The Locknet: How China’s Internet Control System Shapes the Digital World

By Laura Edelson

Sep 16, 2025

A couple of months ago, with my Locknet co-author Jessica Batke, I embarked on a series of briefings where we discussed the key findings from our report about China’s system of internet censorship. We also presented some practical recommendations about what we believe can be done to protect the global open internet from the spillover effects from that system of censorship and keep access to the global internet possible for Chinese citizens. Those recommendations were not part of our Locket report. We’ll be writing about some of them more fully in the future, but given recent events, I wanted to talk about the recommendations Jessica and I developed sooner, and more informally.

The bottom line is this: The Locknet has already reshaped the internet inside China, and its influence is leaking out into the rest of the world. If we don’t take steps now — to diversify circumvention, defend open standards, and provide alternative information — we risk waking up one day to find that the ability for network controllers to censor and surveil has been baked into the very infrastructure of the global internet. There is still time to act, but very little time to waste.

Chinese Censorship: A Dam with Three Locks

For years, people outside of China talked about the “Great Firewall” as though censorship inside the country was  a giant barrier keeping foreign information out. That wasn’t a bad metaphor, initially. But over the last two and a half decades, the system has grown in both scale and complexity. Today, China’s system of digital control isn’t just a wall — it’s a dynamic, adaptive structure. This is why in our report, we call it the `Locknet’: like a system of water locks that keep levels steady even during storms, China’s censorship mechanisms adjust and adapt to maintain control. You can think of it as having three main components:

1. Network-level censorship: At China’s borders, traffic is inspected and sometimes disrupted. This is the piece most like the “firewall,” blocking outside information from getting in.

2. Service-level censorship: Domestic companies like WeChat or Weibo enforce censorship rules internally, at the government’s direction. Each platform has its own methods, but all ultimately play by Beijing’s rules.

3. Meatspace censorship enforcement: Behind the digital enforcement is the reality of real-world consequences. Companies and individuals who step out of line can face fines, interrogations, or even jail time.

Each of these layers has weaknesses if viewed alone. But together, they interconnect to form a remarkably resilient system. 

How the Locknet ‘Spills Over’ to the Global Internet

The Locknet doesn’t stop at China’s borders. Sometimes, network-level controls unintentionally affect international traffic. For example, messages between Malaysia and California can easily be routed through China. If those messages pass through the Locknet, they will be censored just as domestic content is censored, even though both sides of the communication are outside China.

Even outside of China, platforms designed to comply with censorship can shape what global users see — from Bing search autosuggestions to content in popular apps like RedNote or Marvel Rivals. And Chinese companies are increasingly proposing new internet standards that make censorship and surveillance easier for any government, not just Beijing.

Perhaps most concerning is the fact that censorship is moving into large language models (LLMs). Instead of outright refusing to answer questions, LLMs trained under Beijing’s rules may offer selective “approved” narratives, packaged as neutral information. Users outside China may not even be aware the answers they’re getting have been censored.

Recommendations: What Can We Do for Users Inside China?

One of the clearest lessons from studying the Locknet is that no single tool or strategy is sufficient to overcome it. Too often, circumvention depends on a small set of high-profile technologies that Beijing can devote time and resources to dismantling. A more resilient approach is to foster a diverse ecosystem of smaller, quickly evolving tools. When one is blocked, another can appear in its place, forcing censors into a perpetual game of catch-up rather than allowing them to concentrate on a few chokepoints.

Equally important is sustained monitoring. The Locknet is not static; it is constantly adapting in ways that are increasingly difficult for outsiders to see. Yet existing research and observation efforts remain fragmented and under-funded. Regular, systematic monitoring — whether through technical measurements, longitudinal studies, or user surveys — is essential if we are to understand how censorship is changing and to anticipate its next moves.

Recommendations: How Can We Protect the Global Internet?

Protecting the openness of the global internet requires vigilance in arenas that may seem far removed from day-to-day online life. Standards-setting bodies, for example, can appear esoteric, but the decisions made there determine how data moves across networks. If proposals advanced by Chinese firms that facilitate surveillance and censorship are adopted, those features risk becoming baked into the very infrastructure of the internet. Ensuring that privacy-protecting voices have both the resources and the presence to participate fully in these debates is critical. To do that, we need to make sure that participants advocating for online privacy protections have the resources to attend every standard-setting meeting, every time, to ensure privacy-eroding standards aren't getting approved. Right now they aren't getting that kind of support.

Transparency is another area where relatively small changes could have an outsized impact. Companies that alter their products to comply with Beijing’s censorship rules should be open with their users about when and how that happens. If a game, app, or platform is subject to the demands of a foreign government, people deserve to know.  For example, a US-based user opening RedNote might see a pop-up telling them that the content they are viewing has been censored in accordance with the PRC's censorship regulations. Providing this clarity empowers individuals to make informed choices about the services they rely on and helps resist the quiet normalization of invisible censorship.