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Codebreaker

China’s internet to be more tightly controlled. In other news, water to get more wet.

John Moe May 5, 2011
Codebreaker

China’s internet to be more tightly controlled. In other news, water to get more wet.

John Moe May 5, 2011

China has established a new State Internet Information Office to control what’s going on online. In the past, internet control has been part of the mission of many government agencies; a shared responsibility as the internet grew despite massive censorship. Now it will come down to three main organizations policing the web in concert with one another.

From the WSJ:

These include the State Council Information Office, which is responsible for content; the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which regulates the technology and telecommunications sectors, and the Ministry of Public Security, the law-enforcement body.

China has 450 million internet users but the state bans anything with violent or pornographic content as well as any kind of political dissent. The question now, as it has been for some time, is whether the internet will explode in too many different directions for censors to control it. This consolidation would seem to give the government a much better shot at keeping the net under its thumb.

For fun, here’s the official state-run newspaper’s version of this story.

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