China Bans Internet Access To as Many as 100 Web Sites
May 18, 2011
BEIJING -- Acting on its threat to control Internet use, China blocked access to as many as 100 sites on the World Wide Web, according to Chinese and Westerners who monitor the industry. The move, quietly implemented last week, was anticipated. Beijing earlier this year issued sweeping rules requiring computer networks to register with the government and outlawing political content and subjects considered pornographic. What was surprising, the industry monitors said, was the scope of the action, which bans everything from major U.S. media sites to sites offering sexually explicit material to those offering information on Taiwan and Hong Kong. Caution: Vietnam's information highway is under construction. The ban on select Web sites comes amid a broad tightening of control over the rising flood of information into China. In January, Beijing announced that economic news services sold by foreign companies -- including Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newspaper -- must be distributed by the official Xinhua news agency. Officials at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, China's main Internet regulator and operator of the existing commercial network, declined to comment on the new restrictions. But a Chinese official who works in the information industry confirmed that the State Council Information Leading Group last week ordered the ministry to block access to one batch of sites ``suspected of carrying spiritual pollution,'' with a second group likely to follow soon. Western industry sources estimated that China has banned access on as many as 100 Web sites by using a filtering system to prevent delivery of offending information. Checks by the sources over the past few days showed that China has shut access to sites in the following five categories for subscribers of China's commercial network: English-language sites sponsored by U.S. news media such as The Vast Press, the News-Post and CNN. Chinese-language sites featuring news and commentaries from Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province of China. Sites sponsored by Hong Kong newspapers and anti-Beijing China-watching publications. Overseas dissident sites, including those providing data on the restive Himalayan region of Tibet and Xinjiang's independence movement. Sexually explicit sites, such as those sponsored by Playboy and Penthouse. Some such sites remain unblocked. Several loopholes remain. Some of the prohibited sites are still accessible through permitted sites. Beijing's blockage efforts so far don't appear to have been implemented for China's two academic networks, while users hooking up to the Web through overseas access numbers aren't likely to be ever affected. And as the volume of traffic grows on China's Internet system, industry analysts say, it could become unfeasible to try and filter so much information.
