How the Great Firewall of China keeps cyber dissidents in check

It's known as the "Great Firewall of China" to the rest of the world, but to the Chinese government it's the "Golden Shield". China's internet filtering system, the most sophisticated and extensive in the world according to a recent report by Harvard Law School, is in the front line of the Chinese authorities' attempts to maintain control of an increasingly fractious society by preventing the spread of political dissent. But blocking websites such as Amnesty International, or ones that relate to the banned Falun Gong movement, or Tibetan independence, is just one part of the government's efforts to control Chinese cyberspace.

A small army of technocrats, numbering up to 40,000, is employed to watch over China's 100 million-plus internet users, or "netizens", the second-largest internet population in the world after the US. They have been bolstered by a raft of new regulations introduced earlier this year that restrict what websites and bulletin boards can talk about or report.

In March, the Ministry Of Culture, which is responsible for overseeing the internet, told all websites to register with the authorities or face being fined, or closed down, while in September the most extensive restrictions yet were announced. The new laws prohibit the inciting of "illegal" assemblies online, the publication of anything that destroys the country's unity, as well as ordering blogs to "be directed to serving the people and socialism".

"Cyber-dissidents" such asShi Tao, a journalist sentenced to 10 years in prison in April for circulating an e-mail containing an account of a meeting with pro-democracy campaigners, have become victims of the authorities' desire to control what people can access on the internet.

But the main targets of the government's crackdown are the myriad blogs and the Chinese-language online forums such as Tianya Community, Yannan Forum and Xicihutong. Not only do they spread the news that is not reported by official news agencies such as Xinhua, but they offer a national perspective on current events.

Most print and TV media in China are local, so before the internet people had little idea what was going on outside the areas in which they lived. News of the massacre in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 did not reach much of China for months, but now news of local protests is disseminated nationwide.

"If something happens in Guangzhou, people in Beijing will hear about it quickly," says Chen Chanfeng, deputy dean of Beijing University's School of Journalism and Communications. "What the internet does in China is help form public opinion very quickly."