China tightens Internet controls

Climate of fear and obedience
All the controls reinforce a climate of fear and obedience that keep most Internet users in line, experts said.

But if self-censorship fails, "Sohu will protect you from yourself," said Rebecca MacKinnon, a new media expert at Hong Kong University.

Liu, the Beijing lawyer, did not want to be protected. He has tried to sue Sohu for breach of contract for blocking nine of his blog entries.

Yang Bei, a Sohu spokeswoman in Beijing, said the company had no comment on the case.

Liu insists the postings conformed with Sohu's user guidelines as well as Chinese law. He said that identical material posted to his Sina blog was not blocked. He is not asking for compensation, only to have his entries restored.

A Beijing district court dismissed his suit in August, saying that it did not meet unspecified criteria. His appeal is pending with the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court.

Veiled conversations
Despite the controls, Chinese cyberspace is also a surprisingly dynamic environment with online auctions, film and music downloads, social networks, huge virtual gaming populations and even spirited debate on social and political issues — though often conducted in protective double speak.

"You don't say 'tanks in Tiananmen,'" explains Xiao, referring to the 1989 military crackdown on democracy protesters. "You say 'the tractors that came into the city.' You don't say 'press freedom,' you say 'press professionalism.'"

Anxiety over such veiled conversations likely prompted the closure of several data centers last month, a move that affected thousands of small personal and commercial sites and warned millions of others. The centers were told the shutdown was part of a larger campaign to clean up the Web ahead of the congress.

MacKinnon said the government appears afraid that something from one of those smaller sites will "jump out and bite the regime."

Servers unplugged
An employee with the Zitian Internet Data Center in the central city of Luoyang who would only give his surname, Feng, said its servers were unplugged on Aug. 23 and resumed on Sept. 5. But interactive sites, such as bulletin boards and blogs, were closed until after the congress, which is expected to last about 10 days, on orders from state-run China Telecom, he said.

Shanghai's Waigaoqiao Internet Data Center was shut down Sept. 3-14 on orders from a China Telecom subsidiary, said an employee named Tang. Again, customers were told their interactive sites could reopen after the congress. Another in the southeastern city of Shantou was also shuttered around the same time.

A Chinese blogger writing in English under the name Moonlight, catalogued the shutdowns in a post titled "Chinese Internet censorship goes crazy."

Xiao from Berkeley said the measures were intentionally heavy-handed.

"It's overkill to scare other people. Now the other IDCs are shaking," he said.

China's Ministry of Information Industry, which is the main government body in charge of the Internet, and China Telecom did not respond to a request for comment about the Internet data center shut downs.

Meanwhile, Chinese bloggers who have been censored say they've been "harmonized," a nod to President Hu's goal of creating a "harmonious society."

One sarcastic Chinese blogger called Xiucai — or the Scholar — mockingly posted a banner to his or her site on Sept. 4 saying: "Joyfully welcome the 17th Party Congress, building a harmonious society together. The Scholar is a good comrade. This site has temporarily shut down comments and forum features."

Within two weeks, Xiucai took the banner down too.

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