009, the Internet Society of China held the

first Netizens Cultural Festival Day to honor netizens and present awards

for netizen achievements. Other articles in the issue provide further

examples of the role played by netizens in Chinese society. One article

describes how netizens gave aid and support to those affected by the

earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, as a few years earlier netizens had helped

with the handling of the SARS epidemic. These are some of the examples

of how netizens in China and Chinese speaking netizens around the world

have demonstrated the important role netizens can play in helping to make

their society and the world more responsive to citizens and to social needs.

In the article in this issue, “My Thinking on Netizens,” Xu Liang while

a visiting scholar at Columbia University, tells how he came online in 1999

and eventually saw the value of the Internet to society. He writes, referring

to the authors of the book Netizens, “They imagine that the netizens would

be the mainstream in cyber society and it would give birth to a good and

equal society in reality which would break away from the traditional

minority-ruling-majority model. Marx and many Communists once tried

to construct such a perfect society. They failed in practice. The Internet and

netizen probably provide a technological tool and a different way to realize

the dream. This is our best wish.” But he warns it will take a long time and

if governments act “in the name of the netizens, netizen society will just

repeat the traditional model.”

This issue of the Amateur Computerist celebrates the Internet and

netizenship especially as they developed from 2004 to 2015 and especially

in China. The last article presents a proposal to the organizers of annual

World Internet Conference (WIC) in China. It proposes that the WIC

include an academic segment of the conference to enhance the possibility

that the WIC will build on the lessons from the early development of the

Internet and the emergence of the netizens.

Page 4

The International Origins of the Internet

and the Impact of This Framework on Its

Future.

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

[Editor’s note: The following is a talk given at Columbia University on

Nov. 4, 2004.]

The research I have been doing for the past 12 years is about the

origin, development and social impact of the Internet. I want to propose

that knowing something of the nature of the Internet, of its international

origins and early vision and development can provide a useful perspective

for looking at a process that is currently ongoing at the initiative of the

United Nations.

I want to share some of my research about the original vision and the

international origins of the Internet and the implications of this heritage on

the Internet’s future. Just now, over the past two or more years, and

continuing through November, 2005, there is an ongoing United Nations

initiative in which the world’s governments are participating, along with

NGO’s and corporate entities. Yet this high level activity, as Wired reports,

“has been largely ignored by those not participating in it.” (Wendy

Grossman, “Nations Plan for Net’s Future,” October 11, 2004)

This process is known as the World Summit on the Information

Society (WSIS). After preparatory activities for almost two years, the first

of two planned summits was held in Geneva, Switzerland in December

2003. Since that summit, a continuing series of meetings are scheduled to

set the foundation for the second Summit which is planned to take place

in Tunisia in November of 2005.

Page 5

Heads of state of many nations, particularly developing nations, came

to the Geneva summit and spoke about the importance of the Internet to

the people in their countries and to their present and future economic and

social development and well being. The participants recognized that the

Internet is an international network of networks, and that it has been built

by a great deal of public and scientific effort and funding. The disagree-

ment arises over the nature of the present and future management structure

and processes for the governance of the Internet.

In 1998 the U.S. government, which had previously overseen the

Internet’s infrastructure managed as a non commercial, scientific and

educational medium, made a decision to begin to transition it to a private

sector entity which is called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names

and Numbers (ICANN).

In the WSIS process there has been a lot of contention over the form

and processes of ICANN. The concern is that ICANN was constructed as

a business and technical creation and that this process marginalized

governments.

Another way of describing this disagreement is that there a contest

about whether the development and management of the Internet and its

infrastructure should be left to the market to determine or set by the

policies of governments.

Concern is being raised about what are the issues pertaining to Internet

governance. Stimulating the spread of the Internet and who has access is

one such issue. Others include safeguarding the Internet’s integrity,

oversight of the distribution of Internet addresses and domain names,

determining the nature of the public interest and how to protect that

interest, etc.

At the core of this dispute is the question of what kinds of policy

decisions need to be made about the Internet and determining the process

by which they will be made.

The WSIS meetings include those who it is claimed have an interest

in questions of Internet governance. These are called the “Stakeholders”

and thus far include representatives from:

governments

civil society (NGO’s)

private sector

Page 6

JCR Licklider

Others are sometimes mentioned, such as the scientific community, or the

academic community.

In looking back at the origins of the Internet, I feel it is helpful to start

with the vision of J. C. R. Licklider, a psychologist, who was invited to

begin a research office within the U.S. Department of Defense in Oct 1962.

Licklider called the office the Information Processing Techniques Office

(IPTO).

Licklider was an experimental psychologist who

had studied the brain. For his PhD thesis he did

pioneering work mapping where sound is perceived

in the brain of the cat. Licklider was also excited

about the development of the computer and of its

potential to further scientific research.

He was particularly interested in the potential of the

computer as a communication device. He saw it as a

means of helping to create a community of research-

ers and of making it possible to strengthen the

education available to the whole society through

access to the ever expanding world of information. He envisioned that

increased social contact would become available via the computer and

computer networks.

Licklider created a community of researchers that he called the

Intergalactic Network. He had in mind a network of networks. Though it

was too early to create such a network when he began at IPTO in 1962, he

set a foundation that inspired the researchers that followed him. He

returned briefly to head the IPTO from 1974-75 just at the time that the

research on the Internet was being developed.

In a paper Licklider wrote with another researcher, Robert Taylor in

1968, Licklider outlined a vision for a network of networks. Licklider’s

vision was of the creation and development of a human-computer

information utility. For this to develop and be beneficial, everyone would

have to have access. The network of networks would be global. It wouldn’t

be just a collection of computers and of information that people could

passively utilize. Rather his vision was of the creation of an on-line

community of people, where users would be active participants and

contributors to the evolving network and to its development. To Licklider,

Page 7

it was critical that the evolving network be built interactively.

Also Licklider believed that there would be a need for the public to

be involved in the considerations and decisions regarding network

development. He recognized that there would be problems with pressure

being put on government from other sectors of society and that active

citizen participation would be needed to counter these pressures. Licklider,

writes:

…many public spirited individuals must study, model, discuss,

analyze, argue, write, criticize, and work out each issue and each

problem until they reach consensus or determine that none can be

reached – at which point there may be occasion for voting.

Licklider believed that those interested in the development of the

global network he was proposing, would have to be active in considering

and determining its future. He also advocated that the future of politics

would require that people have access to computers to be involved in the

process of government. Licklider writes:

Computer power to the people is essential to the realization of a

future in which most citizens are informed about, and interested

and involved in the process of government.

Licklider and other computer pioneers of the 1950s and 1960s were

concerned with the public interest and how the computer and networking

developments of the future would be maintained in the public interest.

Licklider writes that it is important to not only seek to consider the public

interest, but also to make it possible for the public to be involved in the

decision making process: “[Decisions] in the ‘public interest’ but also in

the interest of giving the public itself the means to enter into the decision-

making process that will shape their future.”

Through the 1960s and into the early 1970s the IPTO pioneered new

and important computer technology like the time-sharing of computers and

then the creation of packet switching and the ARPAnet computer network.

The research was written up in professional publications and widely

distributed.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s it was recognized that there was

widespread interest in developing computer networking in countries around

the world. A conference was held in 1972 at the Hilton Hotel, in

Washington DC from October 24-26. More than a thousand researchers

Page 8

from countries around the world attended and participated in the

demonstration by U.S. researchers that packet switching technology was

functional. The demonstration excited many of the researchers. Also, how-

ever, international participation was recognized as critical to the

development of networking technology. “International participation is no

mere adornment to the Conference,” the organizers wrote. “It is a primary

means toward achieving a diversity of interest and viewpoint.”

At the conference, a group was formed of those working on

networking developments in different countries. It was called the

International Network Working Group (INWG).

The great interest worldwide in computer networking was stimulating,

but also it presented a problem. To understand the nature of this problem,

it is helpful to consider the fact that there were packet switching networks

being developed in different countries. These included Cyclades in France,

NPL in Great Britain, and ARPAnet in the U.S. These networks were

different technically and were under the ownership and control of different

political and administrative entities. Yet networking researchers realized

the importance of making it possible for these networks to be able to

interconnect, to be able to communicate with each other. This can be

articulated as the Multiple Network Problem.

There was the recognition that no one of these different networks could

become an international network. There would need to be some means

found to make communication possible across the boundaries of different

networks.

Collaboration among the researchers continued, with a number of

meetings and exchanges about how it would be possible to design and

create a means to support communication across the boundaries of these

diverse networks.

At a meeting in September 1973 at the University of Sussex, in

Brighton, England, two U.S. researchers, Bob Kahn and Vinton Cerf

presented a draft of a paper proposing a philosophy and design to make it

possible to interconnect different networks. The basic principle was that

the changes to make communication possible would not be required of the

different networks, but of the packets of information that were traveling

through the networks.

To have an idea of the concept they proposed it is helpful to look at

Page 9

Diagram from a memo from Vint Cerf, not an actual plan.

a diagram to show what the design would make possible.

In the gateways, changes to the packets would be made to make it

possible for them to go through the networks. Also the gateways would be

used to route the packets.

The philosophy and design for an Internet was officially published in

a paper in May 1974. The paper is titled “A Protocol for Packet Network

Intercommunication” by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn with thanks to

others including several from the international network research

community for their contributions and discussion.

Describing the

process of creat-

ing the TCP/IP

protocol, Cerf

explains that the

effort at devel-

o p i n g t h e

Internet proto-

cols was interna-

tional from its

very beginnings.

Peter Kirstein, a

B r i t i s h r e -

searcher at the

University Col-

lege London

(UCL) presented

a paper in Sept

1975 at a work-

s h o p i n

Laxenburg, Aus-

tria, describing

the international

research process.

This workshop

was attended by

an international

Page 10

In this map you can see the areas of the world where TCP/IP networking

was possible, the areas where there was access to BITNET but not the

Internet and the areas there was only e-mail access via different

networking possibilities like uucp, FIDONET or OSI (X.25), etc.

group of researchers, including researchers from Eastern Europe. Kirstein

reports on research to create the TCP/IP protocol being done by U.S.

researchers, working with British researchers and Norwegian researchers.

Here is the dia-

gram that Kirst-

ein presents

showing the par-

ticipation of U.S.

researchers via

the ARPAnet,

a l o n g w i t h

British research-

ers working at

the University

College London

(UCL) and Nor-

wegian research-

ers working at

NORSAR.

Collaboration

betwe en th e

Norwegian, Brit-

ish and U.S. researchers continued, demonstrated by the research to create

a satellite network, called SATNET. Later researchers from Italy and

Germany became part of this work.

Describin this international collaboration, Bob Kahn writes:

SATNET…was a broadcast satellite system. This is if you like an

ETHERNET IN THE SKY with drops in Norway (actually routed via

Sweden) and then the U.K., and later Germany and Italy.

Networking continued to develop in the 1980s. Among the networking

efforts were those known as Usenet (uucp), CSnet, NSFnet, FIDONET,

BITNET, Internet (TCP/IP), and others.

By the early 1990s TCP/IP became the protocol adopted by networks

around the world.

It is also in the early 1990s that my co-author of the book Netizens,

Michael Hauben, did some pioneering on-line research as part of class

Page 11

Netizens: On the

History and Impact of

Usenet and the

Internet, published by

the IEEE Computer

Society Press, 1997,

ISBN 0-8186-7706-6

projects in his studies at Columbia University. He explored where the

networks could reach and what those who were on-line felt was the

potential and the problems of the developing Internet.

In the process he discovered that there

were people on-line who were excited by

the fact that they would participate in

spreading the evolving network and con-

tributing so that it would be a helpful

communication medium for others around

the world. Michael saw these users as

citizens of the net or what at the time was

referred to as net.citizens.

Shortening the term to ‘netizen,’ he

identified and documented the emergence

of a new form of citizenship, a form of global citizenship that is called

netizenship.

Describing these on-line citizens, the netizens, Michael writes:

They are people who understand that it takes effort and action on

each and everyone’s part to make the Net a regenerative and

vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide

to devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our

world, a better place.

What are the implications of this

background to the WSIS process? In

October 1998, the U.S. government

decided to privatize the Internet’s infra-

structure. It created ICANN, the Internet

Corporation for Assigned Names and

Numbers. ICANN provided only minimal

input for governments in an official way or

for Internet users. There have been many

problems with the structure and

functioning of ICANN and lots of criticism.

The WSIS process led to holding a Summit in Geneva in December

2003. A number of heads of state attended. Issues raised included:

•Affordable access available to all.

Page 12

•What would be the role for Governments in Internet governance?

•What would be the role for others in Internet governance?

In February 2004 a workshop was held to try to determine the

components of Internet governance. At the workshop there was a proposal

for netizens to be involved in Internet governance, recommending that

netizen involvement would make it possible to counter the self interest of

corporations who were part of the Internet governance process. The

following diagram was submitted by Izumi Aizo of Japan. It still shows

only a minimal role for governments but it introduces a role for netizens

which is in line with Licklider’s vision of the crucial nature of citizen

participation in the network’s development.

On-line, there is a forum involved

with the WSIS process. But few people

who are involved with WSIS seem to pay

attention to it. However, a comment on

the forum seemed quite relevant to the

problems being raised. The contributor to

the forum, Safaa Moussa was from

Egypt. Moussa, too, echoed Licklider’s

concerns, writing that the crucial issues of

Internet governance involve the issue of

public access and the issue of how to widen the scope of public

engagement in the decision making process.

In September 2004, a meeting was held in Geneva. Many contributions

to that meeting seemed in line with the vision of Licklider expressed to

guide computer network development. But there was contention, also.

Summarizing the conflict that has developed in the WSIS process, a

representative of Egypt, H. E. Dr. Tarek Kamal, explains that there are two

conflicting view points. One view is that Internet governance involves

primarily technical and operative issues which can be best coordinated by

technical groups and business organizations (this is the view of those in

favor of ICANN). The other view pointed to by Dr. Kamal is that technical

resource management and other policy matters concerning the Internet are

social and public questions needing international and government

participation.

