Thread by @wafarris

1/25 Thanks to those who provided feedback on my tweet last week re: the (il)legality of VPNs in China. Apparently it was insufficiently nuanced for some folks, so here's a thread with more examples that also addresses some of the replies critical of my original thread.

2/25 First, however, I want to note I'm not a PRC lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. I am a US lawyer (California Bar) and published my first article on PRC Internet law in the IFLR in 2001, and I've spent over 15 years as a legal advisor in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Taipei.

3/25 Now, onto issue of the (il)legality of VPN use in the PRC. To start, PRC state-sponsored media is quite forthcoming about the fact that the Great Firewall exists and that it is used to block certain foreign websites, like these articles from the Global Times.

4/25 And apparently the legal department of one major hotel chain determined that PRC law requires the blocking of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and The New York Times, as evidenced by this hand-out they gave customers.

5/25 China's state-sponsored media also acknowledges that people in China use VPNs to circumvent the GFW, like when the China Daily report titled "VPNs Blocked, Most iOS Equipment Impacted Cannot Climb the Wall."

6/25 Even Fang Binxing, the guy who claims to be the "Father of the Great Firewall," admitted to using VPNs to access websites that he helped block.

7/25 It should be noted that there are "legal" ways to circumvent the GFW. For example, foreign SIM cards allow access through the GFW without a VPN. And here's a Hong Kong Telecom advertisement for "Internet access for browsing overseas websites."

8/25 So if someone claims they are in China and accessing Twitter legally, ask them to explain how. If they don't answer, you can assume its because they don't want folks to know they are among the privileged few using a foreign SIM card or government-approved VPN. Lucky them!

9/25 If someone claims there are "millions" of VPN users, ask them for a citation. If their citation includes users of non-PRC-government-licensed VPNs, well, those are people who could be punished by the police for illegally circumventing the GFW. To wit:

10/25 This screenshot shows a court judgment stating "It has been determined that the 'Shadowsocks' software and the services which the defendant illegally sold could circumvent the monitoring of our country's Internet firewall, and illegally access foreign websites . . ."

11/25 In that case Liu Bingyang was given a suspended prison sentence and fined 10,000 yuan, proving its a crime to provide VPN services without government permission. Its fully translated on pp. 637-640 of my free casebook (see below for more on that).

12/25 PRC courts have also made it clear its illegal to use foreign VPNs like ExpressVPN: In Panxing Ximin v. Google, a court held gathering evidence with a VPN violated the "Interim Provisions on the Administration of International Networking of Computer Information Networks."

13/25 So what happens to people in China who use unauthorized VPNs to access Twitter etc? Well, if the police don't know about it – nothing (duh). If the police find out, then they can, and do, impose punishments including reprimands, warnings, fines, and cease-and-desist orders.

14/25 These next screenshots from a Zhejiang govt database show police punish people for using VPNs under the "Public Security Administrative Punishments Law" for violating the "Interim Provisions on the Administration of International Networking of Computer Information Networks"

15/25 This screenshot shows police punished Yao Zenglei with a reprimand on the grounds that she "used VPN software to illegally access international networks while playing the game 'Ace Fishing: Wild Catch.'"

16/25 This screenshot shows police punished Zhang Tao with a reprimand on the grounds he used "wall-climbing software to illegally browse the Wikipedia website for information."

17/25 This screenshot shows police punished Zhang Liping with a reprimand for downloading "wall-climbing software on her personal mobile phone and utilized the software to log onto the foreign Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc. to browse various kinds of information"

18/25 If someone says they can't find these, point them to my blog post explaining how the government systematically deleted the records in 2020: "Disappearing Government Records Show Police Ordering People, Companies to Stop Using Foreign VPNs" blog.feichangdao.com/2020/11/disapp…

19/25 In 2019, a lawyer at the PRC Zhihe Law Firm posted this "Administrative Punishment Decision" showing police punished a man with a cease-and-desist order and warning for using a VPN to watch videos on Youtube & Twitch, and make purchases on Amazon. zhihepartners.com/cn/child/dc800…

20/25 If someone says they use foreign VPNs and aren't concerned, tell them if they really want to make a point they should take their phone to the local police station and show the officers how they use their VPN to access Twitter, and see if they fare better than Liu Sitong...

21/25 Liu Sitong posted a video of himself receiving this Administrative Punishment Decision and a 1,000 RMB fine after he went to a Beijing police station and admitted using a VPN to access Youtube. In the video police are heard telling him "It is illegal to climb-the-wall."

22/25 Now to address some replies to my original thread, starting with a complaint that my case selection is biased. I'm not sure how to address this, because those complaining did not provide a single example of police or courts affirming someone's right to "climb-the-wall."

23/25 In compiling my casebook-"State Prosecutions of Speech in the PRC" free @ feichangdao.com–I looked for examples of people being acquitted or winning on appeal. I never found a single example of support for a right to "climb-the-wall." Ball's in your court doubters.

24/25 Another comment was that I "only" provided 3 examples of punishments, which (apparently) is not enough. I'm not sure how many would "enough," but here is a WeChat post where the author provides dozens of examples of people punished for using VPNs: archive.ph/TywAr.

25/25 Finally, some folks seem to think that police punishments like reprimands aren't a big deal. For those courageous scofflaws, I'll close this thread with how Dr. Li Wenliang felt when police told him to sign his reprimand for trying to alert friends about the Wuhan outbreak

25+1 I strongly recommend everyone read Peter Hessler's article this week in the New Yorker. I think his description of VPN usage in China is particularly excellent. newyorker.com/magazine/2022/…

25+2 The person in Hessler's article selling students VPNs risks imprisonment (see Tweet 11/25 above). The students themselves could receive fines and cease-and-desist orders, which could be cited as evidence against them if they're every arrested for something in the future.

25+3 Hessler's description of VPN usage in China makes the excellent point that PRC colleges expect professors & students to break PRC law. The US equivalent would be if the system was rigged so the only way students can get to a library is to drive a car above the speed limit.

25+4 Having said that, I think the "Using VPNs is like exceeding the speed limit" analogy is spurious: Unlike the GFW, speed limits are publicly posted and the government doesn't try to pretend that they aren't restricting people's driving speeds.