This article is part of IranWire's ongoing coverage of Covid-19 disinformation in different countries, in partnership with Health Studio.
By Katherine Hignett for Health Studio
China has some of the tightest press restrictions in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which recently ranked the country fourth-lowest in the world for freedom of expression in this year’s World Press Freedom Index.
The Communist Party of China (CCP) engages in “unprecedented levels” of internet censorship, surveillance and propaganda activities, according to RSF. This tight control on the flow of news not only restricts citizens’ access to accurate information, but allows the government to spread disinformation of its own that supports the party line.
With restrictions tighter than ever during the pandemic, experts say the state’s control over the country’s Covid-19 narrative isn’t just a threat to freedom of speech, but a threat to health.
Online censorship and journalist arrests
China is well known for its restrictive approach to the web, blocking access to popular websites like Facebook, censoring news outlets and even sometimes blacking out the internet altogether. It is also one of the world’s worst offenders when it comes to the imprisonment of journalists, according to RSF.
In China, at least seven journalists who reported on the Covid-19 crisis are currently either detained or missing. Some 450 social media users have been temporarily detained for sharing so-called “false rumours” about the pandemic. What qualifies as a “false rumour” is likely to be any publication that doesn’t fit with the state’s narrative.
Government control over Covid-19 messaging also extends to online news outlets, according to experts Harriet Moynihan and Dr Champa Patel, who recently wrote a report on Chinese media restrictions for British think tank Chatham House. Such news outlets, they say, are on “strict orders” to keep their coverage in line with Beijing’s version of events.
As well as tightly controlling information from other sources, the Chinese government warps the public news narrative with its own widely-distributed propaganda titles. In print and online, publications like China Daily and Global Times provide an influx of stories that portray the CCP in a positive light, as well as those that criticise Western countries.
Beyond explicit propaganda, the Chinese government also uses shadowy techniques, from pressurising other content providers to share pro-Beijing material, to employing hundreds of thousands of online commentators to amplify nationalist messages online.
This control over online freedom of expression has only intensified over the Covid-19 pandemic, Moynihan and Patel said in their report.
Spreading pro-China disinformation
Tightly managing the flow of information allows the Chinese government to present a misleading picture of current affairs, both inside China and internationally.
A prime example is one the government’s many attempts to distance itself from the fact that SARS-CoV-2 was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Chinese officials have instead tried to lay blame for the pandemic on other countries, suggesting on numerous occasions that the disease originated in the US, as the South China Morning Post reported last year.
Manipulating the online narrative in such a way that citizens only have access to the state’s version of events has serious implications beyond freedom of expression, Moynihan and Patel argue. It stops citizens from accessing accurate information that can protect their health.
“China’s restrictions on online discussions of the handling of the virus meant that some citizens were unable to access adequate information or medical care in the early days of the outbreak,” they wrote.
Silencing journalists
Journalism is “the best vaccine against disinformation,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said on the launch of this year’s Press Freedom Index. “Journalism provides the most effective means of ensuring that public debate is based on a diverse range of established facts.”
Blocking the production and distribution of accurate news removes this vital counterweight to disinformation. And in China, it has a devastating impact on reporters and citizen journalists.
Some of China’s attempts to silence citizens sharing information about the pandemic are well known. Most famous perhaps was the case of Dr. Li Wenliang, a Wuhan ophthalmologist who was questioned by authorities in January after raising concerns about a strange new virus. Dr Li then succumbed to the disease himself in February of last year.
But other examples of the government’s control over the pandemic narrative are less well known. For example, at least 897 Chinese internet users were punished for posting about the pandemic online in the first three months of 2020, according to NGO network Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
Most of these individuals were accused by police of “spreading misinformation [or] disrupting public order.” In reality, they were likely to have been challenging the state narrative.
Academic Censure
Even academic research concerning Covid-19 is vetted by authorities before publication, potentially impeding international efforts to understand the virus. Back in April 2020, RSF’s East Asia bureau chief Cédric Alviani described this as “monstrous egotism” that was “far removed from the image of responsibility and solidarity” that he said the government had tried to project in the early days of the crisis.
According to Moynihan and Patel, China’s control over online discussions makes it harder for citizens to “realise” their right to information, freedom of thought and opinion, and even their right to health.
There is a chance newly-tightened regulations on the media — which have been observed to varying degrees across the Asia-Pacific region — will loosen post-pandemic. But Moynihan and Patel fear that the pandemic has already damaged the long-term prospect of open, rights-based approaches to technology.
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