At the September 2004 meeting, supporting this second viewpoint, a

Page 13

member of the Brazil delegation, Jose Marcos Nogueira Viana, proposed

the need to create an inter-governmental forum – a meeting place for

governments to discuss Internet related issues. Also putting public interest

into the debate, was Hans Falk Hoffmann, a representative from the

international scientific institution CERN. He described how the scientific

community would continue to try to connect universities and therefore

major cities to the global network with sufficient bandwidth at affordable

prices. A representative from the Chinese delegation Madam Hu Qiheng,

explained how: “The Internet is a resplendent achievement of human

civilization in the 20

century. And that government has to play the

essential role in Internet governance...creating a favorable environment

boosting Internet growth while protecting the public interests.”

I want to propose that this activity as part of the WSIS process

demonstrates the importance of understanding the fact that the Internet is

international and that there is a demand for an international management

process and structure.

Similarly, and perhaps even more important is the need to understand

how to determine the public interest. In connection with this goal, I want

to propose the need to seriously consider whether the goal of netizen

empowerment is one of the important policy issues to be injected into the

WSIS process. This would imply the need to provide means for the on-line

community to be able to be active participants in the WSIS process. In the

on-line forum on September 9, 2004, Safaa Moussa wrote:

This on-line forum constitutes an important part of mobilizing

efforts for the pursued effective outcome. But, in view of the

wide-ranging aspects that Internet Governance covers, I believe

it is duly important to make it clearer the inclusion of on-line

contributions into the decision-making process.

On-line interaction and feedback need to be seen all along the

decision-making and implementation processes.

Another point I would like to underline is the creation of on-line

working groups to help integrate and coordinate initiatives and efforts

undertaken at national regional and international levels.

The Tunis Summit will take place in November 2005. Will it be able

to meet the challenges of the continuing development and spread of the

Internet? There are promising signs that the public and international

Page 14

essence of the Internet as envisioned by J. C. R. Licklider which were so

important in the origin and development of the Internet are being taken up.

But will there be a means of welcoming the on-line community, the

community of netizens into the WSIS process? Will there be a convergence

of netizen participation and defense of the public essence of the Internet

strong enough for the results of the Tunis summit to be significant?

WGIG: China Delegation On Internet

Governance*

by Madam Hu Qiheng**

[Editor’s Note: The following speech by the Head of the China Delegation

was given at the Consultation Meeting on the Establishment of the UN

Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) held at the United

Nations Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on September 20 and 21,

2004.***]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman,

It is my great pleasure to have this opportunity to discuss Internet

governance with all of delegations today. First of all, I would like to

express my appreciation to Mr. Annan for his emphasis on this meeting,

and his accreditation of Mr. Desai to host the meeting. And I would also

like to thank the executive secretariat for the work they have done. It is

very important and timely for all the stakeholders to further exchange ideas

on Internet governance before the formal startup of the working group on

Internet Governance.

Internet governance is the focus of WISIS first phase. Wide

discussions have been held during the first phase, with quite a lot of

agreement and understanding reached. While on the other hand, we have

Page 15

to admit that many problems on Internet governance still need to be studied

and discussed. Therefore the first phase of WSIS authorized Mr. Annan to

set up a special working group to carry out studies and discussions on this

issue, which is one of the important achievements of the first phase of

WSIS and fully shows the emphasis given to Internet governance by the

international society. It is our hope that each party would follow the basic

principles of the “Declaration of Principle” and “Plan of Action” adopted

in the first phase of WSIS, to further carry on cooperation and study on

Internet governance, to seek common points while reserving differences,

to consider Internet governance with a perspective view, to reach consensus

on Internet governance and guide the Internet development to meet its own

trend and the common demand of the world people. Here, I would like to

put forward the following viewpoints:

I. The change of the nature of Internet demands the

involvement of governments into the Internet governance.

Internet is a resplendent achievement of human civilization in the 20

century. With over 30 years’ development, it has evolved from a dedicated

network for science and military to an important global information

infrastructure, which has penetrated into every area such as economy, trade,

culture, media, education and politics, etc. Internet has become an

indispensable part of the human society, so Internet governance is vital to

the state sovereignty and public interests. Therefore each country must

apply governance upon Internet regarding it as a crucial infrastructure.

While it greatly brings advantage to people’s work and life, Internet also

causes many problems such as cyber crime, copyright piracy, spam, spread

of harmful information, etc, which draws general attention of the

international society. Those problems threaten the safe and stable operation

of the Internet, infringe upon public interests, and interfere with the normal

economic activities and social order. As the representative of the state and

the public interests, all the conscientious governments should take the

responsibility to proactively take part in the Internet governance and

closely cooperate with the civil societies and private sectors to jointly

develop the Internet and promote the safe and stable operation as well as

a sustainable development of Internet.

Page 16

II. Internet development itself calls for the transition of the

governance mode.

The Internet has undergone different development stages. The

governance mode at the initial stage featured bottom-up and self-discipline,

which met the demands resulting from Internet growth at that time and

played a significant role, thus facilitating the development and prosperity

of the Internet. As the Internet keeps expanding at such an amazing speed

and spreads globally the simple self-governance mechanism is not enough

anymore. The international society has shared the understanding that

government has to play the essential role in Internet governance. It can be

well proved by the fact that in the first phase of WSIS, all the related

parties have reached an accord that governments have to play their role in

Internet governance and the administration of the domestic Internet falls

within the sovereignty of each country. Considering conscientious

government represents the interest of the state and its people, any private

sector or civil society could not do better in this regard, so we should

emphasize that governments and inter-governmental organizations play a

leading role in Internet governance. In view of the unique features and

legacies of the Internet, we favor the Internet governance mode, namely,

jointly promoting the secure, stable and sustainable development of the

Internet under the principle that governments lead the way, all stakeholders

have full participation. That government leads the way, as we say above,

does not necessarily mean government control or being at the position to

control, but government creates a favorable environment boosting the

Internet growth while protecting public interests. Civil societies and private

sectors will play important roles as usual in Internet governance, should

respect religions, cultures and customs and abide by laws and regulations

of state. In a word, there is a necessity to form a new framework of Internet

governance featuring the leadership of government and sufficient

participation of all stakeholders.

III. Inclusion and openness shall dominate the process of

defining Internet governance and determining related

public policy issues.

The first phase of WSIS assigned WGIG four tasks, one of which is

Page 17

to make a working definition of Internet governance. Inclusion and

openness represent the essential features of the Internet and should be fully

reflected in the definition. As far as we are concerned, it is a better

approach to define Internet governance in a broad comprehension, because

only this kind of understanding can make all stakeholders involved, which

accords with the principles agreed upon in the first phase of WSIS.

The related public policy issues, as we think, involve many aspects of

Internet governance, including at least:

•Internet resources management, such as managing IP addresses, domain

names and AS numbers

•Internet information and network security, such as spam, harmful

information (children pornography, network virus and etc.), cyber crime

(data interception, unauthorized visit, hacker, information theft and finan-

cial fraudulence), information privacy and confidentiality and other issues

•The international legal system and administrative coordination mechanism

on Internet

•Operational security of Internet infrastructure, such as the security of

domain name system

•IPR protection and knowledge sharing

•E-commerce

•Convergence between the Internet and the telecommunication network,

etc.

Internet governance solutions to the issues above need the active

participation and leadership of governments and inter-governmental

organizations, so they will be and should be discussed under the framework

of the UN.

Finally, we think the current biggest problem facing the Internet is the

absence of a legitimate entity for international Internet governance. Our

opinion is that the governance entity, generated through democratic

procedure under the UN framework, implements Internet governance

according to the principle of freedom, democracy and equality. The entity

should be authoritative, impartial and authorized to guarantee the Internet

a large platform for people with different languages, cultures, religions,

races and political backgrounds to exchange views, thus ensuring sustained

development and prosperity itself.

That’s all. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Page 18

* http://www.wgig.org/docs/qiheng.pdf

** Head of China Delegation to the WGIG; Adviser, Science and Technology

Commission, Ministry of Information Industry, China; Academician of Chinese Academy

of Engineering; Former Vice-President, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

***

http://www.wgig.org/meeting-september.html

The 1987 Birth of the China-CSNET

E-mail Link

and How Its History Got Corrected*

by Jay Hauben

[email protected]

In September 1987 an e-mail link was established between the

People’s Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Germany. That

link allowed China to participate in the CSNET, an international e-mail

network. It was the first link of China into an international e-mail system

based on a mail server in China and a major step toward China’s joining

the Internet.

The following article tells some of the details of how that link was

developed and how the story of that development was corrected in China.

It documents some of the international collaboration that characterizes the

science and technology on which the Internet is based.

I. Finding Werner Zorn

In the early 1990s, Ronda Hauben and Michael Hauben sought to find

and document where the Internet came from, how it was developed and

how it was spreading. They found substantial evidence that the Internet

developed as an open, scientific and engineering collaboration. All the

evidence was that the process was international from the very beginning

and was guided by a vision of a major advance to human society from a

new universal inexpensive communication system.

In 2004, Ronda Hauben and I were in Germany. Ronda had heard that

Page 19

the first permanent e-mail link between China and the rest of the world was

connected to the University of Karlsruhe,

a major institute for education

and research in western Germany. While in Germany, we were told if you

want to know about the Germany-China link see Werner Zorn.

We located and interviewed Professor Werner Zorn in Berlin. He

shared his memories and some documents from 1983 to 1987. During those

four years, a Chinese-German international collaboration prepared the link

so that China would be part of a worldwide e-mail system called CSNET.

Professor Zorn particularly gave credit on the Chinese side to Professor

Wang Yunfeng who was the Senior Advisor of the Institute for Computer

Applications (ICA) in Beijing. The Institute of Computer Applications was

located at the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). It was under the

Chinese Ministry of Machinery and Electronics Industry. The ICA was

created to provide data processing and computer services to small and

medium organizations that were not large enough to have their own

computer installations. It became a foremost computer networking center.

From 1987 to 1994, ICA was the mailserver and hub on the Chinese side

for the CSNET e-mail exchange between China and the rest of the world.

II. A Chinese-German Collaboration Builds China’s First

International E-mail Link

Many factors contributed to make that link possible. In the early

1980s, the World Bank supported the import of computers for use in

universities in China. At that time, export of computers from the U.S. to

China was forbidden by the U.S. government. The German government

also subscribed to the COCOM

export rules but some computers made by

the German company Siemens met the criteria to be allowed export to

China. In 1982, the World Bank Chinese University Development Project

I was allotted $200 million. It used some of that money for the import into

China of 19 Siemens BS2000 mainframe computers manufactured in

Germany. One of these Siemens computers was delivered to the ICA.

As part of the project, Professors Zorn and Wang collaborated to

organize the first Chinese Siemens Computer Users Conference (CASCO

– Symposium ‘83)

which took place in September 1983 in Beijing. At the

conference, Professor Zorn led a seminar on the German Research Network

Page 20

project. One of the Chinese interpreters challenged Professor Zorn,

remarking that lecturing was not enough. Would Professor Zorn do

something more for China? That planted the seed that grew into the

Chinese-German computer networking collaboration which developed the

e-mail link based on the Siemens BS2000 computers installed at the ICA

in China and in the Karlsruhe University in West Germany.

In 1983-4, Professor Zorn was part of the effort that connected

Germany to the CSNET

, a network begun in the U.S. in 1980 to provide

e-mail connections among university computer science departments. To

connect to CSNET, a computer would need particular communication

functionality as part of its operating system. The specifications or protocols

providing that functionality for CSNET had not yet been implemented in

the Siemens BS2000 operating system. In late 1984, Professor Zorn

decided to undertake this task together with his students but only as a

background job. It took two years to complete. The work was financially

supported in part by the government of the West German state of Baden-

Wuerttemberg. Its Prime Minister Lothar Späth was friendly to China.

The CSNET international e-mail network was based on ordinary

telephone lines and switches using a communication protocol with the

name X.25

. In 1985, both China and West Germany were developing

internal X.25 e-mail traffic systems. But there was no physical path to carry

such e-mail traffic between them. With the help of the PKTELCOM data

network administered by the Beijing Telecommunications Administration,

the Karlsruhe team made contact with the Italian cable company Italcable.

Italcable had some leased lines via satellite between China and Italy. The

Italian company agreed to open its switches to route X.25 e-mail traffic

between China and Germany. Italcable was able to open its switches on

Aug. 26 1986. From that day on, reliable remote computer-to-computer

dialogue was available between Karlsruhe University and ICA through

PKTELCOM. But a CSNET e-mail link was not yet possible because the

Siemens computers at the ICA and in Karlsruhe did not have the necessary

functionality to handle CSNET e-mail messages.

In late summer 1987, Professor Zorn was in Beijing for the third

CASCO conference but also to work with the staff of the ICA to set up the

e-mail link between China and Germany. His team at Karlsruhe University

had succeeded in getting the CSNET protocols to work on their Siemens

Page 21

BS2000 computer.

In a little over two weeks, September 4 to 20, 1987 the Chinese and

the German teams implemented within the operating system of the ICA

Siemens computer the necessary protocols, installed the necessary

communications equipment and overcame the many technical problems

to make possible e-mail connectivity with Karlsruhe.

III. The First E-mail Message from China to the CSNET

On September 14, 1987, the joint German and Chinese team composed

an e-mail message with the subject line, “First Electronic Mail from China

to Germany.” The message began in German and English “Across the

Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world.” Not only was the

message addressed to Karlsruhe in Germany, it was also addressed to

CSNET computer scientists Lawrence Landweber and David Farber in the

U.S. and Dennis Jennings in Ireland. It was signed by Professor Werner

Zorn for the University of Karlsruhe Computer Science Department and

Professor Wang Yunfeng for the ICA. Eleven coworkers are also listed as

signatories, Michael Finken, Stefan Paulisch, Michael Rotert, Gerhard

Wacker and Hans Lackner on the Karlsruhe side and Dr. Li Cheng Chiung,

Qiu Lei Nan, Ruan Ren Cheng, Wei Bao Xian, Zhu Jiang and Zhao Li Hua

on the ICA side, suggesting the complexity of the task. But they could not

send the message they composed. To their great disappointment, the

message failed to leave China.

There was a last technical problem to solve.

Successful connectivity was achieved in a few more days. On September

20, 1987, the first CSNET e-mail message, the one composed on

September 14, could actually be sent to Karlsruhe.

