A Chinese organization has listed a group of big name websites, including Google, Baidu, Sina.com and Sohu.com, which have been found to supposedly spread pornography and threaten youth's morals, and could tighten regulations on these websites.

China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIRC) said it has found 19 websites that provide content that includes pictures, text, video clips and web links inappropriate for Chinese people.

Major websites such as MSN, Google, Baidu, Sina, Sohu, Tecent and NetEase are on the list. Google's photo search was singled out for particular criticism.

The announcement is part of a nationwide campaign launched jointly by seven Chinese ministries to clean up the online environment. The list identifies a number of websites that violate the government view of public morality and supposedly harm the physical and mental health of Chinese people.

CIIRC said the listed websites did not take effective measures to take out the inappropriate content after they were noted.

41 porn sites were also said to be closed by the Chinese censors.

China expanded an Internet cleanup campaign, shutting down a blog hosting site www.bullog.cn for apparently carrying harmful comments on current affairs.

The founder of bullog.cn, Luo Yonghao, told The Associated Press: I got an e-mail from the Beijing Communications Administration this afternoon, saying the Web site contained harmful comments on current affairs and therefore will be closed.

It was not known whether the shutdown of bullog.cn was permanent. The site, home to some outspoken social and political commentary, was closed temporarily last year during a key Communist Party congress after criticism of the meeting was posted.

Update: 91

12th January 2008

91 websites have now been added to China's block list in the last few days

Update: 277

16th January 2008

277 websites have now been added to China's block list in the last few days

Amnesty International have said that their Internet website had once again been blocked in China and urged Beijing to re-establish the site immediately.

In the run-up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the London-based human rights group's website was unblocked by the Chinese authorities,

China had rolled back a few high-profile planks of its web censorship in an apparent effort to defuse an embarrassing dispute over media freedom ahead of the August Games.

We fear the re-blocking of Amnesty International's website indicates a widening crackdown, particularly as 2009 will see a number of important commemorations, said Roseann Rife, deputy director of Amnesty's Asia-Pacific program.

This year sees the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing, the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Democracy Wall movement and the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

...And for fuck's sake Adam, put a tie on

Chinese internet users angered by censorship in cyberspace have redressed images of famous nudes in a protest against Beijing's crackdown on vulgar online content.

Images posted include Michelangelo's statue of David - shown in a Mao suit - while black socks and a strategically- placed necktie were added to an image of the artist's depiction of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The protest began last week after a user of a social-networking site, Douban.com, complained that images of several paintings, including Titian's nude, Venus of Urbino, had been deleted from an online photo album. Douban administrators told the user that posting pornography online would endanger the site's operations.

In response, the organisers of the protest asked Internet users to clothe images in artworks to save them from censors, who have shut down 1,635 websites and 200 blogs in a one-month campaign against content that harms public morality.

The protest had an almost immediate effect. Last Thursday, the Shanghai user whose Renaissance album started the controversy said Douban had allowed images of the deleted paintings to be shown in their original form.

Video images of Chinese police beating Tibetans as they lie trussed-up on the ground may have prompted the country’s censors to block access to YouTube, the popular video-sharing website.

The video released by the Tibetan government-in-exile at the weekend quickly made its way on to the site, which has been freely accessible in China since before the Beijing Olympics in August last year.

China has offered no official confirmation that it has blocked the California-based website, or any reason why it might want to bar its people from seeing images available on it.

The first of 3 videos shows paramilitary People’s Armed Police storming the Jokhang temple in the heart of Lhasa during a riot in 1988. The police hit out at fleeing maroon-robed monks in Tibet’s holiest site, beating one to the floor.

The exiles say that the second clip was shot in or near Lhasa soon after the riot on March 14 last year when Tibetans protesting against Chinese rule rampaged through the city’s streets, setting fire to shops and offices and leaving 22 people dead. Paramilitary security forces are seen dragging Tibetans, including several monks, on the ground after they have been arrested.

Their hands and wrists tied with rope, the Tibetans can be heard moaning as paramilitaries hit them with sticks. One man has his wrist tied over his shoulder to his other hand in an agonising position.

The final part, the most gruesome, shows a Tibetan man identified as Tendar being treated by hospital doctors after he was beaten and tortured for trying to stop a monk being attacked in the 2008 protests.

It may be no coincidence that the blocking of YouTube occurred around the anniversary of the Tibetan unrest. The site was blocked last year from March 15 to 23 — starting the day after the riot in Lhasa.

China is blocking access to Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, and its Hotmail email service, the company said ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

These are among several Internet services that have been blocked for customers in China, Microsoft director of public affairs Kevin Kutz said in a statement received by AFP.

Microsoft did not say when China began blocking the sites, but Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it had been notified by Chinese Web users that access to the websites began being blocked inside China on Tuesday.

