Chinese citizens, accustomed to online censorship, are losing interest in state-banned information.
The overwhelming majority of Chinese residents do not have access to a number of global Internet resources, including social networks and some media. Particularly severe restrictions apply to information that can reveal the impartial sides of the past and present policies of the Chinese Communist Party. From year to year, China tops the list of countries with the most tightly controlled countries on the web. For the citizens of the country, such control has become customary - and it changes the interests of the society itself. This is reported by Yuyu Chen and David Yang in an article published in the American Economic Review.
The authors tested 1,800 Peking University students by monitoring their online behavior. At the same time, some of the volunteers used the usual limited Internet, while the other part had unlimited access to all global Internet services. According to Chen and Yang, such people show an amazing indifference to taboo topics and sites associated with a low interest in politics, with a fear of punishment, with ignorance and simply distrust of foreign news resources. No more than five percent of volunteers are interested in content prohibited in China.
The intensity of horizontal information transfer also decreases - from person to person. Thus, the authors conclude that the danger of censorship is manifested by more than one low level of information. It leads to changes in the mood and structures of society. “Even if such people receive new sensitive data and become better informed, this may not affect their moods and beliefs in any way,” the scientists write.
Sergey Vasiliev