Page 22

The First E-mail Message for CSNET to Leave China

The transmission

of this first e-mail

message went over

an X.25 connec-

tion. At ICA, the

sender dialed using

a 300 baud modem

to one of the X.25

p o r t s o f t h e

P K T E L C O M

B e i j i n g .

P K T E L C O M

Beijing was con-

nected over a satel-

l i t e l i n k t o

ITAPAC, which

was the X.25

packet network of

Italy. From there

the message was

sent via a gateway to the German X.25 network DATEX-P, to be delivered

to the Karlsruhe Siemens host. This route was very expensive because it

included international telephone charges for each separate link.

The Siemens host in Karlsruhe was connected via the Karlsruhe local

area network with a VAX 11/750. That computer acted as the central

CSNET node for Germany. It polled the CSNET relay in Boston several

times a day. Thus the CSNET node in Beijing was, with that first e-mail

message, fully integrated into CSNET and via CSNET to the rest of the e-

mail world. With this first e-mail node in China, a step was taken for the

people of China to begin online communication with people around the

world. But this was not an Internet connection but only a very expensive

e-mail link.

IV. China Welcomed into the International E-mail

Community

Page 23

Letter from Stephen Wolff, Nov. 8, 1987

E-mail connectivity between China and Germany was only the

necessary technical precondition for an e-mail service. What was missing

was the official approval of the U.S. authorities that funded CSNET. The

U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) was the umbrella institution for

all CSNET networking within the U.S. and also abroad at that time.

Immediately after the technical connectivity was achieved, Professor Zorn

worked with Professor Wang to win acceptance from the NSF for

worldwide e-mail traffic to and from China. With the help of Lawrence

Landweber, the Chairman of the CSNET project, and other U.S. computer

scientists, acceptance by the NSF was achieved less than two months later.

On November 8, 1987, in a letter to the executive committees of CSNET

and BITNET, Stephen Wolff, Director of the NSF Division of Networking

and Communications Research and Infrastructure welcomed the CSNET

e-mail connectivity with China.

This letter

was the official

political ap-

proval of what

technically was

already imple-

mented. As far

as I can tell there

was no govern-

ment to govern-

ment activity, no

treaty or signed

agreement. The

story is told that

Stephen Wolff

did get a com-

mand from the

U . S . W h i t e

House to rescind

permission after

he had already

given it, but as

Page 24

he says, “you don’t ask permission in advance. You ask forgiveness

afterwards.”

Without Wolff’s letter, the China-Germany e-mail connection would

have been vulnerable to a cutoff. The NSF could decide to deny forwarding

of e-mail messages to and from ICA in Beijing. Professor Zorn considers

November 8, 1987 as the time China

became officially connected with the rest of the world via the CSNET e-

mail system. E-mail received from China at Karlsruhe would be relayed

from there to whichever CSNET host worldwide it was addressed. And the

reverse, any CSNET host worldwide could send e-mail to ICA in Beijing

and it would be relayed from there to users of the China Academic Net

(CANET) throughout China as well as to users in other Chinese institutions

outside CANET. The international computer science community and

Chinese students abroad who learned of this connectivity answered with

their warm congratulations.

Still these were small steps. Even with the support of the Chinese State

Science and Technology Commission, hardly any Chinese institution and

no individual scientist could afford to send or receive e-mail messages to

or from abroad. That was because X.25 for international traffic increased

in cost as the size of the e-mail message increased. The cost on the Chinese

side included charges for every message received as well as sent. Longer

e-mail messages could cost 150 RMB**, for a professor the equivalent of

a whole month’s salary. The monthly charges for the link, between $2000

and $5000 paid by each side, were more of a burden for the Chinese side

than the German side.

E-mail usage was thus severely restricted.

But for the five years during which expensive e-mail connectivity was

the only network connectivity that could reach the rest of the world, China

prepared itself to truly join the Internet.

With encouragement from the Chinese government, knowledge and

understanding of international computer networking was spreading in

China, especially in the scientific and computer communities. The Institute

for High Energy Physics (IHEP) belonging to the Chinese Academy of

Sciences opened an e-mail connection in 1989 with its partner in the U.S.,

the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. Message

Handling Systems (MHS) were set up in 1990 between the German

Research Network (DFN) and the Chinese Research Network (CRN) and

Page 25

between the Beijing Tsinghua University Network (TUNET) and its partner

in Canada at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

The e-mail and remote logon only phase of connectivity between

China and the rest of the world came to an end in 1994. That is when IHEP

worked together with SLAC to take the next big step in connectivity

between the people of China and the people of the world. On May 17,

1994, IHEP and SLAC established a full TCP/IP connection between China

and the U.S.

The use of the TCP/IP protocols allows data packets to take

independent paths which meant the cost for e-mail could come down and

file transfer (FTP) and remote logon (Telnet) would now be available. That

connectivity opened the Internet to China and China to the Internet.

V. Getting the Accurate Story

After Ronda and I interviewed Professor Zorn in 2004, I took up to

write an article about this history for the Amateur Computerist, an online

news journal. My online journalism research for the article took me mostly

to web sites in China. The story told there gave most credit for the China-

CSNET connection to a Chinese engineer, Qian Tianbai whom Professor

Zorn had hardly mentioned. Missing from the history on the websites in

China that I found was any credit to Professor Wang or to the international

component which Professor Zorn had stressed.

I sent e-mail to Professor Zorn asking him about the discrepancy. I

also sent e-mail to Liu Zhijiang at the China Internet Network Information

Center (CNNIC) asking if there was any evidence for citing on the CNNIC

website that Qian Tianbai was responsible for the first e-mail message.

Professor Zorn sent me via e-mail more documents and the e-mail

addresses for two Chinese scientists, Dr. Li Cheng Chiung and Ruan Ren

Cheng, who had signed the first e-mail message. Dr. Li Cheng Chiung was

the Director of the ICA from 1980 to 1990. A copy of the first e-mail

message was online. I saw that Qian Tianbai’s name was not among the

13 signatures.

The two Chinese scientists answered with more information about the

September 1987 e-mail message and about Qian Tianbai. Particularly they

both answered that Qian Tianbai was not in China at the time of the

opening of the link in 1987 and that Qian Tianbai had not participated in

this project. I found no evidence otherwise.

Page 26

Through further digging and via e-mail correspondence with Dr. Li

Cheng Chiung and Ruan Ren Cheng, I was able to confirm to my

satisfaction Professor Zorn’s story of the events.

VI. Spreading the Accurate Story

I wrote my article

and it was published in the Amateur Computerist

giving justified credit to Professors Wang and Zorn and their teams and to

Lawrence Landweber of the CSNET and Stephen Wolff. My article

appeared online and I sent copies to CNNIC and other contacts I had made

in China. Encouraged by my journalism, Professor Zorn intensified his

efforts to get the story corrected in China.

A bit later Professor Zorn was invited by Ronda to tell the story at a

panel planned in conjunction with the World Summit on the Information

Society (WSIS) for Nov 2005 in Tunis in North Africa. In Tunis, Professor

Zorn presented his story of the international effort and collaboration

especially between himself and his team in Germany and Professor Wang

and Dr. Li and the team in Beijing. Professor Zorn put up many slides

showing the Chinese and German teams during the period and he put up

one slide which said:

The official time lines contain some seriously mistaken

information and are also omitting important facts. They cause

hereby fatal misinformation meanwhile spread all over the world.

In the audience in Tunis was Madam Hu Qiheng, Vice President,

China Association for Science & Technology, and Chair of Internet Society

of China. Mdm Hu rose and spoke of her friendship with Qian Tianbai but

said she would investigate why the story told in China differed from the

one Professor Zorn told. I gave her a copy of my article and Professor Zorn

gave her copies of some of the documents he had given me.

VII. The CNNIC Internet Time Line Gets Corrected

Just before the Tunis event, Professor Zorn had sent documents to

CNNIC supporting the roles of Professor Wang and the ICA team and of

the Karlsruhe team. Also, Nanjun Li one of Professor Zorn’s PhD students

made contact with Wang Enhai Director of the Information Service

Department at CNNIC to help it investigate the discrepancy between the

Page 27

CNNIC Internet Time Line and Professor Zorn’s documents. When Mdm

Hu returned to China from Tunis she asked CNNIC to investigate the 1987

e-mail message. As the editor of the CNNIC Internet Time Line, Wang

Enhai took the task. He was assisted by Chen Jiangong.

During the

investigation different experts and participants in the events gave different

stories. Min Dahong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences helped

explain publicly the controversies that CNNIC had to investigate.

The Internet Time Line Committee of CNNIC

met in March 2007

and decided, based on all the evidence, that entries on the official CNNIC

website Internet Time Line should be changed to give proper credit to the

work of Professors Zorn and Wang, their teams and the international effort

that made the first e-mail link between China and the world via CSNET

possible. It had taken 18 months. The first entry of the CNNIC Internet

Time Line was changed in May 2007 to read:

In September 1987, with the support from a scientific research

group led by Professor Werner Zorn of Karlsruhe University in

Germany, a working group led by Professor Wang Yunfeng and

Doctor Li Chengjiong built up an email node in ICA, and

successfully sent out an email to Germany on Sep 20

. The email

title was “Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the

world.”

VIII. Celebrating the International Collaboration

In spring 2007, Professor Zorn was organizing a celebration of the 20

anniversary of the success of the opening of the China-CSNET link for

September 2007 in Potsdam Germany. He was overjoyed by the news he

was receiving that Professor Wang and Dr Li and himself and the ICA and

Karlsruhe teams were being recognized in China for their hard work in

setting up the China-Germany CSNET link. He invited to Potsdam many

of the international pioneers who helped spread the Internet. And he invited

Mdm Hu because the accurate story about that link was now spreading in

China. For me, the celebration was for both the success of the e-mail link

and the success of helping correct how the history was being told. At the

celebration, Mdm Hu representing the Internet community in China

presented a souvenir from China to Werner Zorn, Lawrence Landweber

and Stephen Wolff as representatives of the international Internet pioneers.

Page 28

In her presentation she emphasized what Professor Zorn had always

stressed:

The international collaboration in science and technology is the

driving force for computer networking across the country borders

and facilitating the early Internet development in China.

But this is not the end of the story.

In late 2008, the Internet Society of China asked online users in China

what date would they chose for a National Net Citizens (Netizens) Cultural

Festival? It is reported that about 500,000 users voted. The largest number

of those voting chose September 14. That is the day in 1987 when the first

message to be sent on the China-CSNET link was composed. When the

Internet Society of China organized the first-in-the-world Net Citizens

(Netizens) Cultural Festival Day, it invited Professor Zorn. It also invited

Ronda Hauben and me for our work about netizenship and about the

international collaboration that made the Internet possible.

The first Netizens Cultural Festival Day was held September 14, 2009

in Beijing at the CCTV Tower. It was a lively event with speeches and

awards for some bloggers. An oral history panel was held discussing some

of the problems of opening an Internet link to China in 1994 so the Chinese

people could have full Internet connectivity. This first net citizens’ day was

not yet well known among the public or even among the then 350,000,000

net users. It was like a baby being born, small but of a big potential.

Instead of seeing that potential, a Wall Street Journal blog post framed

the event as an “official day” that “didn’t seem to muster much enthusi-

asm.”

But the Wall Street Journal was not the only media covering the

events. About 40 online media journalists attended and reported on the

celebration. They did live online blogging of the event and put up text,

photo and video reports so that online users could see and judge the event

for themselves.

On the oral history panel at the CCTV Tower, Qian Hualin, Chief

Scientist and Vice President of the Internet Society of China informed the

audience that:

Just as Germany was helpful with China establishing an e-mail

link with the CSNET in 1987, today China is offering its

experience to Vietnam in network construction and to the DPRK

in setting up and managing the domain name system of dot KP.

Page 29

With this statement, Qian Hualin showed that the international collabora-

tion that characterizes the Internet continues.

IX. Summary

From 1983-1987, despite the Cold War, computer scientists in China

and West Germany were able to collaborate to build up a link between

China and the international CSNET e-mail network. They had support from

the international computer networking community to transcend national

borders, ideological differences, and political restrictions. After a false

start, the history of this international collaboration is known and respected

in China. With such collaborations and efforts to spread accurate stories,

the Internet will continue to develop and bring the people of the world

closer together.

Notes

1. See for example, “Part II The Past: Where it has Come From” in Michael Hauben and

Ronda Hauben, Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, IEEE

Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA., 1997. There is an online version of the book

at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

2. See Cindy Zheng, “Current Computing/Networking Status in China,” China News

Digest, Special Issue on Networking in China, July 11, 1993,

http://www.sdsc.edu/~zhengc/93trip.html.

3. COCOM, the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, was established

during the Cold War to put an embargo on Western exports to East Bloc countries. It

established multilateral export controls for strategic and military goods/materiel and

technologies to proscribed destinations.

4.CASCO- Chinesische Anwender von Siemens Computern.

5.The CSNET was the result of a proposal in 1979 submitted to the U.S. NSF by Lawrence

Landweber to make computer network connections among U.S. and other university

computer science departments. It started as a simple telephone-based e-mail relay network

which became known as PhoneNet. By 1984, computer science departments outside of

the U.S. began to connect. Canada, Israel, Germany and France had early connections,

soon followed by South Korea, Australia and Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.25

7. Wang Enhai tells this story at http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2008-11-06/09452560594.shtml

(in Chinese)

8. See, “Panel Discussion: The Road to the First E-mail,” The Amateur Computerist, Vol.

16 No. 2, Summer 2008, p. 5. Available on line at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn16-2.pdf.

Page 30

9. For computer networking activity, ICA was financially better off than were the Chinese

universities. ICA was funded by the Ministry of Machinery and Electronics Industry. The

universities were funded by the Ministry of Education which could not distribute as much

money to each university as ICA received.

1 0 .

h t t p : / / w w w . n s r c . o r g / d b / l o o k u p / o p e r a t i o n = l o o k u p -

report/ID=890202373777:497422478/fromPage=CN.

11. “‘Across the Great Wall’: The China-Germany Email Connection 1987-1994.” See:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/china-e-mail.doc.

12. E-mail message from Wang Enhai to the author, August 27, 2008. Wang Enhai gave

an interview in 2008 to SINA which details the method and results of this investigation.