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the blockage of a dozen websites such as Twitter, YouTube, Bing, Flickr, Opera, Live, Wordpress and Blogger in China, the media rights group said in a statement: The Chinese government stops at nothing to silence what happened 20 years ago in Tiananmen Square. By blocking access to a dozen websites used daily by millions of Chinese citizens, the authorities have opted for censorship at any price rather than accept a debate about this event.

Asked to comment on the Chinese moves, a US State Department spokesman said there would be a more expansive US response on Wednesday, but underscored that US policy supports freedom of expression. [Except of course for the countries where the US itself blocks the use of Microsoft services such as Messenger in Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan and North Korea].

Rights group Freedom House, which is funded by the US government and private groups, condemned the Chinese government?s blocking of the websites. China's decision to block these sites today represents the latest salvo in a relentless campaign to erase the past," executive director Jennifer Windsor said in a statement: China is blocking sites like Twitter and Flickr because they provide a means for people to circumvent government control and mobilize dissent.

Chinese PC Company Lenovo is set to be among the first PC Companies to bow to Chinese Government pressure that all PC’s being made for the Chinese market after July 1, must be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites.

Chinese PC Company Lenovo is set to be among the first PC Companies to bow to Chinese Government pressure that all PC's being made for the Chinese market after July 1, must be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites.

The censorship move will give the Chinese Government unprecedented control over how Chinese users access the Internet. The software must be pre installed claims Chinese Government officials who have also said the move is aimed at cutting out access to pornography web sites.

According to the wall Street Journal the Chinese government's history of censoring a broad range of Web content has raised concern among some foreign industry officials and the U.S. government that the new effort could significantly increase the government's control over Internet access in China.

It is expected that US manufacturers like HP and Dell who have around 22% of the Chinese PC market will bow to the demands of the Chinese Government and install the new software which was developed by Jinhui Computer System's with input from Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy. Both companies have ties to China's military and its security ministry.

Update: Behind the Green Dam

12th June 2009. Based on article from businessweek.com
See also Seeing red over green: China to install censorship software from cpj.org

It seems China is stepping back from its new censorship policy for computers. They have recently proposed that the internet filter Green Dam Youth Escort, should be installed on all new PCs sold in China

As TelecomAsia’s Robert Clark writes, the Chinese government has retreated on its controversial new web filtering plan. I’m not sure it’s a full-fledged retreat yet, but there are certainly signs that the worldwide outcry is having an impact. For instance, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, does seem a bit embarrassed about the whole thing. According to the government mouthpiece, China’s Ministry of Industry and IT on Wednesday insisted that its notice to the PC makers and sellers does not mean the software’s installation to user’s operating system is mandatory, instead, the software package should be installed on either the hard drives or a compact disc with the computers.

This is a typical pattern with off-the-wall new requirements from the Chinese bureaucracy: Outlandish policy gets announced, outcry begins, outlandish policy gets ignored.

Update: Propaganda department orders positive comment about Green Dam

Based on article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

On June 10th, the Chinese central propaganda department issued a notice reminding all the media to report positively on Green Dam, Youth Escort, the filter and spyware to be installed in all PCs sold in China.

Meanwhile, netizens continue to dig out all the flaws in the software and the company's background; Information activists and various organizations on the other hand, have compiled a number of documents and reports on Green Dam. .

Given the propaganda department's notice, people were surprised to see that the government's mouthpiece people.com.cn's nationalistic “strong country” forum had created a special page (now removed) and criticized the Ministry of Information Industry and Technology for taking the decision without consulting the public. Moreover, a poll in the forum showed that more than 80% of the netizens are against the introduction of the compulsory filter on their PCs.

Update: Uninstallable

19th June 2009. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

Widespread disapproval inside China, legal challenges and overseas criticism have forced the Chinese government to clarify its policy.

"The use of this software is not compulsory," an official with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) told the AP news wire.

The state agency that created Green Dam has said it was possible to uninstall the program. But it was unclear whether those that did so would face prosecution.

In its ruling this week, China said anyone removing or refusing to use it would not face official sanctions.

Google has been ordered to put a halt allowing pornographic and vulgar content from being accessed through its Chinese-language search engine, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center has told Google to make immediate changes and clean up the content available at Google.cn.

Google said it met with government officials to discuss the problem of pornographic content and material that is harmful to children on the web in China and that it is taking all necessary steps to fix any problems with our results.

The order came one day after Chinese state television chastised Google and the center denounced it for allowing foreign Internet pornographic information.

Google suffered intensive disruption in China after it was warned by the authorities to scale back its search operations.

Search functions and Gmail were inaccessible for more than an hour in a move seen by web watchers as a warning shot across the bows by China's censors.

This is definitely a warning to Google, as well as other foreign companies, said Xiao Qiang, the founder of China Digital Times. It is also a strong warning to Chinese netizens. The government is showing its determination to keep the internet under control.

Earlier in the day, the main state and communist party media - Xinhua and People's Daily - condemned Google for providing links to pornographic websites through its search engine. Last week, the government ordered the US company to halt foreign website searches as a punishment.

