China’s Propaganda Department has ordered media and news websites to censor reports about a corruption case with links to President Hu Jintao’s son. Nuctech, a Chinese company that until 2007 was headed by Hu’s son Hu Haifeng, is alleged to have bribed a Namibian company in order to sell airport security scanners to Namibia. Read more here
Chinese micro-blogging sites Digu and Zuosa were both shut down for maintenance on 21 July. Wen Yunchao, a well-known blogger, said having two sites close on the same day indicates pressure from authorities for them to shut down. He said the timing of the closures was probably related to the 10-year anniversary on 22 July of the banning of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Read more here
Twitter and YouTube are among several sites that have been blocked in China’s Xinjiang province, as the authorities attempt to control rioting in the area.
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China’s controversial plan to install Green Dam internet filtering software on all computers will go ahead despite previous postponements, a government official told state media today saying it was only “a matter of time” until the software was installed. Meanwhile the Telepragh has reported that Green Dam has already been downloaded three million times since the end of March and has been installed on 518,000 computers. Read more here