Doesn’t the leadership know information wants to be free — even at 140 Modern English alphabet characters a pop.
Jokes aside, here’s a bit from the first link:
A Chinese government watchdog plans to push Twitter-style Web sites to censor their content, the country’s latest move to block Internet users from posting certain politically sensitive information online.The government-linked Internet Society of China plans to compose “self-discipline standards” for microblogging services, a group representative said in an e-mail. The representative declined to give details, but the group has released similar guidelines for other Web sites before. A document the group released for blog providers calls for them to delete “illegal or harmful information” as it appears on their sites, or simply to cease blog service for infringing users. Chinese authorities have used the term “harmful information” to describe online content including pornography and discussion of politically sensitive topics such as Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned in the country.
Twitter and Facebook have been blocked in all of China since July, when deadly ethnic riots in the country’s western Xinjiang region led it to crack down on communication tools that could be used to gather people at a given location. Authorities also blocked all Internet service and text messaging in Xinjiang after the rioting, which state-run media say killed nearly 200 people.
Some Chinese-language Twitter rivals also went offline after the rioting. One of the bigger sites, Digu, came online again last month, but rival service Fanfou is still down.
David Kirkpatrick 