Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet Being Censored In Hong Kong

Both important and unimportant information is provided to millions of people all across the globe through the internet. However, if we search for the same data in Hong Kong, China, the information found may be totally different because of internet censorship which involves controlling the information available on the internet. The government of China controls the publishing of articles that suppress the web pages that they dislike or which are unsuitable for them. Censoring the internet in Hong Kong has resulted to different of impacts, both advantageous and disadvantageous to the China as the nation (Dowell, 2006).

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Advantages

Home court advantage

China is currently the home to the worlds biggest internet market and also a home to most of the globes most valued internet organizations such as the e-commerce gigantic Tencent and Alibaba. The government of China has promoted the development of the internet for businesses while establishing barriers to keep out Big Western rivals. The banning of social media websites such as the Facebook and the Youtube has also offered home court benefit to the Internet stars in China such as WeChat and Youku (Dowell, 2006). Contrary to Negroponte's declaration, giving respect to the strict governing rules that guide the Internet in China has not gotten in the way of innovation as many technologies developers in china have reinterpreted existing business models and designed out new mobile apps.

Reduced foreign competition

Due to censoring of the internet in China, it has become difficult for foreign companies and entrepreneurs to do business in China. For this reason, some local website such as Weibo and Baidu are able to carry out their businesses prosperously in the absence of foreign competition. Lack of foreign competition in the Chinese market means an expanded market and increased local trade for the local entrepreneurs. Increased trade is a major advantage to the Chinese economy and to the local entrepreneurs at large.

Preservation of national security

Part of the main motive for internet censoring in China is due to the increase in activism among the Chinese population especially from the younger, more technologically intelligent citizens. Chinese officials claim that the move implemented so as to the security of the nation. The measure by China to censor its internet services has helped in keeping up with the totalitarian disposition that is so prevalent in the country (MacKinnon, 2009). The internet censoring move by the Chinese government has also helped in curbing incursion both from without and within.

Disadvantages

High Cost of censorship

The government of china has heavily invested in building the Great Firewall which is a part of what the Ministry of Public Security calls the Golden Shield Project. The project that commenced in May 2001 is a complex system which has cost the government a fortune to design and implement (Yang, 2003). According to one of the system designers, Guangdong Hong'a Group, just a year after the launch of the project, the cost of investment at that time had gone up to 6.4billion RMB or $ 770 million (MacKinnon, 2009) . The high amount of money that the Chinese government spent in designing and implementing the project and the continuous cost of maintaining the project could otherwise be directed to other more beneficial projects such as in the control of environmental pollution, which is a major threat to the health of the people in China.

Loss to indigenous entrepreneurs

The internet provides a means through which local entrepreneurs can exchange ideas, access and share the latest information globally. Through this communications and networking, local entrepreneurs learn new ways of doing business, and how to keep up with the latest innovations in the industry. In Hong Kong, this ability is limited by The Great Firewall which has limited the information that can be accessed by these entrepreneurs over the internet. The banning of YouTube for example, where entrepreneurs post videos relating to how various kinds of businesses are done is a great impact. Together with Youtube, Facebook is used by entrepreneurs to create networks across the globe which help in marketing, promotion and advertising of products. Banning this sited is, therefore, a big blow to the local entrepreneurs as it limits their ability to expand.

Limits fair trade

Internet censoring has a harmful effect on competition in the internet industry due to the shift in market leadership. Censorship offers an unfair market advantage to the internet providers in china such as Baidu because they do not need to present high-quality products for them to lead the market. All that these companies need to offer is operational and editorial agreement with the requirements of the government. It is important to remember that Baidu is the organization that sold its censorship services to Sanlu, a big company producing milk to obstruct the search results that associate to the contamination of milk with melamine which causes sicknesses to thousands of Chinese children.

In conclusion although internet censoring has brought many benefits to China, such as reduced foreign competition, national security protection and home-court benefit, it has also resulted to some disadvantages. Some of the disadvantages associated with internet censoring in China include lack of fair trade, loss to homegrown entrepreneurs and the high cost associated with internet censoring.

References

Dowell, W. T. (2006). Internet, Censorship, and China, The Geo. J. Int'l Aff., 7, 111.

MacKinnon, R. (2009). Chinas censorship 2.0: How companies censor bloggers. First Monday, 14(2)

MacKinnon, R. (2011). China's" networked authoritarianism". Journal of Democracy, 22(2), 32-46.

Xu, X., Mao, Z. M., & Halderman, J. A. (2011, March) Internet censorship in China: Where does the filtering occur?. In Passive and Active Measurement (pp. 133-142). Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Yang, G. (2003) The Internet and the rise of a transnational Chinese cultural sphere Media, Culture & Society, 25(4), 469-490.