In a rare move, the US has lodged a complaint over the tightening of censorship rules. Google agreed to self-censor in compliance with requests by local officials after setting up a China subsidiary and locally hosted website in 2005. One reason for this controversial decision was that its services were frequently being disrupted or slowed. That has been rare since.

Google Cuts Features

Based on article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

Blogger dancing with G, quoted from a Google.cn source, reported that the company had spent a big sum of money to buy the Green Dam service for bettering the detection of obscene content. According to the blogger, google.cn's move is to make peace with the Chinese authority.

Moreover, Google.cn has also removed some of its search functions, including searching for overseas content and searching with associated terms.

Anonymous Netizens Fight Back

Based on article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

In reaction to a series of internet censorship policy, in particular the introduction of Green Dam, a declaration has been circulated on the net in the past two days calling netizens to express and protect their rights to anonymity on July 1st. Below are the declaration posters and English translation of the declaration.

2009 Declaration of the Anonymous Netizens

To the Internet censors of China,

We are the Anonymous Netizens. We have seen your moves on the Internet. You have deprived your netizens of the freedom of speech. You have come to see technology as your mortal enemy. You have clouded and distorted the truth in collaboration with Party mouthpieces. You have hired commentators to create the “public opinion” you wanted to see. All these are etched into our collective memory. More recently, you forced the installation of Green Dam on the entire population and smothered Google with vicious slander. It is now clear as day: what you want is the complete control and censorship of the Internet. We hereby declare that we, the Anonymous Netizens, are going to launch our attack worldwide on your censorship system starting on July 1st, 2009.

For the freedom of the Internet, for the advancement of Internetization, and for our rights, we are going to acquaint your censorship machine with systematic sabotage and show you just how weak the claws of your censorship really are. We are going to mark you as the First Enemy of the Internet. This is not a single battle; it is but the beginning of a war. Play with your artificial public opinion to your heart's content, for you will soon be submerged in the sea of warring netizens. Your archaic means of propaganda, your epithets borrowed straight from the Cultural Revolution era, your utter ignorance of the Internet itself - these are the tolls of your death bell. You cannot evade us, for we are everywhere. Violence of the state cannot save you - for every one of us that falls, another ten rises. We are familiar with your intrigues. You label some of us as the “vicious few” and dismiss the rest of us as unknowing accomplices; that way you can divide and rule. Go ahead and do that. In fact, we encourage you to do that; the more accustomed you are to viewing your netizens this way, the deeper your self-deception.

...

China has backed down from a plan to install censorship software on all computers sold on the mainland.

A law requiring computer manufacturers to include a program called Green Dam on every PC was delayed just hours before it was due to come into effect.

Green Dam filters the internet and blocks access both to pornography and to politically sensitive content. Researchers also discovered that it is capable of sending reports about an individual's web use back to the authorities.

China retreated in the face of angry and sustained criticism not only from internet users but also from computer manufacturers and trade bodies. In addition, a US company called Solid Oak has filed a lawsuit against the makers of Green Dam, charging them with having stolen the software that makes up the program.

China will delay the mandatory installation of the software on new computers, said Xinhua, the government newswire. The pre-installation was delayed as some computer producers said such massive installation demanded extra time, it added.

Damning Report

Based on article from independent.co.uk

A trial of the Green Dam program suggested its filters may be of limited use to worried parents.

When the software is installed, and an image scanner activated, it blocks even harmless images of a film poster for cartoon cat Garfield, dishes of flesh-color cooked pork and on one search engine a close-up of film star Johnny Depp's face.

With the image filter off, even though searches with words like nude are blocked, a hunt for adult websites throws up links to soft and hardcore sites.

Green Dam has not detailed how it scans images for obscene content, but computer experts have said it likely uses color and form recognition to zoom in on potential expanses of naked flesh. When too much skin is detected, Green Dam closes all Internet browsers with no warning, sometimes flashing up a notice that the viewer is looking at harmful content.

But the interpretation of obscene is apparently generous enough to include the orange hue of Garfield's fur and, on the highest security settings, prevent viewers clicking through to any illustrated story on one English language news website.

The software also allows users to choose what they want to filter for, and besides adult websites and violence, categories include gay and illegal activities. ay and health activists fear the blanket ban on gay content, in a country where homosexuality is not criminalized, could damage projects including sexual health and Aids education.

Another setting allows Green Dam to take regular snapshots of a user's screen and store them for up to two weeks - ostensibly so parents can monitor computer use by minors.

In a rare event for the Chinese capital a group of about a thousand people met for a public but convivial protest against government plans to install the controversial Green Dam filtering software on computers. They were responding to an invitation by Beijing artist Ai Weiwei who called for a day of boycott of the internet.

Recently Chinese authorities decided that all new computers made and sold in the country must contain this filter, ostensibly to fight pornographic or other dirty websites.

