China censors ratchet up Web monitoring

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By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer

BEIJING - At first, Liu Xiaoyuan just fumed when his online journal postings disappeared with no explanation. Then he decided to do something few if any of China's censored bloggers had tried. He sued his service provider.

"Each time I would see one of my entries blocked, I'd feel so furious and indignant," said Liu, a 43-year-old Beijing lawyer. "It was just so disrespectful."

Liu's frustration is hardly unique. For China's 162 million Web users, surfing the Internet can be like running an obstacle course with blocked Web sites, partial search results, and posts disappearing at every turn.

Blog entries like Liu's, which mused on sensitive topics such as the death penalty, corruption and legal reform, are often automatically rejected if they trigger a keyword filter. Sometimes, they're deleted by human censors employed by Internet companies.

In the lead-up to the sensitive Communist Party Congress, which convenes Monday to approve top leaders who will serve under President Hu Jintao through 2012, authorities have been casting an even wider net than usual in their search for Web content they deem to be politically threatening or potentially destabilizing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071012/ap_on_...rnet_controls_2

[GaryC 7]

The WWW is a monster that China will not be able to keep in a cage for long. There are just to many ways to bypass the filters. It's going to get messy soon.

[Toshtishtash 1]

They have some funny laws in China

[eric&gen 0]

We have funny laws too lol.

[Jasman0717 9]

I hope he doesn't disappear off the face of the earth