How China is creating a new kind of internet

How China built its own internet

Over the last 40 years, the Chinese Communist Party has been constructing the world’s first and most sophisticated digital border, called the Great Firewall of China. It blocks materials that the Chinese government doesn’t want its population to see and is a major reason why the Party has survived in the internet age. Over the decades, China has increased the sophistication of its wall … and created more security inside it. This video explains why many believed the internet would unleash democracy in China. And how China proved them all wrong.

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Search Party is led and produced by Sam Ellis, a journalist, director, editor, and animator based in New York City. For more than 6 years, Ellis produced the hugely popular video series, Vox Atlas, for which he earned an Emmy nomination. He specializes in breaking down the most complex new stories and presenting them with a refreshing, accessible, and engaging visual style.

He’s produced explainers on some of the world’s thorniest geopolitical stories; from corruption scandals in Latin America, conflict in the Middle East, and the rise of China, to the world of sports; the Monaco Grand Prix, the FIFA corruption scandal, and the 100-foot waves of Nazaré, Portugal. Ellis has also directed multiple episodes of TV; notably on Netflix’s ‘Explained’ and HBO Sport’s ‘Level Playing Field’.

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[samesamebutdifferent]

Year 2000 - USA: Internet will bring change to China
Year 2025 - China: Internet will bring change to USA.

[thm]

Madlad actually nailed jello to the wall

[joshkrato]

The evolving Pac-man style graphic is great. Very nice.

[hualqueb]

I can't criticize Israel in YouTube and y'all worried by Chinese censorship

[zapz]

Clinton : good luck with that
China : challange accepted

[platinumphonesandcomputers]

I thought this video was going to talk about the technicalities and engineering of Chinese internet

[DaniiHews]

i love how we get to see the gello nailed on the wall in the end 10:08

[L.internet]

Bill underestimated China so badly... I didn't know this statement even existed

[JSM-bbu]

Clinton: Internet would spread democracy
In reality internet is spreading fascism.😂

[mohamedabdukadir]

Actually, misinformation and disinformation are worse than censorship.

[NaCk]

People need to stop assuming the internet is necessary to generate social movements. They have existed for thousands of years before the internet was invented, the only thing we do by fetishizing the internet as a social cohesion tool (which arguably divides more than it unifies) is to generate more conformity.

[Thesm]

America is a one-party state, and the two parties are almost identical.

[prototypeify]

Didn't let Facebook in? Sounds like great foresight to me

[VNDROID]

this video is crazy! You guys really thing big tech companies like meta and google are good for democracy?

[myintmaunmaun]

Anytime you hear DeepSeek, CCP, Taiwan, Tiananmen in the same sentence you know they’re getting desperate and despaired. A lot of people are losing a lot of money.

[funghi]

Good video, but with some inaccuracy. The Tiananmen Square massacre wasn’t exactly a protest for democracy, much more over education and corruption, some of them were there also for democracy, but didn’t started for that. Also the lack of major protests isn’t exactly as correlated to the censorship as you imply, It is much more correlated to the social and economical improvements of the last 20 years. The Chinese had a much more positive attitude to the future compared to the west. Good video, but focus to much on the understanding of the world by an American perspective, not a Chinese one

[Eltener]

The Cuban one is way cooler since it was a completely unorganised effort by random people hooking their computers and servers up together

[donaldlarson]

as Chinese I need to say the people who uses vpn to access Google youtube Twitter is not a big deal.despite It is illegal the government did not enforce the law strictly so that probably one hundred million Chinese people surf on the international Internet without any misgiving. the government probably want to establish a threshold to protect the kids.but adult can jump across the great fire wall

[myintmaunmaun]

If you ask OpenAI about Israel- Palestine it will give you a “it’s too complicated’ answer, which shows American bias. If you ask Deepseek the same question and ask it to stick to facts you get a much more balanced and truthful answer.

[ekulda]

@ 0:12 bill says China is a one part state. So is the USA, one corporate party and in document too.
So in effect China is a one party state that looks out for its people. Peoples party.
While USA is a corporation and looks out for its oligarchs. While there is homelessness, etc etc etc in the US.