Two more Web sites dedicated to social networking went offline in China yesterday amid tightening controls that have blocked Facebook, Twitter, and other popular sites that offered many Chinese a rare taste of free expression.
China’s crackdown on social-networking sites began in March when Web users in the country found they could no longer visit YouTube, shortly after video appeared on the site purporting to show Chinese security officials mistreating Tibetans.
The blockages continued through the 20th anniversary on June 4 of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the recent ethnic riots in Xinjiang, with homegrown and overseas microblogging and photo-sharing sites among those targeted.
Although cutting off access to sites can often be traced to a specific trigger – such as the Tiananmen anniversary – experts say the fact that the sites are not coming back online shows that the harsh measures are part of a long-term strategy to pare back the power of the Internet and silence some voices finding expression here.
Digu and Zuosa, two Chinese Web sites that offer microblogging services similar to Twitter, were shut down for maintenance yesterday, notices on their home pages said. A Digu spokeswoman who would give only her surname, Zhang, said Digu was offline and would be down at least a week so it could be moved to a new server.
Some Digu users had recently tried to post politically sensitive material to the site, and the company was having to censor such content. Having two sites close the same day indicates pressure from authorities for them to shut down.
China has the world’s largest population of Internet users, more than 298 million, and the world’s most extensive system of Web monitoring and censorship. Despite those controls, the Internet’s role as a platform for sharing unofficial news and opinions has expanded rapidly.
