Twenty students at Harbin Engineering University (HEU) were given disciplinary warnings for using unauthorized VPNs to circumvent the Great Firewall in order to access overseas websites and conduct academic research. The university released a statement announcing that, during a two-day period in late September, it had caught and punished seven undergraduates and 13 graduate students for unauthorized VPN use.
As the university’s statement about the disciplinary actions spread online, it fueled intense debate, particularly after rumors surfaced that the school was tipped off by a student “informer” motivated by the desire to bring down an academic rival and move up the recommendation list for admission to HEU’s mathematics department graduate program.
CDT Chinese editors archived five articles, including two that were later deleted, about the university’s circumvention crackdown against the backdrop of cutthroat academic competition, restrictive postgraduate admission policies, the ubiquity (and necessity) of VPN use in academia, and the dangers of a resurgence of “informer culture” in China. The student-turned-informer reportedly admitted to using unauthorized VPNs herself, and even consulted one of her professors for advice about reporting the rival’s VPN use to school authorities. The professor strongly advised against it, saying it would come off as “a bit too ruthless.”
In one of the archived articles, from WeChat account Nonfiction Tales (非虚构故事, Fēixūgòu Gùshi), the author draws a connection between the Harbin incident and the chilling effects of “informer culture” on online debate:
I feel like there’s a growing trend toward reporting people for the online content they post. The tiniest slip of the tongue, a single poorly chosen word, or a slightly unconventional point of view can cause you to be reported.
[…] The reporting system has been completely weaponized.
It’s not reporting actual illegal activities that the public despises, but rather using the reporting system for personal gain, or as a way of retaliating against others. This destroys the basic bonds of trust between people.
Trust is the cornerstone of our society. No one wants to live in a society where everyone’s constantly walking on eggshells and our sense of morality has collapsed. [Chinese]
On a similar theme, a deleted article from Huang Zhijie’s WeChat account Youyou Luming is critical of both the student and of university policies that undermine trust by incentivizing classmates to inform on one another. As Huang writes, “No one wants to live in a society rife with informers.” When referring to the student who reported classmates for VPN use, Huang uses the gender-neutral pinyin "Ta" instead of the Chinese “she/her” pronoun “她” (tā), possibly due to lack of verifiable information about the student’s gender, or to avoid the misogynistic tone of some of the other online commentary about the incident.
It is worth noting that the informer also admitted, “I regularly use a VPN to read academic papers, use GPT, and stuff like that, and now I’m worried I might be investigated too, and I don’t know what to do.” This is why I label them “an informer” rather than “a tipster.” If they had reported the matter out of some commitment to upholding the rules, I’d have more respect for them, but they clearly don’t respect or uphold the rules.
Seen in that light, this is a case of an unscrupulous university student with ulterior motives betraying their classmates for personal gain, causing 20 students to be punished. By selling out their classmates to get ahead, the student violated a moral boundary governing the way people treat each other in a normal society.
No one is born a snitch, and this kind of despicable behavior often stems from the calculus of personal gain. Informing is definitely on the rise; you could also claim it’s experiencing a “resurgence.” And the problem isn’t confined to one university.
A few years ago, a certain university implemented a “one-on-one” monitoring system in which every student was assigned a “mystery classmate” to keep an eye on their every word and action. Another university even included this question on a final exam: “Name three of your classmates who participate the most in class, and three who skip the most classes.” Whatever the original intention behind these practices was, the result was to encourage students to inform on and expose their classmates. [Chinese]
Another deleted article, “If I Can’t Beat You in Exams, Maybe I Can Win by Informing on You,” comes from the Tencent News-affiliated WeChat public account "News Brother." The author takes aim at academic inequality and university regulations on “ideological and moral character,” arguing that such vaguely defined regulations are capricious and prone to abuse:
What makes a society a society is connections between people.
Trust and affection are essential to creating these connections.
But everyone has to weigh their words before speaking, and exercise caution around everyone they meet, just in case someone, someday, decides to inform on them.
Even more terrifying is the possibility that those who fear being informed on might decide to pre-empt things by informing on others first.
Can we really blame these students-turned-informers? Can we fault them for refusing to put themselves at a disadvantage, for being willing to burn bridges if it means they can secure a recommendation to a postgraduate program?
[…] Rather than aiming misplaced blame at the students, perhaps we should consider why the act of "informing" is seen as an instrument of justice.
Consider, for example, the guidelines on postgraduate recommendations from a certain teacher-training university and a certain comprehensive university. Both repeatedly stress the fact that recommendations depend on students’ "ideological and moral character" as well as their “academic conduct.”
[…] While academic misconduct or fabricated research papers are relatively objective problems, who gets to evaluate an applicant’s disciplinary record to assess their “ideological and moral character”?
And what exactly constitutes “moral depravity”?
[…] Of course, some might argue that an upright individual has nothing to fear. If you haven’t done anything wrong, they reason, an informer can’t hurt you.
But I wouldn’t bet on myself. As an ordinary person, I may be in no position to commit major blunders, but I could make some minor mistake at any time.
Who knows, maybe some keen-eyed reader has already combed through this article and found eighteen different ways to prove my guilt. [Chinese]
For more CDT coverage of VPN regulations and punishments, see our translations of a scaremongering anti-VPN campaign from the military-affiliated National Defense Times; a leaked internal document about new anti-circumvention measures from online service provider Qihang CDN; a piece on Chinese universities installing software to identify and punish students using VPNs; a Weibo user who was banned after reporting nationalist pundit Hu Xijin for illegal VPN use; and a computer programmer in Chengde who was fined and had three years of income confiscated for using a VPN to do work for an overseas client.