But many in China and abroad believe the real motive behind the move is to establish total control over mainland internet users. For this reason there have been many protests.

However, on the eve of its official starting date, Chinese authorities put the web filtering software on hold

For those who came out to protest this was but a short term victory, conscious that the battle against internet censorship must continue.

China's Green Dam internet filtering system will go ahead

Based on article from guardian.co.uk

China's controversial plan to install Green Dam internet filtering software on all computers will go ahead despite being postponement, a government official told state media today. The official said it was only a matter of time until the software was installed.

An official, speaking anonymously, told China Daily: The government will definitely carry on the directive on Green Dam. It's just a matter of time.

What will happen is that some PC manufacturers will have it included with their PC packages sooner than the others. But there is no definite deadline at the moment.

The official said the delay was necessary because some computer manufacturers needed more time to prepare.

In its latest move to crush porn, China has arrested or detained operators of adult sites that use foreign servers.

According to PC World, this latest crackdown follows the arrests of mobile porn website owners in China as well as the government's plan to have all machines sold in the country pre-installed with the controversial Green Dam Youth Escort software.

Police claimed two Chinese porn sites, May Babe and May Erotica, ran on U.S. servers and were updated through an encrypted virtual private network (VPN) to avoid detection, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.

Officials said most owners of Chinese porn sites now employ server space abroad to avoid China's web police. It was not stated how the site owners were tracked down.

Police also arrested staff members of a Chinese company that created more than 40 pornographic WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) sites for mobile users, Xinhua said.

Chinese police have also warned third-party payment businesses against providing services for those providing pornographic and lewd material online. The ministry statement referred to one case in which people were arrested for selling porn site memberships to Love City through third-party payments via companies such as AliPay, PayPal and YeePay.

Chinese internet users are being blocked from accessing stories about the son of President Hu Jintao after a company he used to run was reported to be under investigation for corruption.

The latest brick to be built into the Great Firewall of China came in the form of news that the technology channels of the leading Chinese web portals, Sina and Netease, could not be opened for several hours after they posted reports about the company linked to Hu Haifeng. Articles about an investigation in Namibia into corruption allegations against Nuctech, a Beijing company that produces scanning equipment for airport security, disappeared quickly, even though they did not mention the former company president by name.

The China Digital Times, a US-based blog run by Xiao Qiang, of the Berkeley China Internet Project at the University of CaliforniaBerkeley, posted a copy of a notice it said had been issued by the Communist Party’s propaganda department. The notice, issued to all search engines, read: Hu Haifeng, Namibia, Namibia bribery investigation, Nuctech bribery investigation, southern Africa bribery investigation. Please show no search results for all the above keywords.

The Chinese government is scaling back plans for compulsory net filtering for all citizens.

China's minister of industry, information and technology said Green Dam Filtering software would be compulsory for all computers in schools and public internet cafes, but not for individual PCs.

The government originally demanded that all machines should have the software either pre-loaded or at least included in the bundle of software discs included with new PCs. This was meant to start from July but was delayed.

Minister Li Yizhong said it was up to consumers whether or not they installed the software, but it would be required for PCs in public places.

Jiangsu province authorities have shut down one of the largest online adult companies in the country in its ongoing obscenity crackdown.

The Dikamin “league” has 13 adult websites that service more than 12 million registered members, with an additional 10,000 “VIP” recurring memberships.

A league is known as a version of an affiliate program, relying on paid membership for bulletin boards that include content, as well as the ability to share it.

Police said Dikamin and two other Chinese-language online adult programs have servers located in the U.S.

Chinese Authorities also said that it is the first time that a government agency has managed to shut down overseas adult websites. They also arrested 12 employees on Wednesday, as well as the owner — known as Mr. Shen. At one point in time Shen had 300 marketers tending to the websites in China.

The Beijing government has recently required all ISPs and data centers to install a software called Blue Dam in all their servers.

According to today's Taiwan Apple Daily News, the Blue Dam has to be activated by September 13 or the companies will be subject to punishment.

The Blue Dam is developed by Shanghai Andatong Information Safety Technology Company and according to a report back in July 2009, the Blue Dam is 20 times more effective than the Green Dam as it is a combination of software and hardware.

The Blue Dam system is consisted of the following features: a graphic-filtering system, administrative-management system, internet-behavior manager, VPN client. The developer said that the business version of the Blue Dam can help company to stop their workers from visiting websites or hanging around in the Internet on non work related activities.

Chinese authorities has begun blocking the intermediate nodes and servers, directory services on the basis of the Tor anonymizing their IP addresses.

In the columns of Tor's blog can be read that the great firewall (GFW) is blocking communication with about 80% of the Tor node. Author of note also admitted that it was expected this turn of events.

Already in the middle of last year, China blocked Tor website. Therefore, the operator of the website and its creators tried to be the protection of the new Tor servers, to prevent the Chinese authorities to get into the list of public nodes - the intention is apparently failed.

