Government claims success in cleaning the Internet

BEIJING (AP):

The Chinese government has declared victory in cleaning up what it considers rumours, negativity and unruliness from online discourse, while critics say the moves have suppressed criticism of the government and ruling Communist Party.

Beijing launched the campaign this summer, arresting dozens of people for spreading rumours, creating new penalties for people who post libellous information and calling in the country's top bloggers for talks, urging them to guard the national interest and uphold social order.

Online presence boosted

At the same time, government agencies at all levels have boosted their online presence to control the message in cyberspace.

"If we should describe the online environment in the past as good mingling with the bad, the sky of the cyberspace has cleared up now because we have cracked down on online rumours," Ren Xianliang, vice-minister of the State Internet Information Office, said during a rare meeting last week with foreign journalists.

A study by an Internet opinion monitoring service under the party-owned People's Daily newspaper showed the number of posts by a sample of 100 opinion leaders declined by nearly 25 per cent and were overtaken by posts from government microblog accounts.

"The positive force on the Internet has preliminarily taken back the microphone, and the positive energy has overwhelmed the negative energy to uphold the online justice," said Zhu Huaxin, the monitoring service's general secretary.

Noticeable change

Observers say the crackdown has noticeably curtailed speech by suppressing voices and triggering self-censorship, with more liberal online voices being more gingery in their criticism and posting significantly less.

Even Zhu suggested the campaign might have gone too far.

In one example, Web users refrained from reposting information and commenting on the government response to a severe flood in the eastern city of Yuyao in early October.

A year ago, they were garrulous in questioning Beijing's drainage system when a rainstorm ravaged the city. "It is a reminder that we must strike a balance between crushing online rumours and ensuring information flow," Zhu said.

Some critics say the moves may backfire by eliminating an effective conduit for the public to let off steam.