It is online at:

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2008-11-06/09452560594.shtml and

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2008-11-06/09452560595.shtml (both in Chinese).

13. See for example, Min Dahong, “China's first e-mail exactly who and when issued,”

Xinhuanet, Nov 22, 2006. Available online at:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/newmedia/2006-11/22/content_5358191.htm (in Chinese).

14. The Committee had been established in 2002. Its members were experts from

governments, research institutes, newspaper agencies, Internet companies, universities,

and retired Internet contributors. In 2007 Min Dahong was on the Committee.

15. See “Cordial Thanks to Our Friends,” The Amateur Computerist, Vol. 16 No. 2,

Summer 2008, pages 13-14. On-line at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn16-2.pdf.

16. “China’s Netizens Day Gets Scant Attention” by Juliet Ye. See

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/09/15/chinas-netizens-day-gets-scant-attention/tab/article/

17. See for example the video at: http://my.tv.sohu.com/u/vw/21977107 or

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE5MTY3OTUy.html

* This article is a slightly revised version of a presentation made at the Institute for the

History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing, July 10, 2012. The

presentation was accompanied by a slideshow which is online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/beijing2012/j-china2012-email-link-slides.ppt. Part

of this presentation was given at the International Conference on Media Education and

Global Agendas, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China,

January 12-13, 2010. There is a version of this article in Chinese in Science & Culture

Review, Vol. 10 No. 1, February 2013, pages 81-89, published by the Institute for the

History of Natural Sciences, CAS.

**The RMB (renmibi) is the official currency of China.

Page 31

International and Scientific

Origins of the Internet and the

Emergence of the Netizens*

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

[Editor’s Note: The following is a talk given on Nov. 14, 2005 in Tunis at

a side event at the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS

2005).]

Netizens are Net Citizens who utilize the Net from their home,

workplace, school, library, etc. These people are among those

who populate the Net, and make it a resource of human beings.

These netizens participate to help make the Net both an

intellectual and a social resource.

Michael Hauben

“Further Thoughts about Netizens”

I am happy to be here today and to be presenting the opening paper

in this session of the Past, Present, and Future of Research in the

Information Society (PPF) conference. This session is titled “Computer

Networks, the Internet and Netizens: Their Impact on Science and Society.”

It is an honor to have this session as a side event connected to the 2

phase of the UN’s World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS),

where the importance of access to the Internet becoming available to all

the world’s peoples is being affirmed.

Secondarily, even as this conference session is taking place, there is

a struggle ongoing involving a number of countries around the world to try

to determine the management model that is needed for the international

administration of the Internet’s infrastructure. But to solve this problem

it is useful to have some idea of how the Internet was developed and what

are the salient aspects of that development.

In my talk today, I want to explore these aspects and in turn try to

unravel some of the myths about the Internet and its origins that hide its

Page 32

actual character. I have a draft paper I have prepared where I explore the

issues in greater detail that I will speak about today.

First, a common view of the Internet is that it was created within the

U.S. by the U.S. Department of Defense as a way to have a communication

system that would survive a nuclear war.

This is a fallacious view of the origin of the Internet. It is inaccurate

in many aspects.

Notably:

1. The Internet is a result of scientific and technical collaboration that was

international from its earliest stages.

2. There was a vision guiding and inspiring its international collaborative

development.

3. The Internet is a solution to the Multiple Network Problem – to connect

dissimilar networks.

More specifically, the goal of Internet research was to make

communication possible across the boundaries of different networks.

During the period of the birth of the Internet (1973-1983), countries like

Great Britain, France, Canada and others were either actually creating their

own national or specific computer networks, or were developing plans to

do so. These networks would all be different technically and would be

owned and operated by different political and administrative entities. How

to provide for communication across the boundaries of these diverse

networks was the problem to be solved.

The research that solved this problem was the work to create the

protocol called TCP/IP. The protocol TCP/IP makes it possible to

communicate across the boundaries of dissimilar networks. TCP/IP was

developed particularly by a research collaboration including Norwegian

researchers connected with NORSAR, which was a network site in

Norway, British researchers, connected by a site at the University College

London, and American researchers working as part of the Information

Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) on the ARPAnet.

In my talk today I want to focus on what I propose are some of the

scientific origins of the research that have made the Internet possible. And

I want to argue that though these scientific origins are poorly understood

and not often recognized, they are critical to an understanding of the nature

of the Internet and supporting of its future development.

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To understand these scientific origins of the Internet’s development,

we need to look back to the early post World War II period. During this

period there was scientific ferment to understand the science of

communication. A community of scientists, mathematicians, engineers and

social scientists were interested in exploring the processes of communica-

tion. One means some of the researchers adopted was to participate in an

interdisciplinary community of researchers who met bi-yearly or yearly.

Essentially these researchers pursued different disciplines and spoke

different scientific languages.

Their effort was to try to bridge the boundaries that separated their

disciplines. The meetings of the group were known by different names, but

during one period they were called the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation

Conferences on Cybernetics. The phenomenon was also known as

“feedback” or “self organizing systems.” The meeting not only studied

communication but also endeavored to develop a practice more conducive

to communication. A conference session was held on a weekend. Only two

or three papers were presented at each conference and people were

encouraged to ask questions during the paper presentation if they did not

understand the points being raised or if they wanted clarification. After the

papers were read, there would be a more general conversation and

discussion of issues raised. The conference sessions were transcribed and

the transcription sent to the participants after the conference. They could

make corrections or clarifications. The publication of the conference

proceedings would include the publication of the discussion, along with

the publication of the paper presentations. There were ten such Macy

Foundation conferences from 1942 until 1953. Five volumes of the

conferences proceedings were published.

J.C.R. Licklider (or Lick as he asked people to call him) was a research

scientist who had made certain scientific advances in communication

research. His PhD thesis broke new ground by mapping where in the brain

of the cat, different pitches of sound were received and how this led to the

perception of different frequencies of sound.

Also Licklider had made an engineering breakthrough which is

referred to as “clipped speech.” He was able to identify what small part of

a sound wave was critical for the sound to be perceived. (This was helpful

to the U.S. military during WWII in identifying how pilots could get help

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hearing vital sounds despite intense background noise.)

Licklider was deeply interested in the study of communication. He

only attended one of the ten Macy Foundation conferences on Cybernetics.

However he, along with other scientists, received support from the National

Science Foundation (NSF) in the U.S. to have a conference in 1954 at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) similar to the Macy

Foundation conferences on Cybernetics that had ended in 1953. The title

of the NSF conference was “Problems in Human Communication and

Control.” The notes of the meetings were then transcribed. Licklider edited

the notes. The proceedings were published, much in the same way the

Macy conference proceedings were published.

During this period, computer scientists and engineers were interested

in understanding the workings of the brain (and nervous system) and

scientists like Licklider who were studying the brain were interested in the

workings of the computer. There was an intuition that insight into the

mechanisms of the brain could be gained from research in computers.

Similarly, computer science researchers believed that learning about how

the brain functioned would make possible scientific breakthroughs in

computer science.

An important interest of Licklider’s was in the workings of the brain

and how more advanced computer development could help the research

collaboration of scientists and engineers. Of particular interest was a form

of modeling. In a paper written with Robert Taylor in 1968, Licklider and

Taylor wrote:

By far the most numerous, most sophisticated and most important

models are those that reside in men’s minds.

An example of how the computer could help represent models for

Licklider was the program ‘Sketchpad’ created by Ivan Sutherland.

Describing a demonstration he had seen of Sutherland’s modeling program,

Warren Teitelman, then a graduate student at MIT, writes:

Dr. Sutherland sketched the girder of a bridge, and indicated the

points at which members were connected together by rivets. He

then drew a support at each end of the girder and a load at its

center. The sketch of the girder then sagged under the load, and

a number appeared on each member indicating the amount of

tension or compression to which each member was subjected.

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Sutherland was able to add the support needed using the modeling

program. Then the bridge was, according to the computer simulation

program, able to maintain the weight. This is an example of the

encouraging potential that Licklider envisioned if the scientific research

community could acquire the technology they needed for their modeling.

Licklider not only felt that modeling was critical for scientific

research, but for society as well. Describing the modeling that Licklider

believed characterized the functioning of the brain, he and Taylor write:

“In richness, plasticity, facility and economy, the mental model has no

peer, but in other respects it has shortcomings.”

The primary shortcoming of such a model is that it is stored in the

brain of only a single individual. Hence, “It can be observed and

manipulated only by one person.”

In order for such models to serve a social function, there is a need, for

the models in the heads of individuals to become part of a collaborative

process. This is because, as Licklider and Taylor write. “Society rightly

distrusts the modeling done by a single mind.”

More specifically:

Society demands (...) [what] amounts to the requirement that

individual models be compared and brought into some degree of

accord. The requirement for communicating which we now define

concisely [as] ‘cooperative’ modeling – [is] cooperation in the

construction, maintenance and use of a model.

Licklider and Taylor then explain that like the process they believe is

ongoing in the brain, what is needed for such cooperative modeling is: “a

plastic or moldable medium that can be modeled, a dynamic medium in

which processes will flow into consequences.”

Most important for such a medium is that it supports collaborative

contributions and processes – that it be: “a common medium that can be

contributed to and experimented with by all.”

Licklider and Taylor envisioned that the developing online community

would find the capability for such collaborative modeling as the Internet

developed and that having access to this plastic collaborative environment

would be a boon to the advancement of society and of science. As the

Internet has developed, it has made possible new forms of scientific

collaboration and modeling much as Licklider and Taylor proposed would

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become possible.

Along with the need for such a moldable medium for scientific

collaborative development, Licklider also maintained that there would be

a need for a collaborative community with this capability to support

continuing network development and to intervene to help with the

problems that would develop if government officials who do not

understand the nature of computer technology, are charged with making

the decisions needed for its development.

Licklider was part of a community of scientists who had seen the

consequences of poor technical and political decisions made by

governments. (For example the bombing of civilians during WWII by the

Allies).

In the spring of 1961, a series of eight lectures were held to honor MIT

on the occasion of its 100

birthday. The British scientist and writer, C.P.

Snow, was invited to give a talk discussing this problem. The title of the

talk was “Scientists and Decision making.”

During his talk, Snow described the gap that would exist between

understanding the nature of the new computer technology and the

understanding of government officials who would have the responsibility

for decisions about how to support the development of this new technology.

Snow explained how such a problem required a situation similar to a

phenomenon that in physics is called Brownian Motion. Referring to what

happened in Great Britain after World War II when the whole society

began discussing the need for national health care, Snow outlines the

phenomenon:

I believe that the healthiest decisions of society occur by

something more like Brownian movement. All kinds of people

all over the place suddenly get smitten with the same sort of

desire, with the same sort of interest at the same time. This forms

a concentration of pressure and of direction. These concentrations

of pressure gradually filter their way through to the people whose

nominal responsibility it is to put the legislation into a written

form.

Shortly after Snow’s talk at MIT, Licklider was invited to join the

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). He was to set up an office

for research in computer science and an office for research in behavioral

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science. He called the office for research in computer science the

Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), (1962-1986). Licklider

was its first director and he was followed by Ivan Sutherland. There were

several subsequent directors, and then in 1974, Licklider was invited to

return as director.

In his writing and talks after he left the IPTO in 1975, Licklider

describes the problems he encountered to get support for basic research in

computer science within the U.S. Department of Defense and the need for

citizens who will actively take up the problems when they develop.

Licklider is not asking for citizens to vote on every issue. Instead he

outlines how voting is insufficient as a way to work to promote the public

interest. He writes:

(V)oting in the absence of understanding defines only the public

attitude, not the public interest. It means that many public spirited

individuals must study, model, analyze, argue, write, criticize, and

work out each issue and each problem until they reach consensus

or determine that none can be reached – at which point there may

be occasion for voting.

Licklider describes the need for citizen involvement in government

decisions to help determine how to support the continuing development of

computer technology. More significantly, Licklider proposes that people

will not be interested in government processes until they have a means to

participate in those processes. He foresees how computer developments

will provide that means. He writes:

Computer power to the people is essential to the realization of a

future in which most citizens are informed about, and interested

in, the process of government.

The process for citizen involvement in the development of computer

technology that Licklider outlines is a process that characterizes the kind

of discussion that I found on some of the earliest mailing lists and Usenet

newsgroups that developed in the early 1980s. This process functioned for

needed technical discussion, such as with the ARPAnet TCP/IP Digest

when the cutover to TCP/IP was carried out.

Such discussion also helped to develop and spread the vision for

ubiquitous computer networking that was discussed on the Human Nets

mailing list and other mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups during the early

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1980s.

But more fundamentally, the emergence of such a public spirited

online citizenry that Licklider believed so important to the continued

support and development of computer and networking technology was

identified through the research done by a college student in the early 1990s.

In 1992-3, as part of research done for a college assignment, the

student, Michael Hauben, posted a series of questions and some

preliminary research about the developing network on Usenet newsgroups.

(Usenet is a worldwide discussion forum.) He also posted his questions on

a few Internet mailing lists. Michael was surprised as replies to his

questions began to arrive in his mailbox. Through subsequent posts, and

analyzing the replies, he cognized that a new form of consciousness, a new

identity was being acquired by many of those online who wrote him. A

number of the replies he received indicated how people online were not

only interested in how the developing Net was contributing to their own

lives, but also many were seeking to spread access to the Internet to others.

Michael had seen the word ‘net.citizen’ referred to online. Thinking

about the social concern and consciousness he had found among those who

wrote him, and about the non-geographical character of a net based form

of citizenship, he contracted ‘net.citizen’ into the word ‘netizen.’ Netizen

has come to reflect the online social identity he discovered doing his

research.

He wrote a paper titled, “The Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net

has on People’s Lives” describing the research he had done and the

contribution he received from many parts of the world. This research was

done in1992-1993 just at the time that the Internet was spreading to

countries and networks around the world which were connecting to the

Internet. Michael posted his paper on Usenet and several Internet mailing

lists on July 6, 1993 in four parts under the title “Common Sense: The Net

and Netizens: the Impact the Net is Having on People’s Lives.” People

around the world wrote that they found his paper of interest and the term

netizen quickly spread, not only in the online world, but soon it was

appearing in newspapers and other publications offline.