Although the establishment of an anonymous connection is still possible using the remaining 20% of the nodes, but such an operation takes a long time. Author of this blog entry advises users that you run a Tor private goals (so-called bridge relays) if they want to help Chinese colleagues. This kind of goals do not appear on public lists, and thus difficult to find and block.

On 3 July Chinese government censors blocked access to Danwei.org, the website I have edited from my home in Beijing since 2003. It is hosted outside China, so it's easy for zealous regulators to flip an electronic switch and restrict access. Most of our content is translated from the Chinese media and internet, which gave us a certain amount of protection: most Chinese people who write or publish in China self-censor; this is why we had escaped the censor's wrath. Until July.

This year – after a period of relatively relaxed controls – the bodies who censor information and culture have come back with a vengeance. There are several reasons: 2009 has seen a number of sensitive anniversaries, including the 4 May student uprisings of 1919, the 1959 Tibetan uprising, and Tiananmen Square in 1989. Although Tibet has been relatively calm this year, the riots in Urumqi in July added greatly to the tense atmosphere in Beijing. Government nervousness about the internet was exacerbated by hype in the western press about Twitter bringing democracy to Iran. Another factor is the financial crisis, which has made mass unrest more likely.

...Read full article

Two people have been jailed after threatening an undercover policeman at a clip joint in Soho, central London. Had he been a genuine customer, he would have been another victim of what is a well-established scam.

Video footage captures a man throwing his wallet onto the floor and offering to pay anything to escape.

He shouts: What's the problem? I'll pay whatever it is ... what, £300? I'll pay, I'll pay ... take my wallet. I don't want to be hurt. Leave me!

Unfortunately for those fronting Twilights, this was an undercover policeman armed with a hidden camera and microphone and he had caught them red-handed.

Kingston Crown Court was told that in December last year, a man fled the bar, in Rupert Street, in fear of his safety after being threatened and ordered to pay £300.

Stacey Crossley and Agnieszka Wolowska have since been found guilty of blackmail and false imprisonment.

Crossley was jailed for three years and his co-defendant was locked up for 14 months and recommended for deportation to her native Poland.

They were arrested by uniformed police officers as the scammers chased the undercover officer outside.

The scam involves customers, often foreign tourists, being enticed inside hostess bars with false promises of adult entertainment , Westminster Council explained. The bars, known as clip joints, employ women to stand outside or near their premises and bring the customers in for a small charge, in much the same way as other licensed bars and clubs employ staff to hand out leaflets promoting their offers. Once inside the clip joints, customers are served soft drinks, usually by a pretty young woman. But when the customer goes to leave, they will usually find themselves faced with a charge of several hundred pounds for having been in the woman's company.

If they refuse to pay, the customer may be threatened with violence by bouncers or frog-marched to a cash machine and forced to hand over cash.

Part of the problem in the past was that clip joints exposed a legal loophole. They did not need a licence to operate because they did not serve food or alcohol or provide entertainment. But in September 2007 the London Local Authorities Act reclassified clip joints as sex establishments, meaning they required the relevant licences, closing the loophole.

Councillor Daniel Astaire, Westminster City Council's cabinet member for community safety, said: Today's hearing marks the end of a long battle to close down all known clip joints in Westminster which lured in men under the false premise of adult entertainment, then charged them exorbitant rates for soft drinks in the company of so-called hostesses.

Most people who were ripped off were simply too embarrassed or scared to report the matter to police, and as these venues exploited legal loopholes to operate on the fringes of the law, our powers to close them down were extremely limited.

China has banned Web sites from advertising or linking to games that glamorize violence. A notice posted on the Culture Ministry Web site on Monday said games that promote drug use, obscenities, gambling, or crimes such as rape, vandalism and theft are against public morality and the nation's fine cultural traditions.

Such online games promote the glorification of mafia life . . . and are a serious threat to the moral standards of society causing vulnerable young people to be adversely affected, the notice said. The ban on the Web sites starts immediately.

No details were given on how the law would be implemented, but the notice called for law enforcement bodies to ensure Web sites adhere to the new law.

In the past few days, Chinese twitterers reported that the Chinese censor has blocked a number of popular Twitter's third party applications.

Since Fanfou, the Chinese micro-blogging website, has been ordered to shut down earlier this year, many bloggers moved to Twitter to spread their ideas. Net activists believe that it is impossible to block Twitter as there are many third party applications that allow users to read and post information without accessing the site. However, beginning from early this week, many Chinese twitterers reported that popular third party applications such as twitpic, itweet, twitese, twittergadget have been blocked and they have to shift to other tools.

When you search #fuckgfw (great fire wall) in twitter, you can see the most updated blocking reports.

Chinese authorities have banned 1,414 works of online literature, saying all of it was deemed obscene.

Official news agency Xinhua said that the banned works either included pornographic content, used provocative or privacy-violating titles to draw attention or blatantly talked about one-night stands, wife swapping, sex abuses and violence that disregarded common decency.

