China Tightens Up Censorship of Internet Sites

David Pierson
Los Angeles Times
For years, China’s net nannies overlooked virtual private networks used to jump the Great Firewall. But in recent weeks, even these tools have begun to falter, frustrating tech-savvy Chinese and foreign businesspeople who now struggle to access...

Poeple's Daily: Be Good Online, Please

David Bandukski
China Media Project
People’s Daily cautions that the Internet is as much a tool of rumor and misinformation as a platform for information sharing. 

Are China's Censors Loosening Their Grip on Weibo?

Malcolm Moore
Telegraph
Two hundred million Sina Weibo users found Tuesday they could search for Chinese leaders and were free to critiique.

How Ordinary Chinese Are Talking And Fighting Back

Frank Langfitt
NPR
Roughly 400 million Chinese use Weibo, China's Twitter, and often do so to expose corruption.

Forced ‘Vacation’ for Man Who Broke Dumpster Death Story

Josh Chin
Wall Street Journal
The journalist who publicized the deaths of five young boys in southwestern China last week, has been forced to take a “vacation.”

Why Is China Censoring a Fake Photo of its Leaders Doing 'Gangnam Style'?

Max Fisher
Washington Post
A doctored photo of China's top officials doing a popular South Korean dance went viral 'til Chinese censors pulled it down. 

China's Top Censor's New Leadership Role Raises Fears

AFP
Agence France-Presse
Chinese propaganda boss Liu Yunshan has risen to the country’s top leadership in what could be a perilous sign for online debate.

Chinese Authorities Putting Pressure on Businesses to Help Censor the Web

Jonathan Ansfield
New York Times
Web police units directed companies, including U.S. joint ventures, to buy and install hardware to log traffic, block select sites, and connect with police servers.

China, at Party Congress, Touts its Cultural Advances

Ian Johnson
New York Times
Party guidance is the "soul” of China's moves to privitize and promote industries that can spread soft power abroad. 

Censorship Reaching 1,000 Miles Exposed on China’s Twitter

Yueran Zhang
Netizens exposing public servants' taste for expensive timepieces has sparked an online and newspaper crackdown.  On October 9, Wang Keqin (@王克勤), an Economic Observer (@经济观察报) reporter posted on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, that...

What Han Han's App Means for Chinese Censorship

Liz Carter
By publishing "The One" as an iPhone app, China's superblogger bypassed the State Administration of Radio Film and Television.

Anti-Japan Protests in China Turn Violent, Cooler Heads Prevail Online

Jimmy
On Saturday protestors in dozens of Chinese cities took to the streets to voice their anger at the Japanese government’s nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands in Japanese) in the East China Sea as a flagrant violation of Chinese...

Photoshopping Dissent: Circumventing China's Censors With Internet Memes

Jessica Levine
Atlantic
Liu Bo is famous. One of many police officers assigned to quash recent protests over a planned molybdenum copper plant in Shifang, Sichuan province, Bo was famously pictured with a riot shield strapped to his forearm, baton raised, charging at the...

China’s Dark PR: Time to Say Goodbye to Paid Censorship

Charlie Custer
Tech in Asia
Over the weekend, news broke that three Baidu employees were arrested on suspicion of accepting payoffs in return for deleting posts from Baidu’s online forums. A fourth employee was not arrested, but was fired by Baidu. A Baidu spokeswoman told the...

Will Chinese Courts Refuse to Accept Suits Involving Internet Censorship?

David Wertime
As the Chinese Internet hurtles headlong into an uncertain future, the country’s legal system struggles to catch up. Pressed for time, the government’s reaction may be to fashion the legal equivalent of a blunt axe, rather than a finely crafted...

China Keeps Up Block on Bloomberg Site

Simon Rabinovitch
Financial Times
 Bloomberg’s news website remains blocked by China’s state censors a full month after it detailed the riches amassed by the family of Xi Jinping, the man who is expected to be the country’s next president. Although periodic outages...

Sinica Podcast

04.06.12

The End of the Expat Package?

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Heard the bad news? Word on the street is that Fat Package passed away in a Suzhou bar last month. We never really moved in the same circles as the guy, but if true we’ll miss his presence in town. Even while we were hustling to make ends meet...