Constructing the Internet Panoptic-Fortification

Abstract

This chapter investigates China's Internet regulatory mechanism through the systematical analysis on Internet law in China. It argues that China has developed a hybrid Internet regulatory model, which values both external defense and internal control of in pursuit of the cybersecurity, and which combines hierarchical regulation with horizontal monitoring to address challenges brought by contemporary network society. Based on Michel Foucault's governmentality theory, the Internet panoptic-fortification model is developed to illuminate China's Internet regulatory mechanism. The model is featured by the centralized control, the establishment of Chinese sovereign cyberspace, the implementation of the network real-name system and the Internet-surfing record backup system, and the tight ideological control. This chapter suggests that China's Internet law has become a state instrument to promote the social discipline in the sovereign cyberspace, and the Internet regulatory mechanism serves for the national security and social stability in a broader context.