China mounts online crackdown amid political crisis [View all]
Source: LA Times
By David Pierson
March 31, 2012, 3:31 a.m.
Reporting from Beijing—
China launched an Internet crackdown Friday amid its worst political crisis in decades, shuttering more than a dozen websites, limiting access to the country's largest micro-blog providers and arresting six people for spreading rumors about a coup attempt in Beijing.
The measures represent the strongest attempt yet to quash speculation that the nation’s top leadership is wracked by infighting after the ouster of Bo Xilai, the controversial Communist Party chief of mega-city Chongqing.
The official New China News Agency quoted a spokesman for the State Internet Information Office as saying authorities were punishing 16 websites and six individuals for "fabricating or disseminating online rumors" about "military vehicles entering Beijing and something wrong going on in Beijing."
Sina Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., providers of China's wildly popular Twitter-like services, said they were halting users' ability to comment on posts until Tuesday morning to "clean up" what they described as "harmful messages."
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tech-china-web-crackdown-20120321,0,1057755.story
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