The ban, authorized by the General Administration of Press and Publication and decided by 50 experts, affects about 30,000 links, Xinhua said. These censors also plan to establish laws and regulations on the publishing of literature online

Web browser Opera has closed a service which allowed Chinese users to access sites banned by the government.

At the weekend mobile users of the Opera Mini browser were asked to upgrade to a Chinese version.

According to the BBC's Beijing Bureau, this version no longer allows access to sites such as Facebook.

Previously traffic ran over Opera servers bypassing the so-called Great Firewall of China, making the browser popular with Chinese users.

Opera confirmed that it had started directing users of the international version of the mobile browser to the Chinese version on 20 November. It was not prepared to discuss the background for this decision. But there was plenty of speculation on the blogosphere.

Let me guess what has happened here. The Chinese government has put pressure on Opera to close down that free access. And like most companies, they complied, wrote blogger Carsten Ullrich.

Chinese officials have launched their latest antiporn initiative — this time offering surfers cash payments for reporting adult websites.

According to Chinese state media, the new program offers up to 10,000 yuan (around $1465 U.S.) to Internet users that locate and report pornographic websites. The move, seemingly designed to build a more comprehensive database of adult websites, has the consequence of encouraging more visits to suspected porn sites.

The Xinhua news agency claims that within the first 24 hours of the new program, its hotline at the Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre received more than 500 phone calls and 13,000 online tips.

The rewards for identifying adult web and mobile sites range from 1,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan, will reportedly be paid to the first person to report a specific URL, with a review committee determining the appropriate payout.

According to some adult industry analysts, the reward money may very well exceed the revenues of operating these sites, thus encouraging a spike in Chinese adult website creation, simply for the profit potential of then reporting the new site to authorities.

China has banned the registering of personal Internet domain names and people who have their own websites could lose t hem, the South China Morning Post said, citing a government regulation that came into effect recently.

Under the regulation, Internet service providers can no longer host individually owned websites and only businesses or government-authorised organizations can have them, the English-language report said.

The step was taken because of supposed concern over pornographic content on personal websites, the Morning Post said, citing the China Internet Network Information Center.

Website owners in Jiangsu, Shanghai, Henan, Zhejiang and Jiangxi can no longer access their sites, the report said.

Update: Domain Controls

26th December 2009. Based on article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

The Beijing News quoted a recent meeting of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), summarized and explained the policies into 5 measures

• Set up a blacklist to prevent the owners of domain names found to be in violation from applying for additional domain names.
• Tighten registration procedures to ensure that all application documents are accurate. Transfer of a domain name
• 3Unregistered domain names will not be resolved: Domestic websites are usually registered with MIIT, but because some of them were in existence before the establishment of the registration system, some websites have not registered. Many foreign domain names have not registered with MIIT.
• Suspension of DNS service to violating websites and to any other domain names in the possession of the same domain name holder.
• Overhaul of registrars:

In the past, the website registration system targets at websites hosted in local servers, as for overseas websites, the politically sensitive ones were blocked by the Great Fire Wall (GFW - internet filter) under the blacklist system or keywords filtering. However, netizens can still get around by using proxy or TOR. If the MIIT is to white-listing the whole Internet, it will turn the Chinese Internet into intranet and cripple most of the circumventing devices.

However, it is net yet clear if the registration system will be extended to foreign websites. According to the MIIT official document on the campaign against the proliferation of pornography on mobile devices, the first stage (Nov-Dec 2009) of the white washing campaign has started with a ban on individual registration for CN domain name. The second stage, which involves what has been described in the Beijing News (strengthening of the registration without specific reference to overseas websites), will take place between Jan-Sep 2010. The final stage is between Oct - Dec 2010. Measures will involve a complete monitoring and analysis of online data flow and resources for identifying illegal and unsolicited activities.

Chinese police have said that their crackdown on Internet pornography has brought 5,394 arrests and 4,186 criminal case investigations in 2009 -- a fourfold increase in the number of such cases compared with 2008.

The announcement on the Ministry of Public Security's website (www.mps.gov.cn) said the drive would deepen in 2010.

Police would intensify punishments for Internet operations that violate laws and regulations, said the statement from the ministry's Internet security section. Strengthen monitoring of information, it urged, Press Internet service providers to put in place preventive technology.

The ministry did not say how many of the 5,394 suspects arrested were later charged, released or prosecuted.

Access to IMDb.com was blocked in China this week, adding the movie business Internet portal to a fast-growing list of banned Web sites featuring user-generated content, including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

The site, fully named the Internet Movie Database, is owned by online bookselling giant Amazon.com, and claims over 57 million monthly visitors.

There's no Chinese-language edition of IMDb and industry insiders here say they can't understand why it's been shut down for since Wednesday.

Typically the government's censorship efforts focus on trying to block China's 338 million Web users from accessing online pornography and violence. The government seldom reacts to queries about blocking foreign Web sites or gives any official notice when such action is taken.

