Regional Variation in Chinese Internet Filtering

Internet filtering in China is a pervasive and well-reported phenomenon and, as arguably the most extensive filtering regime in the world today, has been studied by a number of authors. Existing studies, however, have considered both the filtering infrastructure and the nation itself as largely homogeneous in this respect. In order to gain a deeper understanding of Chinese internet filtering, its practical effects and its social implications, it is crucial to understand in detail the extent to which filtering varies across China, and amongst its hundreds of millions of internet users. is work investigates regional variation in filtering across China through direct access to internet services distributed across the country. is is achieved through use of the Domain Name Service, or DNS, which provides a mapping between human-readable names and machine-routable IP addresses on the internet, and which is thus a critical component of internet-based communications. Due to the key role that this service plays, its manipulation is a common mechanism used by states and institutions to hamper access to internet services that have been deemed undesirable. rough access to a range of publicly available DNS servers located across China, obtained from the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), we query data concerning known blocked websites