I collaborated with Michael, also doing research and writing that was

posted online. One of the people who found our writing of interest

suggested we gather them into a book. We collected our papers into an

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online book titled “Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net” which

was put online in January 1994. In 1997 a second version of the book was

published in a print edition titled Netizens: On the History and Impact of

Usenet and the Internet. The book was also translated into Japanese and

distributed in Japan.

Netizens, as Michael wrote, are those who embodied the social

conscious and public purpose similar to that which Licklider had

considered important for the continued development of computer

technology and of the public policy to support that development.

Michael was invited to speak at a conference in Beppu Bay in Japan

in November 1995. In his speech he explained why he felt it was important

to distinguish between the more general usage the media has promoted, that

anyone online is a netizen, and the usage that he had introduced, reserving

the title ‘netizen’ for the online user who actively participates to make the

net and the world it is part of a better place. He explained:

Netizens...are people who understand it takes effort and action on

each and everyone’s part to make the Net a regenerative and

vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide

to devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our

world, a better place.

Individuals from around the world adopted and helped to spread the

consciousness and identity of the netizen. An especially interesting

development are the netizens of South Korea. When asking a number of

people I met during a visit to South Korea if they are netizens, all

responded yes, or “I hope so.”

South Korea is one of the most wired nations in the world. Over 80%

of the population has access to high speed Internet. Along with the spread

of high speed Internet access in Korea is the development of netizenship

among the Korean population.

In a way that is similar to how Michael described the interactive,

collaborative online processes that he and those who wrote him in the early

1990s, researchers in South Korea are documenting similar processes and

the impact of netizens on Korean society. One particularly interesting

aspect of these developments is that online processes are being adopted by

formerly offline institutions and that online clubs have developed offline

organizational forms as well.

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Implications and Research Questions Raised by Work

The online plastic collaboration which makes possible interactive

modeling that Licklider and Taylor describe in their 1968 paper is a helpful

analogy through which to view the online world that has evolved as the

Internet has developed and spread around the world. It is similarly

important to recognize the social consciousness of users as online citizens,

as netizens that has evolved and spread.

In this conference today we will hear other talks which will explore

the rich scientific and technical history that has contributed to the birth and

development of the Internet.

I want to argue for the need for specific studies, whether historical or

contemporaneous, of how the interactive, collaborative modeling that

Licklider proposed as essential to further social and scientific development

of technology is being explored via the Internet.

Also I want to argue for the need to bring this area of study into the

public policy activities of those who are trying to contribute to the

continued development of the Internet and the management of its

infrastructure. For example, the WSIS meetings being held here in Tunis

demonstrate the need for an appropriate model for the management of the

Internet’s infrastructure. I want to propose that there is a need for the kind

of plastic, collaborative, interactive and international online public process

to form the basis for the model needed to administer the Internet’s

infrastructure. Instead outdated models developed prior to the Internet have

been dominating the discourse among those involved in the WSIS process.

There are a number of research questions that arise from my paper and

study. I hope those interested in these issues will find a way to continue

the discussion begun in this conference and after it as well.

In conclusion, not only has the Internet developed and spread around

the world with an amazing speed and impact, but the netizens, the online

citizens who have emerged from the environment fostered by the Internet

have also developed and spread around the world. Along with the benefits

of the online, plastic, collaborative, interactive environment that has

developed as the Internet has developed and spread, so too the benefits of

the new form of consciousness and identity, of netizens, have developed.

I want to argue that it is critical to the continuing development and spread

of the Internet, that the contributions and participation of the netizens be

Page 41

recognized, and encouraged.

As Michael observed

Netizens are Net Citizens who utilize the Net from their home,

workplace, school, library, etc. These people are among those

who populate the Net, and make it a resource of human beings.

These netizens participate to help make the Net both an

intellectual and a social resource.

Notes:

1. The myth is that the Internet was created by the U.S. Department of Defense as an effort

to create a military communication system that could survive a nuclear war. It appears to

have its origins in both a misconception about what the Internet is and how it differs from

the ARPAnet, and in a misunderstanding of the origins of the packet switching technology

pioneered by the researchers who created the ARPAnet.

The myth grows from the false attribution of research that Paul Baran did at the

RAND Institute, as research that created packet switching. This is inaccurate. Baran’s

research was not related to the early work to create either the ARPAnet or the Internet.

Larry Roberts, who headed the research to create the ARPAnet as the head of the

Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) in 1967-1972, describing this confusion,

writes:

(I)n 1965, a...meeting took place at MIT. Donald Davies, from the National

Physical Laboratory in the U.K. was at MIT to give a seminar on timesharing.

Licklider, Davies and I discussed networking and the inadequacy of data

communication facilities for both time sharing and networking. Davies reports

that shortly after this meeting he was struck with the concept that a store and

forward system for very short messages (now called packet switching) was the

ideal communication system for interactive systems.

Roberts continues. Davies “wrote about his ideas in a document entitled ‘Proposal

for Development of a National Communication Service for On-Line Data processing’

which envisioned a communications network using trunk lines from 100K bits/sec in speed

to 1.5 megabits/sec (T1), message sizes of 128 bytes and a switch which could handle up

to 10,000 messages/sec (Historical note: this took 20 years to accomplish). Then in June

1966, Davies wrote a second internal paper, ‘Proposal for a Digital Communication

Network’ in which he coined the word packet, – a small sub part of the message the user

wants to send, and also introduced the concept of an ‘interface computer’ to sit between

the user equipment and the packet network. His design also included the concept of a

Packet Assembler and Disassembler (PAD) to interface character terminals, today a

common element of most packet networks.”

Roberts explains that “As a result of distributing his 1965 paper, Donald Davies was

given a copy of an internal Rand report On Distributed Communications, by Paul Baran

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of the Rand Corporation, which had been written in August 1964. Baran’s historical paper

also described a short message switching network using T1 trunks and a 128 byte message

size...” But Baran’s report was about a voice network. Roberts states the influence of

Baran’s work was “mainly supportive, not sparking its development.” (“The ARPAnet

& Computer Networks” May 1995,

http://www.packet.cc/files/arpanet-computernet.html)

Davies contributions to the creation of packet switching has not seemed to get the

credit they deserve. But in any case, the myth about the development of packet switching

refers to the creation of the ARPAnet, not to the creation of the Internet. The Internet is

a network of networks created via an international research process to create the TCP/IP

protocol.

2. J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor, “The Computer As a Communication Device,”

1968, in In Memoriam: J.C.R. Licklider, 1915-1990, p. 21, http://memex.org/licklider.pdf

3. In Martin Greenberger, ed., Computers and the World of the Future, MIT Press,

Cambridge, 1962, pages 2-13.

4. You may notice, perhaps, that this description by C.P. Snow of a form of Brownian

Motion for society sounds similar in some ways to the concept of the ‘public sphere’ that

the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas explores in his writing.

5. J.C.R. Licklider, “Computers in Government,” in Michael Dertouzos and Joel Moses,

The Computer Age: A Twenty-Year View, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1979, p. 126.

6. Ibid.

7. See for example, Ronda Hauben, “A Study of the ARPAnet TCP/IP Digest and of the

Role of Online Communication in the Transition from the ARPAnet to the Internet.”

http://umcc.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/tcpdraft.txt

8. Michael Hauben, talk given on November 24, 1995 at the Hypernetwork ‘95, Beppu

Bay Conference in Beppu, Japan. The theme of the conference was “The Netizen

Revolution and the Regional Information Infrastructure.”

9. “Further Thoughts about Netizens,”

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netizen_thoughts.html

. See also Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet,

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/.

*This talk is based on an article with the same title which was prepared for the PPF side

event to the 2005 Tunis WSIS. The article can be accessed at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/acn15-2.articles/rhauben.pdf.

Page 43

The 2008 Anti-CNN Website Media

Watchdog and Netizen To Netizen

Communication and Debate*

by Jay Hauben

[email protected]

[Editor’s Note: The following case study is one of three in a paper written

in 2014 and presented at a conference at the United Nations on May 2,

2014.]

On March 14, 2008, Tibetan demonstrators in Lhasa the capital of the

Tibet Autonomous Region in China turned violent. A Canadian tourist and

the few foreign journalists who witnessed the situation put online photos,

videos and descriptions documenting the deadly violence of the rioters

against citizens and property (Al Jezeera, 2008; cali2882, 2008; Kadfly,

2008). That was even before the official Chinese media started to report

it. The mainstream media in China framed the story as violence against

Han and Muslim Chinese fomented by the Tibetan government in exile.

Much of the mainstream international media like BBC, VOA, and CNN

framed the violence as the result of discriminatory Chinese rule and

Chinese police brutality.

Wide anger was expressed by many Chinese aboard when they

discovered that some of the media in the U.S., Germany, and the U.K.,

were using photos and videos from clashes between police and pro-Tibetan

independence protestors in Nepal and India to support that media’s claim

of violence by Chinese police. A digital slide show appeared online

containing an annotated presentation of 11 photos from CNN, Der Spiegel,

the Washington Post, N24 German TV, BBC, Fox News, Bild, etc. The

photos were mislabeled and in other ways inappropriate for the articles

with which they appeared. The photos included screen shots from German

TV stations that consistently labels Nepalese police as Chinese. A BBC

photo showed an ambulance using it to illustrate a “heavy military

presence.” A photo used by CNN to show Chinese military violence was

carefully cropped to hide rioters throwing rocks at a Chinese military

Page 44

vehicle. The slide show ended with a slide which read, “These western

media should be shamed for the reporting they’ve made purposely and

whoever in the world, intending to slander Chinese people to promote

territorial integrity of China will be doomed to failure.” The slide show

spread widely in cyberspace in and outside China.

Within a few days of the appearance of the inaccurate and misleading

reporting, Rau Jin a recent university graduate launched the Anti-cnn

website (http://www.anti-cnn.com). He explained that after netizen anger

and discussion he wanted to “speak out our thoughts and let the westerners

learn about the truth.”

The top page of Anti-cnn featured articles, videos

and photos documenting some of the alleged distortions in the coverage

of the Tibet events. The website also had forum sections first in Chinese

then also in English. The organizers set as the goal of Anti-cnn to overcome

media bias in the West by fostering communication between Chinese

netizens and netizens outside of China so that the people of the world and

of China could have accurate knowledge about each other. They wrote on

their website, “We are not against the western media, but against the lies

and fabricated stories in the media.” Anti-cnn was chosen as the site name,

one of the organizers said, “because CNN is the media superpower. It can

do great damage so it must be watched and challenged when it is wrong.”

But the site was not limited to countering errors in the reporting of CNN.

It invited submissions that documented bias or countered misrepresenta-

tions of China in the global media.

Rau received hundreds of offers of help finding examples of media

distortions. He gathered a team of 40 volunteers to monitor the submissions

for factualness and to limit emotional threads. Posts that were name calling

or attacks on individuals or groups were to be deleted. Emotional posts

were not to be allowed follow-up comments. Forum discussions were

started on “Western Media Bias,” “The Facts of Tibet” and “Modern

China.” In the first five days the site attracted 200,000 visits many from

outside of China. Over time serious threads contained debates between Han

Chinese and both Westerners and Tibetan and Uyghur Chinese trying to

show each other who they were and where they differ or where they agree.

On Anti-cnn in answer to the exposure of the Western media practice,

many visitors from outside China posted their criticism of Chinese

government media censorship. In their responses to such criticism, some

Page 45

Chinese acknowledged such censorship but argued it was easy to

circumnavigate, that all societies have their systems of bias or censorship

and that netizens everywhere must dare to think for themselves and get

information from many sources. One netizen with the alias kylin wrote, “I

can say free media works the same way as less-free media. So what’s most

important? The people I’d say – …. If people dare to doubt, dare to think

own (sic) their own, do not take whatever comes to them, then we’ll have

a clear mind, not easily be fooled. I can say, if such people exist, then

should be Chinese…the least likely to be brainwashed, when have suffered

from all those incidents, cultural revolution, plus a whole long history with

all kinds of tricks.”

Some analysis of Anti-cnn in the Western media criticized it as a form

of nationalism

or of being somehow connected with the Chinese

government. The Chinese government and Anti-cnn organizers deny any

connection with each other and no verifiable evidence of such a connection

has been produced. There are often expressions of nationalist emotions in

Chinese cyberspace, for example calls for boycotting Japanese and French

products. After the riot in Lhasa, the Chinese government and media

blamed the Dalai Lama and “splitists.” There was an upsurge of nationalist

defense of China including on Anti-cnn. The moderators on Anti-cnn and

netizens in general however are opponents of nationalism arguing that it

is a form of emotionalism and needs to be countered by rational discourse

and the presentation of facts and an airing of all opinions. The moderators

often answered Chinese nationalists with admonitions to “calm down and

present facts.” While nationalist sentiment and love of country and anger

appeared often on the Anti-cnn forums, the opportunity for a dialogue

across national and ethnic barriers is an expression of the internationalism

characteristic of netizens.

Chinese citizens in general know that the mainstream Chinese media

have a long history as a controlled and propaganda press. Since the 1990s,

there has been a commercialization of that media and more openness but

still much of the national media has strong remnants from its past. On the

other hand the mainstream international media had been widely assumed

in China as a more reliable source of information about some events such

as SARS and for alternative viewpoints. The widespread distribution by

netizens like Rau Jin of exposure of distortions and bias in major examples

Page 46

of the international mainstream media called into question for many

Chinese people their positive expectation about that media. It also attracted

the attention of others who questioned whether the so called Western

mainstream media is any less a propaganda or political media than the

Chinese mainstream media. After western media framing of the war in the

country of Georgia in August 2008 as the fault of Russia, a Russian netizen

started a thread on Anti-cnn suggesting a Russian-Chinese alliance. He

wrote, “Russian problems with the Western media are identical to Chinese

problems…. What we need to do so that their publications about countries

like China and Russia will be written in a fair tone rather than being

politically motivated? I would be most happy to hear your opinion on these

matters.”

Over its first year, the Anti-cnn website had become a significant news

portal. After a year, there was a debate to determine its future. Some of the

founders left. The site continued with separate forum sections in Chinese

and English but became less focused than it was before on exposing media

bias. As a continuation of Anti-cnn, the April Media Group was founded

by Rau Jin. April Media sponsors Chinese and English language websites

both known as M4 (

http://www.m4.cn/; http://www.4thmedia.org/). The

two sites carry news reports and comments not usually found elsewhere

in Chinese media and they still carry exposures of the ongoing media

fabrications for example about alleged crimes of the government of Syria.

