Read all about it in today's Christian Science Monitor. The Chinese government has shut down 18,401 web sites and is scaring the crap out of the rest. The "occasion" may be the Communist Party's 17th Congress, set for next month: Hu Jintao doesn't want bloggers and blog commenters to spoil the Party's party. Alas, save for some Tiananmen-like uprising, China isn't likely loosen the screws until after the Olympics -- or maybe ever. I'd love to be wrong about that -- but there are too many accomplices.
This CSM article excerpt mentions a couple of them:
Among the authorities' shots in this "war," since President Hu Jintao called last April for "the glorious development of web culture with Chinese characteristics," is a voluntary pledge by the largest Chinese content-provider companies to encourage bloggers to censor themselves and to register their real names. Among them are Yahoo! China and MSN China.
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