China claims victory in scrubbing net clean

At the same time,government agencies at all levels have boosted their online presence to control the message in cyberspace.

The Chinese government has declared victory in cleaning up what it considers rumours,negativity and unruliness from online discourse,while critics say the moves have suppressed criticism of the government and ruling Communist Party.

Beijing launched the campaign this summer,arresting dozens of people for spreading rumours,creating new penalties for people who post libelous information and calling in the countrys top bloggers for talks urging them to guard the national interest and uphold social order. At the same time,government agencies at all levels have boosted their online presence to control the message in cyberspace.

If we should describe the online environment in the past as good mingling with the bad,the sky of the cyberspace has cleared up now because we have cracked down on online rumours, Ren Xianliang,vice minister of the State Internet Information Office,said at a meeting with journalists.

A study by an Internet opinion monitoring service under the party-owned Peoples Daily newspaper showed the number of posts by a sample of 100 opinion leaders declined by nearly 25 per cent and were overtaken by posts from government microblog accounts.

Observers say the crackdown has noticeably curtailed speech by suppressing voices and triggering self-censorship,with more liberal online voices being more ginger in their criticism and posting significantly less.