Ein Artikel auf Salon über Blogs in China: von den Anfängen, der Zensur und wie man sie umgehen kann. (Kostenloser Tagespass erforderlich.)

“This censorship chiefly affects news portals and blog service providers, who are held responsible for the content posted to their sites and are often ordered to remove material that runs counter to the government line.

“We do have many pressures from the government,” said Liang Lu, CEO of Blogdriver.com, at a Berkeley conference on China’s digital future. “If your blogger is [posting messages] against the government, the government will call you and tell you to delete it.”

Haibo Lu, news editor with Chinese portal Sohu.com, put the process bluntly: “No negotiating, no bargaining, simply remove this news from the front page where you cannot see and the common people cannot see.”

“But,” points out Liang, “so many bloggers post their own opinion, that within a few days information becomes distributed everywhere. Everyone will know it.”

This distribution, however, more often takes place on cellphones via SMS, in chat rooms, and on bulletin boards — places that offer greater levels of anonymity or impermanence. Dissent more often shows its face in these forums that are harder for the government to monitor and control.

“On the blog more or less your personality shows,” says Xiao “You put yourself out there and for both social and political reasons people don’t want to be that out there and be in trouble. You’re asking for it.” ”