The use of the Internet keeps growing in China. The country now has more than 160 million Internet users and at least 1.3 million websites. But the promise of free expression and information has been nixed by the Chinese government’s online censorship and surveillance system.

According to Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Chinese Internet expert working in IT industry has produced an exclusive study on the key mechanism of the Chinese official system of online censorship, surveillance and propaganda.

Internet use in China keeps growing at a rapid pace. The country now has over 205 million Internet users and approximately 1.3 million websites. However the Internet’s promise of free expression and information has been curtailed by the Chinese government’s online censorship and surveillance system.

To monitor all this activity, the Chinese Government has established the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion, the Internet Bureau and a powerful local agency called the Beijing Internet Information Administrative Bureau, where most of China's leading websites are based.

Chinese supervisory bodies use instant messaging and text messages to communicate quickly with commercial websites. The purpose is to tell them which articles or comments are not to be published, and which events or issues are to be censored.

Authorities of these organizations hold weekly meetings with 19 of the leading Web sites based in the capital in order to evaluate the subjects that Internet users find most interesting that week. Based on those meetings, the bureau decides the subjects to be covered in the coming week, the articles to be written under its supervision, and the articles to be eliminated.

According to Information Week, one incident involved the Web site Netease, which published a 2006 poll asking that if their readers were reborn, would they want to be Chinese again. Of the 10,000 respondents, 64% said they would not want to be Chinese. The main reasons given were being Chinese "is not honorable, you can't buy a house in China, happiness is too inaccessible, you can't crack jokes in China, and you can't see good cartoons".

I can just imagine what a Chinese only version of Facebook, Digg or StumbleUpon would look like.

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2 riveting comments

Reborn Dolls For Sale…

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….

Reborn Dolls For Sale  ^#

Hi Tom,

You seem to be aware of the Chinese Internet activity. Perhaps should you help me in finding a serious company in Beinjing specialized in Search Engine Optimization in China in order to submit my website to Chinese search engines.
I hope to receiving news from you.
Thank you,
Corinne

Lenglet Corinne  ^#