From the Associated Press
China Mulls Microblog Limits Before Party Meeting
BEIJING (AP) — China's Communist Party is preparing for its biggest policy meeting of the year by ratcheting up pressure on social media sites that have fast become forums for information and public expression beyond government control.
The latest warning shots at social media were fired by Wang Chen, a senior propaganda official, who told a meeting of government and Internet company officials this week that Twitter-like microblog services need tighter regulation. Wang reiterated a warning that punishment will be meted out to people who post rumors or falsehoods.
"Microblog sites should strengthen the management of information dissemination, and not provide channels for the spread of rumors," Wang said, according to a transcript of his speech posted on Sina.com. "Those who fabricate facts and concoct lies online, resulting in serious consequences, should be severely punished according to the law."...
For a government that is used to controlling what information the public consumes, social media — which encourage individuals to generate content — are proving unnerving. Popular microblogs, or "weibo" in Chinese, helped mobilize 12,000 people in Dalian to successfully demand the relocation of a petrochemical factory and served as an outlet for public anger after a crash on the showcase high-speed rail system in which at least 40 people died.
After the July train crash, "authorities partially lost control of their own spin, their own message, and their own control of public opinion in this information sphere," said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project [and adjunct professor in the School of Information] at the University of California-Berkeley. "Weibo was the engine for all these very critical comments that went beyond the railway crash, pointing to the system ... to hurt the legitimacy of the regime."
Chinese microblog sites have also provided independent candidates running for local legislative councils a platform that they have never had before to reach out to the public, Xiao said....