Recently I was taken aback by what a Hong Kong friend said: “How can I be a reporter when the National Security Law takes effect? Should we compromise our principles?” The first thing that came to my mind was that in countries where speech is punishable, many journalists continue to do their news reporting job. Are they "compromising" their principles then? The friend went on: “Where is the red line?” I was stunned again. Is there really a “red line” when it comes to the authorities monitoring people’s speech?

All these questions prompted me to try to look at the issue in a more systematic way. Dictatorship has been evolving and there is no such thing as a “red line” for the monitoring of speech that defines what can or cannot be said. In Chinese society, dictatorship has undergone many years of evolution to become highly flexible and effective. Without understanding the nature of the authorities’ way of monitoring speech, one may easily overreact (i.e. practise excessive self-censorship) or be ill-prepared. In a world overshadowed by authoritarianism, it is important for people to thoroughly understand what journalists do to remain productive and continue to work diligently in a public opinion environment that is opening up as much possible. This topic will be further discussed in this column. For now, let’s start with the evolution of speech-monitoring.

Discrediting dissidents to make people lose trust

What is the most effective way for a dictator to deal with an influential dissident? Killing him is not wise. His sudden disappearance will only amplify his influence, and his death will trigger mass mourning, which is often the beginning of a process whereby words are transformed into political actions. To the dictator, the situation facing the dissident is not a concern. What really matter are those who believe in the dissident. In other words, how to regain control over these people is key. How should the dictator reduce and even eliminate the influence of the dissident supported by the mass? Isolation, competition and discrediting him are the way to go. Do nothing to destroy him, but limit his ability to influence others and let him speak and contradict himself. Come up with 10 rivals who can compete with him, dilute his supporters’ attention to him and win his fans over. Look for his weaknesses and dark secrets, find ways to discredit him and destroy people’s trust in him. Then, even though the dissident is still around and continues to speak, people will no longer pay attention, and even if he is heard, people will no longer believe in him. He is no longer a threat.

In an authoritarian country, the most threatening voice of dissent comes not from individuals. The biggest menace are truths. The deduction above represents how dictators deal with dissidents, as well as how authoritarian governments monitor and control speech.

How the state censors news

Today, with the support of algorithmic technology based on big data, authoritarian governments are more capable than ever to adopt sophisticated means to control speech. Such a change can be exemplified by an incident that happened in the mainland eight years ago.

In July 2012, a heavy rainstorm in Beijing claimed 79 lives. Rainstorms are rare in the past few decades, but that rainstorm occurred in the center of a big city, drowning many people and exposing many flaws of the local infrastructure. People were shocked and widespread discussions of the tragedy ensued, throwing the Beijing authorities into panic. After the rainstorm, many news media set off to conduct investigations. Southern Weekend interviewed the families of all the victims and dedicated eight pages of the paper, including the front page, to run an article headlined "Your name, your story". The piece listed the names of the deceased and each of their stories, all of which could be verified. The article was scheduled to be published on the seventh day after their deaths.

Meanwhile, the government had not identified the deceased. The day before the article was published, when it was to go to print, the newspaper received a prohibition decree from the government. Consequently, the eight-page article was forcibly removed. The copy of Southern Weekend that people got the morning after did not carry the investigation report, and several consecutive pages had been hastily filled by advertisements.

On the surface, this was just another case of the Chinese authorities reviewing and censoring news articles. But bear in mind this occurred in the age of Weibo, when production of the eight-page story had been completed and the editor overseeing the front page had taken pictures of the article and posted them on his Weibo account, which has a good number of followers. When the prohibition decree was laid down late at night, the investigative report was withdrawn, and the eight pages were marked with red crosses and replaced by advertisements. The whole censorship process was broadcast live on Weibo by editors of the paper, causing widespread outrage. With the exposure of the incident to the public, the effect of the censorship was greatly reduced.

The story did not end here though. On the night when Southern Weekend was censored, I routinely watched the CCTV News Network when my attention was drawn by the newscaster dressed in black. There was unexpectedly a special news program on the national TV station and the newscaster put on a solemn face, reading out a list of victims of the rainstorm one by one and giving a brief summary about each person.

State-controlled media snatches fans to win approval

The CCTV news report drew unprecedented praise, with many people regarding it as an improvement in transparency of the government system and the humanization of the state-controlled media. Nonetheless, photos of Southern Weekend marked with red crosses were only circulated among a small number of Weibo users and so the impact was limited.

At that moment, it dawned on me that the rules of the game had changed. In the past, when the authorities wanted to cover up something, they simply went for a direct “you shut up" approach. But the Southern Weekend incident suggested the strategy had changed to one of “shut up and let me do the telling”.

If in the past the primary goal was to monitor, control and eliminate specific information and the source (to control people who spoke the truth so that the truth couldn’t be spread), then in the “information control era 2.0”, the main objective was to draw people’s attention to the state-controlled media, create a large number of propaganda stories using a new style, and win over the mass.

The effect of this new strategy was palpable. In 2015, People's Daily, People's Daily Online, Global Times and other state-controlled media outlets hired a large number of young people and adopted online vernacular popular among the young. Eventually the WeChat and Weibo accounts of these media outlets became the most influential and popular online outlets, with their number of followers topping the charts. By comparison, the traditional market-oriented media seriously lack resources and so their influence have been in decline gradually, falling out of the top 10 and then top 20. They have also found themselves rapidly marginalized.

“Information pollution” tactics in Hong Kong’s information warfare

After several years of adjustment, state-run media outlets re-captured their position in the mainstream, and thanks to information technology, their influence is far greater today than during the era dominated by the traditional media.

It was also from this time on that information control 3.0 mode kicked off, with events in Hong Kong incident serving as the starting point. The focal point of this mode is neither to control or spread propaganda, but to “pollute”. Information pollution tactics reached its peak when the large-scale, “destructive, subversive and fierce” protest movement broke out in Hong Kong in 2019. Public opinion became a weapon. The decade before that, information control had already been upgraded and became more sophisticated, and the public opinion environment was gradually subject to tighter control. All these created an excellent incubator for information warfare.

So what is the most effective way for a dictator to deal with an influential dissident? It is to make people lose their ability to make honest judgments independently as they are manipulated by certain information. Such is the base propping up every kind of ruling regime, where the seed that shakes everything is also deeply buried.

(Zhang Jieping is the Founder of Matters Lab, the new decentralised content platform based on blockchain technology.)

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