For clues to Beijing's beef with IMDb, a quick scan of the site turned up plenty of information relating to politically sensitive search terms such as Dalai Lama and Rebiya Kadeer — the names of members of two exiled ethnic minorities considered separatists by China's one-party government.

For instance, IMDb lists The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle for Freedom, a 2009 documentary whose planned screening this week at the Palm Springs International Film Festival caused the state-run China Film Group to pull two of its films from competition in protest.

Likewise, typing Kadeer– persona non-grata for her alleged masterminding of recent violence in western China's Xinjiang region — turns up the IMDb listing for China: Rebirth of an Empire, a 2009 documentary featuring Kadeer and exiled Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng.

Chinese web censos banned individual domain registration without a business license in early December But an official from China's Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) told the English-language newspaper ChinaDaily that the decision may be reversed — so long as measures are in place to verify an applicant's personal information.

The decision appears to be effort to keep citizens from wandering outside China's Great Firewall for easier registration.

Banning domain name registrations for individual applicants will have a negative impact on the industry because the applicants can either turn to foreign registers or apply with false information, Qi Lin, assistant deputy with the CNNIC,said.

Online game operators in Beijing will test a ratings system advising parents on sexual and violent content in their games, ahead of the introduction of government guidelines, state media said.

The move comes amid a massive nationwide government repression of Internet porn and violence—a campaign seen by some critics as a way for the country's censors to reinforce the Great Firewall of China against political dissent.

Over 30 operators have agreed to rate their games according to their suitability for children and adults this month. Gamers will need to provide their identification numbers in order to play, to prove they are old enough to view the content.

The Beijing Animation Game Industry Union's secretary-general, Liu Chungang, said the group's decision was a self-disciplinary, non-governmental act within the industry.

The culture ministry plans to introduce its own ratings system later this year, the newspaper said. Culture Minister Cai Wu was quoted by state media in December as saying his ministry had banned 219 Internet games for carrying lewd, pornographic and violent content.

In a latest action against the online porn industry, China has reinforced its arsenal of laws now in effect.

The Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate said that the new rules would target wireless carriers, along with advertisers, advertising agents, third-party payment platforms and websites if they are found to be involved in the porn business for profits.

Measures against porn websites are already in operation but now others involved in the online porn business will have to prove that they were unaware of any porn content on the websites. However, a single complaint from any netizen could foil the attempt, according to the rule's definition of awareness.

The rule also enhances the protection for teenagers younger than 14 by cutting the conviction threshold in half. For instance, as few as 10 video clips verified as porn will carry the sentence of making, copying, publishing, selling and circulating porn articles for making profits, according to the rule.

China has tightened controls on internet use, requiring anyone who wants to set up a website to meet the censors and produce ID documents.

The technology ministry claimed the measures were designed to tackle online pornography, but internet activists see it as increased government censorship.

A number of websites are now being registered overseas in an attempt to avoid controls.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday lifted a freeze introduced in December on registration for new individual websites. But the technology ministry said would-be website operators would now have to submit identity cards and photos of themselves, as well as meeting censors before their sites could be registered.

China will push to end anonymous online comments, according to Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, who recently reiterated the need for more restrictions in cyberspace.

The news regulator said that China would strengthen its monitoring on harmful information on the Internet, in an attempt to block bad overseas information from spreading into the country via the Internet and prevent overseas hostile forces from infiltrating through the Internet, according to his full speech published by the People's Daily.

In the speech, Wang confirmed, for the first time, that major news websites and business portals in China have already complied with the no-anonymity comment rule; a trend that Wang said will be pushed through the Internet, including the populous online bulletin boards.

Until now, all pornographic content has been blocked by the censors inside of China.

But it turns out that you can now search on Google any sexual activity you like inside China and access it without censorship. Some, but not all, Chinese pornographic websites are also available.

No one knows why there has been a sudden change of heart. The friends who first told me the news speculated that with the recent spate of extreme violence carried out by middle-aged men (the kindergarten stabbings, today's shoot-out in a court in Hunan), the government might be allowing pornography in order to vent some pent-up testosterone.

Perhaps also, with the closure of hundreds of brothels and saunas, the authorities have deemed the pornography a consolation.

Or perhaps there is a more pragmatic explanation. It would not be a wild assumption to guess that this is a technical issue with the capacity of the Great Firewall [China's censorship system], said Wen Yunchao, an activist in Guangdong: The unblocking has been going on for weeks, so we can conclude that either the system has a limited capacity and wants to focus on other things, or this could be a long-lasting change.

Beginning August 1, online game operators in China will be forced to take a series of steps to protect online gamers under the age of 18 from 'inappropriate' content and selling or buying items using virtual currency.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, online games created for minors will have to lose any content that would lead to imitation of behavior that violates social morals and the law. The regulations deal with content that is horrifying, cruel or otherwise unwholesome, specifically any portrayals of pornography, cults, superstitions, gambling and violence.

