A bouquet of flowers lies on the Google logo outside the company's China head office in Beijing on March 23, 2010. (Getty Images)
Google recently pulled out of mainland China, blaming the restrictions of government censorship in the country. Now, China has defended its right to censor the Internet in an official government paper, which laid out the leadership's attitude toward the web. It also states that foreign firms operating in China should abide by the country's Internet rules.
Shirong Chen, China editor for the BBC, reports on the paper. He says that in addition to defending its right to censor anti-government websites and pornography, the paper also highlights some of China's successes: The country boasts more than 384 milllion Internet users, with more than 70 percent of them accessing the web through broadband.
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Comments [1]
China should be able to censor its citizens. How else could a one-party authoritarian system ever hope to stay in power? Imagine if the citizens had access to all sorts of ideas and could express whatever they really felt. The people would be lost and that's not right. A Pandora's box. That freedom should only be allowed in the privacy of the homes and offices of senior party leaders.
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