Censorship | featured news

After days of growing public fury over last month’s crash and the government’s reaction, Chinese authorities have enacted a virtual news blackout on the disaster.

An outspoken Chinese writer and government critic has left his homeland for Germany after police repeatedly threatened him with imprisonment to prevent him from publishing any more of his controversial works overseas. Liao Yiwu arrived in Berlin two days ago at the end of a secretive journey that included transfers in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi and Warsaw, Poland, the writer said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

The State Internet Information Office will regulate every corner of the nation’s vast Internet community, a move that appeared to complement a continuing crackdown on political dissidents.

Google Inc on Monday accused the Chinese government of making it difficult for Gmail users to access the service in the country, the latest development in a rocky relationship between the two.

Users in China are reporting that access to LinkedIn has been blocked throughout the country.

Amazon's Kindle is proving popular in China because it allows users to log on to banned websites.

Google is keeping a check on censorship levels around the globe with a map showing which countries asked the search engine for user information.

Bad news for Craigslist users who like to peruse the Erotic Services/Adult Services section of their site. It's gone, replaced by a large black and white "censored" logo.

I've reached out to Craigslist for comment and await their reply. But the choice of words is significant - the section wasn't simply removed, the censored word was used.

High-profile censorship spat reaches detente with license renewal. On Friday Google announced the Chinese government renewed its license to operate its website in China. "I'm as surprised as everyone," says Rick Munarriz, senior analyst at the Motley Fool.

Google Inc. said Tuesday it will stop automatically routing users in China to its Hong Kong site after Beijing threatened the company with the loss of its Internet license in their latest skirmish over censorship.