The special significance of Anti-cnn was that netizens took up the

important task of media watchdog, but especially a watchdog over the most

powerful media like CNN and BBC. Some scholars are calling such media

practice the “Fifth Estate” because the watch dog is over the media itself.

In an article, “The Computer as a Democratizer,” Michael Hauben argued

for the crucial role in a society of a watchdog press.

In every society,

major sectors of the media echo and support the current holders of power

either internally or in the world. Now, with the netizens, there is an

emerging media and journalism which tries to serve society by watching

and criticizing the abuses of those with power and the media which serves

them. Anti-cnn provided for the whole world an alternative to the media

which was distorting the truth about the Lhasa riot. The net users who

launched Anti-cnn took for themselves a public and international mission,

using the net to watch critically the main international media. They took

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up to address journalism via exposures and discussion and debate. In the

process they expanded the practice of journalism.

Notes

1. “Riot in Tibet: True face of western media” posted by dionysos615 on YouTube on

March 19, 2008

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQnK5FcKas&feature=related

2. Quoted in China Daily, April 2, 2008.

3. Interview with Anti-cnn webmaster Qi Hanting, April 19, 2008, translated from

Chinese. See Ronda Hauben “Netizens Defy Western Media Fictions of China.”

OhmyNews International, May 9, 2008.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=382523&rel_no=1

4. See e.g., “Web Site Rips West’s Reports on China-Tibet Conflict,” by Anthony Kuhn

at, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89831099

5. http://thelinetwo.blog127.fc2blog.us/blog-entry-1.html

6.Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and

the Internet, Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press1997, pp. 315-320.

* Taken from “Netizen Reporting and Media Criticism Pressure for a New Journalism:

The South China Tiger, Anti-CNN and the Wenchuan Earthquake” by Jay Hauben.

Available at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/2014/j-paper-May-2014.doc

The Power of Chinese Netizens After

the Earthquake Using the Internet:

Information and Help Flowed Freely*

by Xu Liang

[Editor’s Note: The following report was written in June 2008.]

May 12, 2008, was a sad day for Chinese people. The 8.0-magnitude

earthquake in Wenchuan County of Sichuan Province led to the deaths of

at least 69,100 people. Additionally, 373,577 people were counted as

injured and 18,230 still listed as missing, while 45.7 million people were

affected by the disaster.

Page 48

From that day on, more than 1.3 billion Chinese people tightly

solidified and everyone paid attention to one thing every day, the salvation

[rescue and relief efforts] after the earthquake. Chinese were conscious that

motherland was deeply in crisis and brethren were deeply in trouble, so we

should do some help. Internet was the shortcut to participate in the

salvation for many Chinese people. It is estimated that there are about 225

million network users, the largest number in the world. Internet is an open

media and everyone can participate in it. A great number of network users

joined the netizens caring for Wenchuan earthquake.

Using the Internet, netizens covered the earthquake and the salvation,

called on people to donate money and materials, offered information and

suggestions for salvation, supervised the work of government, and so on.

This catastrophic disaster aroused the civil conscience and responsibility

of Chinese, and showed the power of Chinese netizens.

Chinese netizens were the first reporting on the Wenchuan

earthquake.

This earthquake took place suddenly and the earthquake zone

is located in mountains. Before some news agencies getting the news,

Chinese netizens feeling the quake in these areas had transmitted the

information. After the earthquake, many netizens questioned and criticized

the work of official earthquake forecast agencies.

A netizen on tianya.com

left one remark, “Before May 12

, some

strange nature phenomena predicting earthquakes appeared in earthquake

zone and some local persons worried about earthquake’s coming, but local

officials and forecast agencies declared that the rumor of earthquake was

baseless and people need not worry.”

The netizen even intercepted the page from a local government website

as proof. Another netizen pointed out that the website of the earthquake

forecast agency of the U.S. published the information of Wenchuan

earthquake 960 seconds earlier than the counterpart of China. Then more

netizens criticized the official forecast breach of duty. Under pressure some

officials had to clarify some things and defend themselves.

Chinese netizens offered a great amount of useful information and

advice for salvation. CCTV reported one thing showing the role of

netizens. After the earthquake, Wenchuan County was isolated from

outside, and all roads to Wenchuan were blocked by collapsed mountains.

PLA sent several helicopters to this area, but they did not find the right

Page 49

places to land due to the poor weather and mountain areas. One netizen

from Wenchuan published information on the Internet that she knew one

place right for helicopters to land. The information was transported [cross

posted] by more than 2000 netizens quickly. At last, the PLA got the

information and contacted the netizen and helicopters successfully landed

in Wenchuan with salvation materials.

After the earthquake, all main websites set up special editions

immediately and netizens left remarks encouraging and supporting people

in disaster areas, calling on people to donate money and materials to

victims. What is more important, netizens tightly supervised the salvation

work of the government.

One piece of information published by netizens attracted attention of

all people on May 21. One salvation tent for victims appeared in a

neighborhood of Chengdu which did not belong to the earthquake zone.

More and more netizens suspected that some officials embezzled the

salvation materials. The anger of people ascended immediately. In a press

conference on May 23, the governor of Sechuan province, under huge

pressure, said that the provincial government would look into the issue and

severely punish the embezzlers. Then the Central government and Premier

Wen Jiabao demanded governments forbid embezzlement of salvation

materials and keep the distribution of salvation materials open and

transparent. Several officials breaching their duty were dismissed.

Netizens created an overwhelming condition of public voices, which

highly praised celebrities and companies giving large donations and

condemned those with giving small donations or speaking improper words.

Some netizens made donator lists of rich persons and companies. Movie

star Jackie Chan donated 10 million RMB [1.6 million U.S.$] soon after

the earthquake, so he was presented as a model by netizens. One Taiwan

corporation, donating 100 million RMB, was highly praised by netizens.

Some netizens reported that the Japanese public showed great

sympathy to China’s earthquake and even one member of the Japanese

salvation team working in the earthquake area quit due to self-accusation

that he did not save one life. The coverage improved Japan’s image in

Chinese eyes, while most Chinese people before 2007 hated Japan because

of Yasukuni Shrine. On the contrary, one rich boss became the object

criticized by netizens because of his parsimony and disputing words, and

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some netizens even called for boycotting his company. Later on, the boss

had to add more donations and make an apology. Recently movie star

Sharon Stone quickly became the object of Chinese netizens condemnation

because she said Wenchuan earthquake was due to China’s bad “karma.”

After the Wenchuan earthquake, the power of Chinese netizens is

rising. The power will promote the formation of civil community and

democratization in China. However, the power is not bound to bring

positive results. Some Chinese netizens are not mature and rational enough

now. First, a few netizens spread rumors and some unconfirmed

information, which can scare or vilify others.

Second, many Chinese netizens are emotional youth, called “Feng

Qing” in Chinese, and they tend to lose rationality and say some extreme

words. These words may instigate furies, violate personal rights, and

promote nationalism. For an example, some netizens accused McDonald’s

of too little a donation, compared with its huge profit from China, and

called for boycotting McDonald’s. In fact McDonald’s Company donated

more than 10 million RMB and the accusation was unfair. Therefore,

Chinese netizens need more objectivity and rationality, and less prejudice

and emotion.

Notes

1. On May 12, 2008 at 14:28 in the afternoon a massive earthquake struck in south-central

China. The epicenter of the earthquake was in rural Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province

and measured 8.0 on the Richter Scale. The world outside of the quake zone began to learn

of the earthquake one minute later, at 14:29, when a post on the “Tianya Mixed Talk”

forum read, “Very Urgent!!!! Where has a massive earthquake occurred???” By 14:30 a

video was posted on YouKu and by 14:35 a headline on the Baidu bulletin board reported,

“Earthquake happens in Sichuan region.” From then on posts escalated. Tianya was then

the most popular forum website and had at any moment on average over 200,000

simultaneous visitors. Likewise YouKu, the most popular video website at the time, and

Baidu, the most popular search engine, had tens of thousands of users when the Wenchuan

disaster first hit. Professional news reports began to appear at 14:46 with a dispatch by

the official online site Xinhuanet.

2. Tianya is one of the most popular forum websites in China. See note 1.

* This article was published online by OhmyNews International on June 7, 2008. Xu Liang

was at that time a PhD candidate majoring in international politics at Fudan University

Page 51

in Shanghai.

Netizens Create Anti-cnn Forum to

Challenge Media Distortions of China*

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

[Editor’s Note: The following article was written after the author visited

China and South Korea in Spring 2008.]

Who will win the contest to be the new global media, CNN or netizen

media like the anti-CNN online forum and web site? This is a question that

students in the global media literacy seminar at Tsinghua University in

Beijing were given to grapple with as their final project.

The creation of the anti-cnn online forum and web site by netizens in

China has been a significant development. The global media literacy

seminar at Tsinghua University is taught by Professor Li Xiguang.

Professor Li’s background is as a journalist, covering science and

technology, and as a journalism professor who is the author of significant

papers about the role of the Internet in the development of the changing

media environment in China. Professor Li had invited me to speak to his

students in the global media literacy seminar about the spread of netizens

and the impact of the Internet on society for his April 16

class.

Shortly before my 2008 trip to China was to begin, however,

something quite unexpected occurred. When the western mainstream

media, like CNN and BBC, pictured the events that occurred in Lhasa,

Tibet, as a peaceful demonstration, Chinese netizens immediately

documented that their coverage was often inaccurate or misleading. Within

a few days of the inaccurate reports, an online forum appeared on the

Internet called anti-cnn. It was online at the time at

http://www.anti-

cnn.com. The forum included articles and videos documenting some of the

many distortions in the coverage of the Tibet events. The forum also had

areas in English and in Chinese for discussion and debate.

Page 52

I had discovered the online forum while still in New York and was

intrigued by the fact that it not only provided an important source of

clarification about the misrepresentations in the media, but also it made

available a space for discussion in both English and Chinese about the

importance of identifying and countering the false narrative that the

mainstream western media had been creating of the events in Tibet. While

the online forum was named anti-cnn it was not limited to countering errors

in reporting in CNN. Rather the founder had chosen anti-cnn for the name

as CNN has a global spread and the purpose of the anti-cnn forum was to

counter the misrepresentations of China and events in China in the global

media.

I was particularly excited to be going to China at a time when a netizen

media forum had been created to critique the narratives being circulated

by mainstream western media organizations.

We arrived in Beijing early in the morning on April 16, the day I was

to give my talk to Professor Li’s seminar. We had arrangements to see

Professor Li’s assistant in order to get ready to go to the class for my talk.

It was 3 p.m., a little while before I was to get ready to go to the class,

when Professor Li’s assistant called up to our room and asked if she could

come up. It was good to see her. I was in the process of putting some

finishing touches on my slides for my talk. She came into our room out of

breath, explaining that she had tried to send an e-mail, which I hadn’t seen.

She said that several journalists had come to debate with Tsinghua

University students about the frustrations netizens in China had with the

reporting by several of the western media organizations. She urged us to

come immediately with her to hear the debate.

I saved the version I had of my slides and we left to follow her across

the Tsinghua University campus to the meeting between the students and

the journalists. The meeting was in a large room in the journalism building.

Four journalists from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) were

seated at a large table, along with Professor Li and a number of students.

Other students filled the rest of the room. The conversation was being held

in English and Chinese with Professor Li doing translation from one lan-

guage to the other depending on the speaker. There were perhaps as many

as 80 people filling the room.

I later learned that the journalists were probably part of a nine person

Page 53

delegation from the IFJ who had come to speak with the Chinese

government about working conditions for the 30,000 journalists who were

expected to come to Beijing to cover the Olympics. While the purpose of

the IFJ delegation appeared to be as advocates for the journalists who were

to be covering the Olympics, the situation in the debate they were having

with Tsinghua students was quite different.

At this meeting the students were presenting their frustrations and

complaints about the kind of erroneous reporting that had been documented

on the anti-cnn forum and asking for an explanation of how such

misrepresentations could have happened. One of the students asked why

the Western media did not report about the victims who had died in the

fires set by those who took part in the riots. Another student asked why the

western media reported that religious effigies had been burned but didn’t

report about the people who had died as a result of the fires and other

violence in the riot. The student wondered why journalists would give more

weight to the destruction of property rather than of human life.

Still another student asked how journalists could cover the story of

Tibet if they didn’t first take the time to learn the history of what had

happened in Tibet in the past. “Does a free press mean the freedom of the

journalist to present his or her own personal views or does it mean the

freedom for the public to know the information,” asked one of the students.

Many students had hands up when there was the call for questions. The

head of the delegation, Aidan Patrick White, who is the General Secretary

of the IFJ, headquartered in Brussels, gave most of the responses, though

others in the delegation also answered some of the questions raised by the

students. White explained that when he went into journalism he thought

it would be something connected with public service. He had since learned

that there is political pressure on journalists no matter what country they

are from.

The manager of the anti-cnn web site, Qi Hanting, is a Tsinghua

University student. He was at the meeting and his presentation to the

journalists was eagerly greeted by the students. He explained why the

students were upset with the distorted coverage they had documented as

prevalent in the reports of western media organizations. Qi explained that

there was a difference between a mistake in a story and a distortion. He

offered as an analogy the core of an atom and the electrons surrounding it.

Page 54

The electrons can appear any place around the atom, but if an electron goes

too far away it can break away. Though reporters might write about

different aspects of a story, he explained, their stories still can be accurate.

But if the report is too far from the reality, it could be explosive. The

journalists from the IFJ responded that they weren’t trying to justify bad

reporting. There wasn’t a conspiracy in the western media against China.

Qi proposed that there was a need to have reporters who emphasize

different aspects of a story in order to help there to be the proper

understanding of a story, but that was different from presenting a distorted

or inaccurate presentation of the story as had happened with a number of

the reports of the Tibet riot in the western media.

With less than 100 days remaining until the opening ceremony of the

Beijing Olympics, the issues and questions presented by Qi and the other

Tsinghua University students to the IFJ journalists take on a broader

significance. How will the 30,000 journalists who are expected to come to

China to report on the Olympics, portray the story of China?

