The story of China’s Great Firewall, the world’s most sophisticated censorship system

With 854 million internet users, China’s online population is more than two and a half times larger than the entire population of the United States. But for most of these people, the world’s most popular websites aren’t easily accessible thanks to a sophisticated system of blocking and deterrents.

This system is commonly referred to as the Great Firewall, but it’s not an official name used by the Chinese government, which uses opaque policies and strategies for internet control. But since the term appeared in a Wired article in 1997, it’s become a common shorthand for the laws and technologies used to enforce China’s digital censorship.

It wasn’t always this way, though. The Great Firewall only started to come about a decade after the first email was sent from China. After China got access to the world wide web in 1994, internet cafes started to spring up across China’s largest cities. Both the country’s early netizens and the government came to realize that the free flow of information could have some big political implications.

The government released a State Council order that year named “Temporary Regulations Governing Computer Information Networks and the Internet.” It required all direct connections to the internet to be channeled through international ports established and maintained by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, specifying that no group or individual may establish or utilize any other means to gain internet access. This would lay the groundwork for further control in the future.