China Keeping Its Bloggers on a Short Leash
528756
New rules imposed by the Chinese government indicates that authorities are not loosening their grip on bloggers, something they indicated they might do.
745844
The number of blog sites in China  reached 34 million last month, a 30-fold increase from four  years ago, state media said on Tuesday, despite a series of  curbs on media and dissent.
392557
BEIJING, Jan. 8 -- China's media and Internet users erupted in criticism Tuesday against some small-town officials and police officers who traveled nearly 500 miles to Beijing seeking to arrest a magazine reporter who wrote critically about their local Communist Party leader.
636287
BEIJING -- From the walled compounds where China's Communist leadership runs the country has come the word: no more porn. No more nudity on the Internet. No more late-night erotica on the phone. Goodbye to racy text messages on the mobile.
639302
InfoWorld - Â China watchers, get your scorecards out: Google's YouTube is blocked,Â Wikipedia is still blocked, but, for the moment, Google blog site Blogspot.com is available and some pictures from Yahoo's Flickr photos can once again be viewed.
295949
Blog: Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield tells how to get around China's  blocking of Yahoo photo-sharing site.
580149
Internet users in Beijing and Shanghai said attempts to access Google&#160;and other search engines were successful Friday, despite claims on a U.S. blog that traffic to these&#160;sites was redirected&#160;to Chinese search engine Baidu.com.The claim first surfaced on TechCrunch, a U.S. blog that largely covers Internet startups before being picked up by other sites. The headline of that post alleged &quot;Baidu hijacking Google traffic In China,&quot; but offered no evidence to prove the claim apart from an undated, modified screenshot showing Baidu&#39;s Web page below the URL for Google Blogsearch.In a follow-up post, TechCrunch said &quot;new reports have surfaced that would indicate that China has unilaterally blocked all three major search engines in China and is redirecting all requests to Baidu.&quot; That report cited posts on other blogs, where users claimed to have been redirected from U.S. search sites to Baidu.A Google spokeswoman in Beijing did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.However, several Internet users -- four in Beijing and two in Shanghai -- reported on Friday morning that search engines operated by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, including Google Blogsearch, one of the sites reportedly most affected, were accessible. Attempts to reach these sites had not been redirected to Baidu, they said.Internet censorship is a serious problem in China, and regulators routinely&#160;block access to sites&#160;with content they don&#39;t like. But Chinese officials very rarely comment on censorship efforts, making it difficult for users to determine when a site has been blocked or is inaccessible for other reasons.Timing can be an important factor, with Chinese censors blocking access to some Web sites around politically sensitive dates, such as the June 4 anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and the Chinese Communist Party Congress, a political confab held once every five years to choose top leaders and set policy that is now underway in Beijing.Access to a search engine can also be blocked if a user searches for a politically sensitive word, such as a search for information on the banned Falungong religious sect.Tracking the ebb and flow of censorship efforts can be a challenge, as access to sites can be blocked and opened, seemingly by whim. On Wednesday, Wikipedia remained blocked in China and access to YouTube was shut off. But censors eased off on other sites, opening up access to Google&#39;s Blogspot blogging service and permitting users to view pictures on Flickr, which had been blocked even though the site was accessible in China.Even when Web sites are accessible in China, there can be moments when sites cannot be reached. For example, one of the Chinese Internet users in Beijing contacted for this story said he was unable to reach Google.com three days ago. Attempts to reach the site were not redirected to Baidu, and Google has been accessible during the last couple of days, he said.While the Chinese government may not be redirecting search-engine traffic to Baidu, censors did this in 2002, just before the previous Party Congress opened in Beijing. At that time, censors cut off access to Google and redirected traffic to several local search engines, including Baidu. However, the rerouting did not affect all users and did not appear to be done at a national level, analysts said at that time.&#160;
311167
(InfoWorld) - Reporters Without Borders criticized the Chinese government for what the press advocacy group considers a move to end anonymous blogging in the communist country. The government, through the Internet Society of China, recently drafted a pact that was signed by at least 20 major blog service providers in the country, including Yahoo and Microsoft, the Paris-based watchdog group said Thursday. "The pact stops short [of] theÂ previous project of making it obligatory for bloggers to register, but it can be used to force service providers to censor content and identify bloggers," the group said in a statement. The pact, unveiled Wednesday, signals an "imminent" new wave of censorship and repression, the group said. Blogging services, which make it easy and simple for people to publish writings, photos, and videos on the Web, have become popular among individuals wanting to anonymously disseminate information that governments would rather keep confidential. The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., Microsoft and Yahoo didn't immediately reply to requests for comment. The pact "encourages" blog service providers to require that people provide their real names and contact information in order to let them post blogs, and then store the individuals' information, the group said. The pact also says blog service providers should "monitor and manage comments" as well as delete "illegal and bad information," according to Reporters Without Borders. In its statement, the group quotes Internet Society of China Secretary General Huang Chengqing as saying: "Blog service providers who allow the use of pseudonyms may be more attractive to bloggers, but they will be punished by the government if they fail to screen illegal information." China's Internet policies, such as the censorship of search engine results, have become a frequent target of criticism by organizations that advocate for human rights and press freedom. These organizations, likeÂ Amnesty International, have also criticized Internet companiesÂ including Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google for going along with Chinese government requirements that these groups charge violate human rights and press freedom. The companies' defense is that they must comply with the local laws of the countries in which they operate. Yahoo in particular has been blasted often in recent years for cooperating with the Chinese government and providing information that has led to the arrest of dissidents and journalists. In April, theÂ wife of an imprisoned Chinese dissident sued YahooÂ in the U.S. for divulging information about her husband's Internet activity, which allegedly led to his arrest and torture. The suit was filed by the World Organization for Human Rights USA on behalf of Yu Ling, the wife of Wang Xiaoning, arrested in September 2002 on charges including "incitement to subvert state power." This month, aÂ U.S. congressional committee said it plans to investigateÂ whether or not a Yahoo representative lied during testimony over the company's role in a human rights case in China that sent journalist Shi Tao to jail for 10 years. Â
285995
Chinese are uploading video clips of sex, scandal and public protest to the Internet in increasing numbers. It's a big business -- and a growing headache for Beijing
575679
Internet users in China said attempts to access Google were successful, despite claims on a US blog that traffic was redirected to Baidu.com.
760521
BEIJING, Jan. 8 -- Government officials from a county in northeastern China's Liaoning province were not pleased by a magazine story criticizing their local Communist Party leader. So they traveled nearly 500 miles to Beijing seeking to arrest the author.
671571
Chinese authorities briefly detained at least three liberal intellectuals, sources close to the three said on Tuesday, as part of an intensified crackdown on government critics.
658895
China watchers, get your scorecards out: Google Inc.'s YouTube is blocked, Wikipedia is still blocked, but, for the moment, Google blog site Blogspot.com is available and some pictures from Yahoo Inc.'s Flickr photos can once again be viewed.
52146
Blog: Flickr says it is being blocked in China, while blogger Violet Blue says her Flickr images have been put behind a members-only wall
153430
Chinese bloggers may soon have to reveal their real names when registering their blog accounts.
511267
Yesterday China Herald tipped me that the Yahoo.com website (the English version) didn&#8217;t resolve. I checked, saw that it was true and thought I would check back the next day if the situation had changed.  At times these things happen here in China and it could have been a technical problem instead of a block. [...]
320405
Those elusive connections that in China  can ensure personal or business gain are just a click away  thanks to a new Web site, state media said on Thursday.