This book offers a groundbreaking and surprising look at contemporary censorship in China. As authoritarian governments around the world develop sophisticated technologies for controlling information, many observers have predicted that these controls would be ineffective because they are easily thwarted and evaded by savvy Internet users. This book demonstrates that even censorship that is easy to circumvent can still be enormously effective. Taking advantage of digital data harvested from the Chinese Internet and leaks from China's Propaganda Department, it shows how and when censorship influences the Chinese public. Much of censorship in China works not by making information impossible to access but by requiring those seeking information to spend extra time and money for access. Drawing parallels between this and the way information is manipulated in the U.S. and other democracies, the book reveals how Internet users are susceptible to control even in the most open societies.