The virtual currency ban was said to be made possible by a new rule that online game players must register game accounts using their real name.

Gaming operators were also told to develop techniques that would limit the gaming time of minors in order to prevent addiction, though without specifying what kinds of techniques and a permissible gaming time.

China has scrapped a system that required websites to apply for a special licence before launching forums and chat rooms.

Analysts however cautioned that the loosening of controls, announced on the State Council's website late last week, might be brief and could soon be replaced with more stringent regulations.

For the past 10 years, applicants wishing to provide web messaging services had to submit their business licence, Internet Content Provider licence and other documents for official examination before a fresh permit was issued. They also had to agree to use filtering software and hire staff to monitor the services around the clock.

Green Dam Damned

Based on article from china.org.cn

One of two companies linked to a nationwide Internet pornography-filtering project refuted reports that the controversial software has been halted.

The Green Dam - Youth Escort Internet content-filtering software, which aroused opposition due to privacy and security concerns at home and abroad last year when it was launched, is facing funding difficulties, the Beijing Times reported.

Authorities have stopped funding the distribution and maintenance of the software, a move that could halt the project, the paper reported citing a general manager of one of the two companies concerned.

But the same person rejected the report, saying the company just moved the office to a new location because of financial problems.

The previously reported lightening up of the Chinese attitude to blocking of porn websites seems to be firming up.

After eight weeks, the porn sites are still accessible. Still unanswered are questions about whether it's an official change in policy, a technical glitch or some sort of test by the usually disapproving Chinese Internet police.

Whatever the reason, the change has thrown into sharper relief what many people see as the main mission of China's aggressive Internet censors: blocking sites and content that might challenge the political authority of the communist government. Websites about human rights and dissidents are also routinely banned.

Maybe they are thinking that if Internet users have some porn to look at, then they won't pay so much attention to political matters, Internet analyst Michael  Anti said.

Sites that suddenly became available around late May include the English-language YouPorn and PornHub, along with numerous Chinese sites offering downloads, though Anti and others say well-known Chinese-language sites remain blocked.

Wen Yunchao, a popular blogger who writes about social issues and the Internet under the name Beifeng, said even more porn sites have become available in recent days, including a well-known Chinese site called Xingba, or Sex Bar. In the past, the GFW would use pornography as an excuse for censorship. Now they're not even trying to cover it up.

Some speculate the proliferation of social networking sites and Twitter-like services was taxing the Great Firewall, requiring the government to unblock some porn sites to free up capacity for other snooping.

I think when the GFW realized they were not able to block all domain names, they reallocated resources to block more urgent or political sites, said Long, a tech blogger.

As part of the change, employees in the office that cracks down on pornography and unauthorized publications no longer have to report overseas-based porn sites to police because of the difficulties in tracking down Chinese involved, the state-run magazine Oriental Outlook reported in May. Censors only need to note the sites, the report said.

Chinese authorities in Tibet have ordered Internet cafes across the region to finish installing state-of-the-art surveillance systems by the end of the month, industry sources and local media said.

All the Internet cafes must now install it, said Chen Jianying, head of the customer service department of the industry group Internet Cafes Online: This is a nationwide policy which is part of the implementation of the real-name registration system.

The proprietor of an Internet cafe in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, which is still under tight security following widespread Tibetan unrest beginning in March 2008, confirmed the scheme is already in full swing. He said the new system will mean tighter online controls: If there is something that is being controlled, there's no way anyone will get to see it. It's definitely a tighter form of control.

Under the nationwide scheme, which took effect Aug. 1, second-generation identity cards belonging to the person using the Internet must be swiped to allow online access. Viewed content can then be traced back to that identity, using the the surveillance system.

Chinese authorities have just announced that microblogging websites – sites offering Twitter-style services – will be told to appoint self-discipline commissioners to be responsible for censorship.

In a parallel development, new rules took effect on 1 September. Now anyone wanting to buy a mobile phone that uses prepaid SIM cards will have to produce identity papers while anyone already owning such a phone will have three years to register their ownership.

China's censors are giving themselves an additional layer of control, Reporters Without Borders said. The Great Firewall of China is getting human reinforcements to boost its effectiveness. But if they are held to strict performance criteria, it seems these commissioners are being assigned an impossible mission, given the volume of information circulating online for which they will be responsible.

The press freedom organisation added: Nonetheless, their very existence will be dangerous because of their nuisance value and because they could encourage microbloggers to censor themselves. Meanwhile, under the pretext of combating spam, a new blow has been dealt to the personal data of China's mobile phone users.

The microblogging platforms will themselves have to hire the commissioners whose job it will be to monitor and censor anything that could threaten China's security and social stability. They are supposed to target content linked to illegal activities, pornography and violence, as well as baseless rumours and politically sensitive issues. Although hired by the site, each commissioner will be responsible for its content and will be operationally independent.