As much as the economy has changed in China, the political envionment has hardly changed at all. The government is as authoratarian as ever and continue to police internet sites, especially since a new set of political rabble rousers have started using the internet to spread their ideas. From the Financial Times:
China’s government has accused the country’s leading internet search engines and web portals, including Google, of threatening public morals by carrying pornographic and vulgar content.
While Beijing regularly launches web censorship campaigns, the new crackdown is the first in which the government has targeted heavyweight companies such as Google and Baidu, the local rival that leads the Chinese search market. During the last campaign about a year ago, the authorities listed only small and little-known websites as responsible for spreading unhealthy content.
The 19 internet sites cited by the government on Monday included Sina, Sohu, Tencent and NetEase, among the country’s biggest web portals and each run by overseas listed companies, and blog hosting websites and discussion forums such as Tianya.
The move comes as the political leadership faces a raft of challenges, many of them organised through the internet.
Government censors are currently busy blocking reporting and debate about Charter 08, an appeal for democratic reform which has attracted signatures from hundreds of prominent intellectuals. Other forms of dissent, such as the voicing of demands for compensation in China’s poisoned milk scandal, have also been organised through the internet.
Although the government has said this is an act against online pornography, I really believe they are flexing their muscles and showing how capable they can be when it comes to blocking content and holding people accountable for that content, especially with regard to Charter 08.
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