China has recently gone through a significant transformation. One

indication of the changes is the many new buildings, the huge majestic

structures that fill the Beijing skyline. These new structures, along with the

people who live and work in them, are a sign that Beijing is a world class

city. Can the journalists who will come to Beijing in August recognize that

there is an important story about what is developing in China? Can they

become a force to investigate this story and present it, so that that there is

an accurate portrayal in the media for people around the world?

This question is being considered by netizens in China and abroad.

Formerly, it may have seemed to netizens in China that the western

media could be a reliable source of information about events and

viewpoints that were not available in the Chinese media. Now the view that

the western media could be relied on to present accurate news has been

transformed in just a few short weeks in March and April 2008.

Instead netizens working together online are telling the story, not only

of what they see is happening in Tibet, but even more importantly, they are

documenting the failure of the western media to be a reliable source of

information about China.

In place of the western media has sprung up a netizen media,

contributed to by some of the 210 million Internet users in China, and some

Page 55

of the many overseas netizens. There are many online sites where

discussion among Chinese netizens takes place.

The story of these netizens in China and abroad is an important story

as they have demonstrated a resolve not to surrender the framing of the

story of the Beijing Olympics to the distortions of a powerful Western

media. Through their own active participation and collaboration, they are

working to provide an alternative narrative.

Qi explained that the anti-cnn forum and web site has a staff of over

40 volunteers. These netizens do the technical work, and the fact checking

of the posts and the responses to the posts. If a submission to the web site

is emotional, he explained, it will appear, but the moderators will not allow

any responses to it in order to prevent the discussion from becoming too

heated.

A post in the anti-cnn forum raised the question of whether it would

be possible to create an East-West cultural exchange platform to facilitate

communication across the cultural differences between the Chinese people

and those from other cultures who will come to China for the Olympics.

Even if people can’t agree, they can communicate, he proposed. He

was hopeful that discussion would go in more communicative directions

rather than netizens in China just feeling that they wanted an apology from

western journalists who distort the news about China. His hope was that

the anti-cnn forum on the Internet would make it possible to have

comments on issues from a wide range of differing perspectives, rather

than such differences leading to polarization and hostility.

His long term goal was that the forum become a site to support many

different points of view but also where deviations from the truth would be

critiqued. Talking with Qi I found it important that he was seeking to open

lines of communication with western journalists despite the fact it seemed

so difficult to do so. He was actually proposing a conceptual framework

to make such a communication process possible.

Listening to his views made me remember a struggle netizens had with

the U.S. media in the early 1990s. There was a plan for the privatization

of the U.S. section of the Internet which had been built with public funds.

The U.S. press was misrepresenting the struggle of netizens who were

challenging the illegitimate privatization process and who were upset with

the spate of commercial ads that had begun to flood the Internet.

Page 56

One reporter for the Wall Street Journal had written an article that

misunderstood what the struggle was about. Netizens contacted him and

asked if he would be willing to learn some of the history and background

of the struggle. He welcomed the input. The next article he wrote was very

different from the previous one. It talked about how netizens were strug-

gling over the “soul of the Internet.” This was indeed a helpful description

of the struggle and it was good to see that this reporter had changed in his

perspective.

It is not to dismiss the possibility of journalists who are part

of the western media who are interested in learning about what is

happening in China and in providing an accurate portrayal. It is a worthy

effort to seek out a means to make such communication possible.

The goal of the netizens who are contributing to the anti-cnn forum

and web site is a goal that is an important one for China and for the many

people around the world who want the 2008 Beijing Olympics to contribute

to friendship and further understanding among the people of the world.

This is also a worthy goal for those of the western media and for other

netizens around the world who want to be part of the creation of a 21

century media that spreads understanding rather than the political

propaganda of one’s own government. The Internet and netizens have

begun to create such a truly global media.

Note:

1. Steve Stecklow, “Cyberspace Clash: Computer Users Battle High-Tech Marketers Over

Soul of Internet,” Wall Street Journal, September 16, 1993, p. 1.

*An earlier version of this article appears in OhmyNews International “Netizens Defy

Western Media Fictions of China”

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=38252

3&rel_no=1

First Netizen Celebration Day

Held in Beijing, China

Page 57

Honoring the Netizen

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

[Editor’s Note: The following talk was presented in Beijing on September

14, 2009 as part of the first national Netizens Celebration Day sponsored

by the Internet Society of China.*]

I would like to thank the Internet Society of China for inviting me to

offer brief remarks today. I want also to congratulate the honored guests

for their role in helping to make possible the development of the Internet

and the emergence of the Netizens.

It is wonderful that China is holding this netizen day, the first ever to

be held anywhere in the world. Often there have been events celebrating

the origin and development of the Internet but only rarely has there been

recognition offered for the netizen, for those online users who have taken

on to contribute to the development and spread of the Net and to making

possible the better world that more communication among people will

make possible.

The concept of netizen comes from the research and writing of

Michael Hauben while he was a college student in the early 1990s. Michael

was interested not only in how the Internet would develop and spread, but

also in the impact it would have on society.

In 1992 he sent out a set of questions across the computer networks

asking users about their experiences online. He was surprised to find that

not only were many of those who responded to his questions interested in

what the Net made possible for them, but also they were interested in

spreading the Net and in exploring how it would make a better world

possible. Network users with this social perspective, or this public interest

focus Michael called Netizens. Thus the Netizen was not all users, but

users with a public purpose.

Another aspect is that the Net is international, so that netizenship isn’t

a geographically limited concept. To be a netizen is to be not only a citizen

of one country but also a citizen of the Net. These users are citizens who

were empowered by the Net, or netizens. Based on his research, Michael

wrote the article “The Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on

Page 58

People’s Lives.” The article and the concept of the Netizen spread around

the world via the Internet.

Michael and I included his influential article as part of a book titled

Netizens which we put online on January 12, 1994. Today’s celebration of

Netizen Day in China is for me also a fitting celebration of the 15

anniversary of putting the first edition of the book “Netizens” online.

Though today is the first national netizen day, I have recently seen on

the Internet a call for a World Netizen Day. So the importance of

establishing a netizen day begun by the Internet Society of China is a proud

beginning of what I hope will become a new tradition, recognizing the

importance of the contributions made by Netizens to the continuing spread

and development of the Internet.

Congratulations not only to those who have been honored here today,

but to all netizens in China and to netizens around the world. May the

tradition of the netizen, along with the development of the Internet, grow

and flourish.

* For a Youku video of part of the talk with the translation into Chinese see

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE5MTY3OTUy.html

There were a number of online accounts in Chinese of the September 14 event. Here is

one url: http://tech.qq.com/zt/2009/wangminjie09/#top/

China in the Era of the Netizen*

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

[Editor’s Note: This article was written in February 2010.]

Page 59

I recently returned home from a trip to China. Back in New York City,

I was left with the feeling that there is something significant happening in

China. Some have referred to Beijing as the equivalent in the 21

century

of the interesting environment that Prague symbolized for the 1990s. In the

air in Beijing one senses that something new is emerging, something that

must build on the old but will emerge with its new characteristics.

In Beijing, I had many interesting conversations trying to understand

the significance of what is happening there. One was with a friend who is

from China but who has lived outside of China for over 20 years. She was

back visiting China for a special event and also planned to visit her parents

who live in China, as she does every year.

Comparing current day Beijing with the Beijing she knew as a

university student, she observed that Beijing has grown and developed in

the Era of the Internet. Her observation helped me to realize that not only

was Beijing being developed with the benefit of the Internet’s contribution,

but also that Beijing is a world class city developing in the Era of the

Netizen.

Some notes I wrote as I left Beijing observed, “The insight of the trip

was that Beijing is a city being developed in the Netizen Era. It is perhaps

one of the first world class cities substantially developed in the Netizen

Era. So perhaps a special characteristic of Beijing has to do with the

emergence of the Netizen.” It was not clear to me what the significance

was of this observation at the time.

When I returned home from my trip, I came across a publication about

the importance of the Netizens in China. The publication was the July 5,

2009 edition of the magazine NewsChina. This is the English language

version published each month of the Chinese weekly magazine China

Newsweek. The subject of this particular issue was “The Netizens’

Republic of China.”

The magazine contains several articles and an editorial about the

impact of netizens on the political sphere in China.

The editorial was titled

“The Netizens Public Square.” One of the articles, “Netizens, the New

Watchdogs,” had an equally alluring subtitle which asked the question,

“Has the era of ‘Internet supervision’ pitted Chinese netizens against the

government in the promotion of democracy and political reform?”

The particular form of ‘Internet supervision’ the article was discussing

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was whether netizens empowered by the Internet could effectively monitor

the actions of their government officials. Can the “era of ‘Internet

supervision,’” be “one in which netizens can compel visible transformation

in the behavior of government bureaucrats,” the article asks.

The question of whether or not netizens can affect the actions of their

government officials is a question raised by netizens around the world from

the early days of Internet development. How this question is being explored

by netizens in China is an important development. Yet few around the

world, especially those who do not read Mandarin, are aware that this

question is being actively explored by netizens in China.

The issue of NewsChina devoted to netizens presents several examples

of netizens speaking out online in Chinese discussion groups and forums.

Their actions are having an impact on government decision-making

processes and on uncovering fraud or corruption. The particular case

described in the magazine was the case of Deng Yujiao, a 21-year old

waitress who was sexually assaulted by a government official. She tried

to defend herself using a knife and in self defense killed her assailant. The

magazine describes how her plight became a cause célèbre among netizens

in China, who helped her to get a lawyer and to have the charge against her

reduced so she did not have to serve any time in jail.

The magazine gives several other examples of cases of injustice that

Chinese netizens championed so as to have justice prevail. Among these

is the case of a young college graduate who moved to a different city to

take a job, but who did not have the appropriate temporary residence

permit. Picked up for his permit violation, he was placed in a detention

center. He became a victim of foul play by residents of the center and

security guards and was murdered, but the story was covered up by the

police. Netizens began to discuss what had happened to him and the real

story of his death began to be unraveled. His assailants were arrested and

tried. Eventually the measures the young college graduate was detained

under were abolished by the State Council.

Similarly, Chinese netizens have challenged some of the many

inaccurate reports about China in the mainstream western media. In 2008

some netizens started a web site that they called

www.anti-cnn.com. On

the web site they documented many distortions or misrepresentations that

appear in the western media.

Page 61

These are just a few of the many examples of netizen action online that

have had an important impact on what the government does. Discussing

such netizen actions, Zhan Jiang, a Professor at the China Youth College

for Political Science, maintains that “the public supervision (of

government-ed) via the Internet serves to promote public participation in

political life.”

My visit to Beijing in September 2009 was my third trip to China. The

first had been in November 2005 when I was participating in a panel at an

international history of science conference held in Beijing. The title of my

talk for the conference was, “The International and Scientific Origins of

the Internet and the Emergence of the Netizens.” The second trip was in

April 2008 when I gave a talk at the Internet Society of China raising the

question whether this is a new Age, the Age of the Netizen? One of the

reasons for my trip one year latter in September 2009 was to participate

in a ‘Netizens Day’ the first such day anywhere in the world, which was

to be observed on September 14, 2009. The importance of this date is that

it marks the date listed on the first e-mail message (Sept. 14, 1987) that was

to be sent from China onto the international e-mail network known as

CSNET. The e-mail message and link were the result of collaborative

research between German and Chinese computer science researchers.

The netizens celebration on September 14, 2009 was held at the CCTV

Tower in Beijing. There was a stage set up in front of the tower for the

ceremony. I was invited to give one of the presentations for the program.

My talk, which was presented in English and then translated into Chinese,

I explained the origin of the concept of the netizen through the research in

1992-3 of Michael Hauben who was a university student doing pioneering

online studies about the social impact of the development of the Internet.

I described how in the early 1990s, Hauben sent out a set of questions

across the networks asking users about their experiences online. He was

surprised to find that not only were many of those who responded to his

questions interested in what the Net made possible for them, but also they

were interested in spreading the Net and in exploring how it could make

a better world possible. Based on his research Hauben wrote his article

“The Net and the Netizens.”

The netizen, Hauben recognized, was the emergence of a new form

of citizen, who was using the power made possible by the Net for a public

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purpose, and who was not limited by geographical boundaries. The Net for

Hauben was a new social institution and the discovery of the emergence

of the netizen was the special contribution that he made to the field of

network study.

The celebration on September 14, 2009 in Beijing thus was an event

not only to celebrate the research and technological advance making

possible the connection of China to the international network CSNET. But

it was similarly, and perhaps even more significantly, an event recognizing

the emergence of the netizens in China and hence, of a new social identity.

The September 14 event was covered in the online media and other

media.

Being the first such Netizens Day, knowledge of the day was not

yet widespread. Some net users commented that they weren’t aware that

there had been a Netizen Day. For me, however, the event on September

14, 2009 in Beijing was remarkable. In 1994, 15 years earlier, the first

edition of the Netizens netbook with Hauben’s article about netizens had

been put online.

At the time there was much less access to the Internet

and many fewer Netizens. Nevertheless, the phenomenon first identified

more than 15 years ago has continued to develop and spread around the

world. And in Beijing, in a city where much is new, and grand, and hopeful

toward the future, there was a ceremony out in front of the tallest of

structures in Beijing, the CCTV tower, recognizing the importance of the

Internet and of the Netizen.

This event in Beijing was the first Netizen Day, the first official

recognition of the netizen anywhere in the world. It was a celebration to

honor the fact that the phenomenon of the netizen continues to develop and

spread and to be recognized as a new and important achievement of our

times.

Notes

1. Yu Xiaodong, “Netizens, the New Watchdogs,” in NewsChina, Vol 12, July 5, 2009.

p. 17. The magazine website is:

http://www.newschinamag.com/ See also,

https://www.facebook.com/NewsChinaMag/ (requires Facebook log on)

2. Ibid.

3. This is the case of Sun Zhigang. See “Selected Cases Exposed on the Internet,”

NewsChina, p. 20. This and other examples are described in a paper by Jay Hauben,

“China: Netizen Impact on Government Policy and Media Practice.”

