US-China Commission Report - Fatal System Error

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Images of ‘‘Jing-Jing’’ and ‘‘Cha-Cha’’ from a Web site of the Chinese Internet police.
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The other side of China’s Internet monitoring regime consists of
public institutions and private sector companies. In a parallel to
how the Chinese government conducts media censorship, private
companies and other institutions operating inside China have
adopted the use of their own Internet monitors, known colloquially
as ‘‘big mamas.’’ A ‘‘big mama’’ monitors the Web page of his or her
own company or institution for material that might displease government
censors. In this way, companies and institutions protect
themselves from official displeasure, and the government enlists
the resources of business, educational, and civil society groups to
censor themselves. 49
Despite such extensive monitoring and censorship efforts, the
government’s control over the Internet is not absolute. Chinese
Internet expert Xiao Qiang called China’s Internet a ‘‘contested
space,’’ in which the increasing number of Internet users and the
rapidly proliferating number of Web sites complicate attempts to
censor it.
The Involvement of U.S. High-Tech Firms in Supporting the
‘‘Golden Shield’’
The role played by western high-tech firms in supporting the
Internet control regimes of authoritarian governments has been a
matter of significant public debate in the United States. All major
U.S. Internet service providers and computer hardware manufacturers
operating in China have made accommodations with the
government’s Internet monitoring regime, although the character
and the extent of that involvement differ from firm to firm.
The actions of Cisco Corporation, which sold the Chinese government
the switches and routers that now are cornerstones of the
Golden Shield monitoring project, have been included among these
controversial actions. 50 Cisco’s role was highlighted in a May 2008