Editing Great Firewall (section)

=== Impact on people in China ===
The [[Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China|Cybersecurity Law]] behind the firewall is targeted at helping increase internet user privacy, increase protections on personal data, and making companies more responsible for monitoring bad actors, in hopes to make the Internet a safer place for Chinese citizens.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Wang|first=Hairong|date=January 17, 2013|title="Legal Firewall" Beijing Review|work=Beijing Review|url=http://www.bjreview.com/print/txt/2013-01/14/content_512143.htm|access-date=April 21, 2021|archive-date=21 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421202821/http://www.bjreview.com/print/txt/2013-01/14/content_512143.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Despite this, there have been growing criticisms that the actions of the Chinese government have only hurt Chinese free speech, due to increased censorship, and lack of non-sanctioned sources of information, such as Wikipedia and many English news sources.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last1=Pan|first1=Jennifer|last2=Roberts|first2=Margaret|date=January 2020|title=Censorship's Effect on Incidental Exposure to Information: Evidence from Wikipedia|journal=SAGE Open|volume=10|doi=10.1177/2158244019894068|doi-access=free}}</ref> This has resulted in reports of some cases of legal persecution of those charged with spreading this information.<ref name=":1" />

The Chinese government itself does legally support free speech; article 35 of the [[Constitution of China]] states that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy [[freedom of speech]], of the [[Freedom of press|press]], of [[Freedom of assembly|assembly]], of association, of procession, and of demonstration."<ref>[http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html "CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA". People's Daily. December] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609090748/http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html |date=2020-06-09 }} (4, 1982) Archived from the original on August 12, 2010. Retrieved April 20, 2021.</ref> In recent decades, many criticisms of the Chinese government found that some of these laws are often abused. A study by [[PEN America]] claimed that "Some of the government's most rights-abusive laws are aimed at criminalizing free speech that — in the eyes of the government — encourages subversion, separatism, or rejection of the State’s authority."<ref name=":02" />

Censorship of sensitive topics in China has also been easier for the government because of the firewall and its filtering. Because the monitoring of social media and chat apps in China presents a possibility of punishment for a user, the discussion of these topics is now limited to the thought of the Chinese Communist Party, or one's home and private spaces, reducing the chance for information about these topics to spread, reducing any threat of protest against the CCP.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|last=Wang|first=Yaqiu|date=September 1, 2020|title=In China, the 'Great Firewall' is Changing a Generation|work=Politico|url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/01/china-great-firewall-generation-405385|access-date=April 20, 2021|archive-date=21 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210421202819/https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/01/china-great-firewall-generation-405385|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Freedom of Expression in China: A Privilege, Not a Right|url=https://www.cecc.gov/freedom-of-expression-in-china-a-privilege-not-a-right|access-date=April 20, 2021|website=Congressional-Executive Commission on China|date=30 August 2012 |archive-date=19 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419120225/https://www.cecc.gov/freedom-of-expression-in-china-a-privilege-not-a-right|url-status=live}}</ref> According to [[Yaqiu Wang]], a prominent human rights researcher, there was a time in China where the internet provided a method for Chinese citizens to learn about the sensitive topics the government had censored in the news, through access to international news reports and media coverage. She claims that, in the past 10 years, it has been increasingly difficult to access second opinions on events, meaning that students rarely have the opportunity to learn diverging viewpoints — only the "correct" thought of the CCP.<ref name=":2" />