China tightens grip on online freedoms

If it's not hiring freelance programs to attack Google (allegedly) or blocking over 500,000 websites that do not agree with government policy, then China is try to find new ways of controlling what their citizens view online.

Their latest 'safeguard' will require anyone who wishes to set up a website to meet regulators and produce ID documents. Online activists have already condemned the move as another step in the Chinese government censoring what their population can view, but the technology minster has said the measures were designed to tackle "online pornography".

With the world's biggest online population, of over 380 million, the move has been heavily condemned as many feel it is another restriction on their online activities. A quarter of China's population regularly use the internet, but with such a large online population, the government has regularly blocked certain privileges, sites as well as censoring what is posted.

40,000 'online' police constantly monitor the web removing any 'inappropriate comments' while on the 20th anniversary of Tienanmen Square in June 2008, all internet portals were shut down for 'maintenance'.

New rules

With the inclusion of the new rule comes the lifting on a freeze put in place in December that forbade the registration of new individual websites. It is now expected that a number of sites will now be registered overseas in an attempt to avoid China's controls.

For those wishing to follow the new rules, new webmasters will have to submit identity cards and photos of themselves, as well as meeting regulators before their sites could be registered.

While China says the new rules are to combat pornography, a vibrant debate has started regarding the new rules in the country. Famously the internet has been used to highlight cases of injustice or to embarrass corrupt officials in the country, but the Chinese authorities have at the same time been trying to crack down on pornography after state media said that not enough was being done to screen websites.

A number of campaigns have been launched against online pornography, and last year alone thousands of people were arrested on pornography charges.

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