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http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/j-paper.doc

4. Ronda Hauben, “Netizens Defy Western Media Fictions of China: Ronda Hauben on

the ‘anti-CNN’ forum and Web site,” OhmyNews International, May 8, 2008.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=382523&rel_no=1, also

this issue page 52.

5. Quoted in Yu Xiaodong, “Netizens, the New Watchdogs,” NewsChina, July 5, 2009,

p. 17.

6. Jay Hauben, “The Story of China’s First Email Link and How It Got Corrected.”

https://www.informatik.kit.edu/downloads/HaubenJay-ChongqingSpeech-12Jan2010.pdf,

also in this issue page 19.

7. See “Honoring the Netizen,” talk presented on September 14, 2009. The url is:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2009/10/02/first_netizen_celebration_day_held_in_beij

ing_china_/, also in this issue page 59.

8. See for example: Michael Hauben, “Preface: What is a Netizen” in Netizens: On the

History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, online version

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.xpr

9. Michael Hauben, “The Net and the Netizens” in Netizens: On the History and Impact

of Usenet and the Internet, online version

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x01

10. On September 15, 2009 there was a program on the China Radio International (CRI)

English language show “Beijing and Beyond” discussing the development of the Netizen

in China. In the audio at

http://english.cri.cn/7146/2009/09/15/481s515765.htm the

program about netizens is hour one.

11. The book put online in 1994 is also now published in a print edition titled Netizens:

On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. The co-authors are Michael Hauben

and Ronda Hauben. Originally published by the IEEE Computer Society, the book is now

distributed by John Wiley. The print edition was published in 1997. The url for the online

edition is http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120

*This article appeared on the netizenblog on Feb 14, 2010 at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/02/14/china_in_the_era_of_the_netizen/

[Editor’s Note: The following is a speech given in NYC on May 1, 2012

at a meeting celebrating the 15

Anniversary of the publication of Netizens:

On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet.]

My Thinking on Netizens

by Xu Liang*

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In 1999, when I went to college, it was the first time for me to touch

the Internet. I still remember clearly the experience that day. I carefully got

access into a website and browsed some news. Later I registered an email

address and sent my first email. Afterwards I learned to chat online. The

first time is always very fresh and exciting. But after the excitement

diminished, I thought that the Internet did not change our lives as much as

what was described by others. I still remember I told my roommate of my

disappointment. He was an amateur with the computer thinking that the

Internet could not do any more than email and browsing news. I admitted

that the Internet did make our lives much more convenient and more fast

than before, but it was just a substitute for the role of newspapers, radios,

and televisions. These inventions did not change the historical trail, neither

did the Internet. This was my opinion at that time.

In recent years, with the popularization of the Internet, the Internet was

more and more necessary in our lives. I roughly spend a quarter of a day

on the Internet. What is more important, we witness the power of the

Internet and social media in some big things, like the 2011 high-speed train

crash in China, the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement and

so on. I gradually realize that I underestimated the impact of the Internet

before. I am not sure if the Internet will change the trail of human history,

but I am sure that the Internet does change the structure and management

of human society. Why? First, the Internet gives us another spacious space.

In the cyber space, the demarcation of nations, classes, parties, groups and

professions becomes vague. Identities and status of people are not set by

the society. Second, the Internet gives us another source of power. This

power is not less than the invention of the atomic bomb. But the Internet

is different from the atomic bomb. The latter can be monopolized by a few

people. The former should be shared by everyone. Actually, the bigger the

power is, the fewer people have atomic weapons, while the bigger the

power is, the more people share the Internet. Each Internet user is both a

source and a holder of the power. With great power comes great

responsibility. Traditionally a few elites manage society and make

decisions. Now everyone can participate in the management and influence

the decision-making process.

Let me go back to Michael and Ronda Hauben’s book, Netizens. I have

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to admit the book is very visionary. It was not just because it foresaw the

drastic social changes brought by the Internet in early 1990s before I

touched the Internet, but what is more important is that the book offers us

a blueprint or a way forward for our future society based on the Internet,

that is the netizen.

What is the netizen? According to the Hauben’s introduction, to me

the netizen does not equate to the Internet user. Only those Internet users

who abide by a set of moral norms and do good things are netizens. They

imagine that the netizens would be the mainstream in cyber society and it

would give birth to a good and equal society in reality which would break

away from the traditional minority-ruling-majority model. Marx and many

Communists once tried to construct such a perfect society. They failed in

practice. The Internet and netizen probably provide a technological tool

and a different way to realize the dream. This is our best wish.

However, we also should know it is a long way for the theory to be

applied in practice. The formation of civil society in the real world tells us

we can not expect a netizen society would form very soon. As civil society

is based on the rule of law, the netizen society also should be based on a

set of norms. But the formation of norms must be a free, open and

voluntary process. Any government and organization should not make out

such norms in the name of netizens, or the netizen society would repeat the

tradition model.

* In 2011-2012 the author was a research follow at Columbia University in NYC.

Proposal for the World

Internet Conference

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

In 2015, I was invited to attend the Second World Internet Conference

(WIC) sponsored by the Chinese government and held in Wuzhen in

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Southeast China on December 16-18, 2015. This conference may in the

long run represent an important contribution to the global efforts to

encourage international cooperation among nations to determine the

infrastructure and regulations needed to encourage the growth and spread

of the Internet.

Putting the World Internet Conference in a broader context, ten years

earlier I attended the United Nations sponsored 2005 World Summit for

the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis. That Summit was a significant

event. Participants there from around the world wanted to be part of and

contribute to the development of the Internet and its future well being. The

participants represented the desire of people everywhere to be on the

Internet. Also I chaired and was a presenter on a panel that was part of an

academic side conference held two days before the beginning of WSIS.

Being at the side conference and at the Summit led me to contacts related

to China and South Korea which I continued in the years following the

WSIS Summit meeting.*

That academic side conference connected to the Tunis Summit was

titled the Past, Present, and Future of Research in the Information Society

(PPF). This academic conference made possible a focus on a more general

perspective about the Internet and its development than did other events

at the Tunis Summit itself.

After the Tunis Summit, I became accredited as a journalist at the UN

Headquarters in NYC, first for a South Korean publication and later for a

German and then also a Chinese publication. Each year at the UN I saw

that the issue of Internet development would be brought up in the Second

Committee of the General Assembly. And each year it was transferred to

Geneva for discussion. The Tunis WSIS mandated the UN General

Assembly to do a Ten Year Review in 2015 of what had happened in the

10 years that followed the 2005 Summit. Several times this obligation was

raised at meetings of the Second Committee. The G77 + China called for

a summit to be held at the highest levels possible of governments

represented at the UN in September 2015 along with the Sustainable

Development Goal summit.

This proposal for another summit-level event, however was blocked

and transferred to Geneva, where it was also blocked. There was significant

criticism about how it was never adequately carried out. The G77 + China

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statement to the WSIS Review meeting on July 1, 2015 outlines this

problem. The statement explains, “It is unfortunate that the mandate of the

Tunis Agenda has been implemented selectively to suit the narrow interests

of a few influential players in the multi stakeholder community…. The

Tunis Agenda called for Governments to, on an equal footing with each

other, carry out their roles and responsibilities on international public

policy issues pertaining to the Internet. However, ten years later, tangible

progress on this specific mandate…has been blocked. It is imperative that

this important issue be resolved, so that all nations have an equal say in the

public policy affecting the Internet.”

Since the 2005 Tunis Summit, not only at the UN Headquarters in

NYC, but also at other venues, a number of obstacles have been placed in

the path of those making an effort to fulfill the inclusive vision expressed

in Tunis.

In this context China’s plan to hold a yearly meeting could be a

welcome development. But a question is raised about the World Internet

Conference held in Wuzhen. What is its purpose? Does it represent a

continuation of efforts to help spread Internet access and cooperative

discussion and participation? Is it toward setting a global policy that will

take up to support the continuing spread and development of the Internet?

This is not a commercial question. It is a public policy question.

Perhaps some observations about the 2015 World Internet Conference

will help suggest answers to this question.

Some Observations about the Second World Internet

Conference

For the past two years, 2014 and 2015, China has sponsored and

organized a high level meeting about Internet development and policy that

is to be held on a yearly basis.

I want to share some observations about the experience I had at the

Second Wuzhen World Internet Conference.

1) A substantial number of people involved with Internet development

from around the world attended. I met and spent some time with people I

had met previously at different occasions over the past 28 years that I have

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been part of the Internet community.

2) The opening session of the conference with speeches by Xi Jinping and

other high officials of the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation

Organization (SCO) raised important issues and demonstrated that China

and several other countries were treating the World Internet Conference

as an important meeting.

3) One very interesting session at the World Internet Conference was the

Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) Cybersecurity session held on

December 17. This event was by invitation only and limited the number

of those who could attend. Also, it was off the record. The form and

process it provided however, were greatly appreciated by those I heard

from who attended. The form of the session was that there were no

panelists. All who were part of the session could raise their hands and get

called on for a short response to the questions raised by the moderator. This

event provided for a range of views and issues which broadened the

spectrum of the topic of the session. The Cybersecurity session allowed a

broad set of ideas to be presented and a wide variety of voices to be heard.

Contributions were encouraged from all participants at the session.

4) The student guides who were provided to help participants at the

Conference were capable, serious, and took on to solve the problems

experienced by those attending. Bilingual student guides were available

to act as a needed interface at the hotels, the EXPO, and the conference for

English speaking participants and those who spoke only Chinese.

5) The program of the World Internet Conference in 2015 was somewhat

varied but there were sessions which had too many presentations to allow

time for questions and comments from the audience. A greater effort to

welcome presentations or panels from a broader spectrum of presenters

with more panels, but each panel with fewer presenters and allowing more

time for discussion, would be a better format.

6) There was discussion about ICANN, but the discussion did not

adequately represent those who have a critique of ICANN’s contradictory

nature.

7) One major criticism from my perspective is that the focus seemed too

geared toward corporate presenters. Some aspects of the conference were

more like a trade show than a high level Internet conference that will

support and contribute to the still needed development and spread of the

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Internet, especially to developing countries. There are those in developing

and developed countries who need a significant role played by government

and by netizens to help spread the Net. Experience throughout the

development of the Internet has shown the corporate model for Internet

development is in general too narrow and focused on short term profit. A

recent example is the effort by Facebook to determine what part of the

Internet poor people should have as opposed to the whole Internet. (See the

critique of this model as applied to India published in the U.K. Guardian.

)

8) In the realm of security, there seemed more concern at the World

Internet Conference with security for commerce and less focus on

understanding what the particular nature of security related to the Internet

would mean.

9) But given the significant endeavor that organizing and planning an

annual high level conference related to the Internet and its development

represents, the Second World Internet Conference organized by China

accomplished something important.

In my experience at the Second World Internet Conference I found that

research I have done about the more general nature of Internet development

proved helpful in my discussions with government officials, academics,

students and others with whom I spoke during the World Internet

Conference.

In line with my experience, in a speech

on May 30, 2016, Chinese

President Xi Jinping reviewed the historic importance of the technological

revolution to bring advances to human society. He pointed to science as

helping to uncover the laws of nature toward being able to meet the

challenges of economic development. Along with recognizing the need to

support basic research, he pointed to the need to strengthen the science and

technology decision making advisory system.

One of the ways I found that can make a significant contribution to the

objectives that President Xi outlined, is to study and learn from the process

by which the Internet was created and from the government support

structures that helped or hindered the Internet researchers’ work.

Fortunately there is a rich set of research materials toward such study.

Some of this study is documented in a draft manuscript I have been

working on titled “On the International Origins of the Internet: A

Conceptual History.” This manuscript explores the work of computer

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scientists doing Internet research and development. It also documents the

research support system that was created, known as the Advanced Research

Projects Agency (ARPA). The manuscript documents how ARPA

functioned to support Internet research. It also explores the problems that

were created when this research agency was changed into a different

agency which was not in a position to provide the same needed support for

the independence of the Internet researchers.

Following I am offering a proposal for an addition to the format of the

World Internet Conference to build on observations about the 2005 WSIS

and the 2015 World Internet Conference and on the importance of scientific

research.

A Proposed Addition for the World Internet Conference

I am proposing that at the next World Internet Conference there be a

section reserved for academic panels related to the history and culture of

Internet development.

The panel I chaired at the PPF in 2005 can be taken as an example of

the kind of general nature academic panel I am proposing. The title of that

panel was “The Origin and Early Development of the Internet and of the

Netizen: Their Impact on Science and Society.” The papers that were

presented at that panel were:

•The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and the Emergence

of the Netizen

•The vision of JCR Licklider and the Libraries of the Future

•German-Chinese Collaboration in the First Stage of Open Networking in

China

•Brief History of the Internet in Korea and Asia

•Netizens and Protecting the Public Interest in the Development and

Management of the Internet: An Economists Perspective

I have consulted with several colleagues who have offered to submit

papers for panels for the 2016 World Internet Conference if this proposal

is accepted.

Also, panels could be organized around issues related to Internet and

development.

I welcome comments on this proposal and if requested I can elaborate

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on it.

Notes

1. See “Observations on the 2

Preparatory Meeting of the UN WSIS 10 Year Review,”

(

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2015/11/01/2nd-prep-mtg-wsis-10-year-review/)

2. Rahul Bhatia, “The Inside Story of Facebook’s Biggest Setback,”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebookfree-basics-india-

zuckerberg

3. http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0601/c1024-28400027.html (in Chinese)

4. The papers from the panel I chaired in Tunis are gathered in the Amateur Computerist

Vol. 15 No 2 Spring 2007,

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn15-2.pdf.

* The Amateur Computerist Vol. 26 No 1 Fall 2015,

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn26-

1.pdf gathers some of these experiences and serves as a broader introduction.

The opinions expressed in articles are those of their authors and not

necessarily the opinions of the Amateur Computerist newsletter. We

welcome submissions from a spectrum of viewpoints.

ELECTRONIC EDITION

ACN Webpage:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

All issues of the Amateur Computerist are on-line.

All issues can be accessed from the Index at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/NewIndex.pdf

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EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

The Amateur Computerist invites submissions.

Articles can be submitted via e-mail:

mailto:[email protected]

Permission is given to reprint articles from this issue in a non profit

publication provided credit is given, with name of author and source of article

cited.

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