China orders bloggers to register with government

• Associated Press
• 
  
• The Guardian, Tuesday 7 June 2005

The Chinese authorities have ordered all weblogs and websites in the country to register with the government or face closure in Beijing's latest attempt to control online dissent.

Commercial publishers and advertisers could be fined up to 1m yuan (£66,000) for failing to register, according to documents on the Chinese information industry ministry's website.

Private bloggers or websites must register the complete identity of the person responsible for the site, and the ministry - which has set a June 30 deadline for compliance - said 74% of all sites had already registered.

"The internet has profited many people, but it also has brought many problems, such as sex, violence, feudal superstitions and other harmful information that has seriously poisoned people's spirits," the ministry said in an explanation of the new rules.

All public media in China is controlled by the state, but limits on the internet have tended to lag behind advances in technology that hindered Beijing's ability to keep tabs on users and service providers.

In the latest move, information industry ministry computers will monitor sites in real time and search for their registration numbers, reporting back if a site is unregistered.

China has more than 87m internet users - the world's second largest online population after the US.

The government has long required all major commercial websites to register and take responsibility for internet content. At least 54 people have been jailed for posting essays or other content deemed to be subversive online.

However, blogs on which writers post their thoughts for others to read have been harder to police. According to cnblog.org, a Chinese blog hosting company, the country has around 700,000 such sites.

The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders has criticised the new rules, saying they would force people with dissenting opinions to shift websites overseas. Mainland Chinese users could be barred from accessing them because of government censorship filters.

"Those who continue to publish under their real names on sites hosted in China will either have to avoid political subjects or just relay the Communist party's propaganda," the group said. "This decision will enable those in power to control online news and information much more effectively."

The latest restrictions follow the introduction of many other measures. Authorities have closed down thousands of internet cafes, the main point of entry to the internet for many Chinese unable to afford a computer or web access.