【英语中国】知名博客被关闭 中国互联网监管或趋紧

Chinese Internet users reported a spate of blog shutdowns in what some bloggers say appears to be the latest government effort to tighten reins on expression and exert greater control over the country's fast-growing and increasingly complicated Internet.

On Thursday evening, the sites of several prominent bloggers, including Pu Zhiqiang, an outspoken attorney, were inaccessible. A blogger named Yao Yuan listed dozens of other blogs of outspoken writers, lawyers and others hosted by Sohu.com Inc. that he said were inaccessible on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. The blogger referred to the closures as an Internet 'mass murder.'

The complaints come as concerns grow among Chinese Internet users about a possible crackdown on China's burgeoning microblogging services, after a wave of odd glitches disrupted access to some websites offering the Twitter-like services this week.

It's unclear whether Chinese authorities, who regulate local Internet content and block some foreign websites, are behind the sudden blog closures. Mr. Pu, an attorney known for being outspoken on sensitive issues, said he was given no warning before his site stopped working. 'They should at least notify me and tell me what's wrong with my blog! It's unfair and there's no transparency at all,' he said. He said it wasn't the first time it happened. 'I think [it's because] I tell the truth. People like to see the truth, but the government doesn't.'

Chinese government officials weren't immediately available for comment.

China's censorship efforts have grown stronger in the last couple years, with an increasing number of foreign websites blocked for users inside the country, and the launch of government campaigns to clamp down on mobile websites. Officials have tightened scrutiny of Web domain names registered in China, and stepped up oversight of online media companies. The efforts have resulted in the closure of thousands of websites, including online video websites and a Chinese microblogging service called Fanfou.

Even before the latest concerns surfaced, blogs and microblogging services hosted by Chinese websites already were monitored by the website operators, with politically sensitive content filtered out. Access in China to Twitter and to many foreign blog-hosting services including Google Inc.'s Blogger are at least partially blocked.

The growing restrictions, along with Google's highly publicized decision to stop cooperating with Chinese censorship regulations this year, have increased awareness of censorship among many of China's roughly 420 million Internet users.

'If Internet users don't speak out, all sites will be cracked down on in the future,' Mr. Yao said, according to the AP. He owns an Internet promotion company in Shanghai. 'Ordinary people will forever lose their freedom to speak online, and the government can rest without worrying anymore.'

The concerns over microblogging began Friday night when Sohu.com's microblogging services became inaccessible for the weekend. Service resumed Monday, but then the microblogging websites of Sohu, Sina, Tencent, Netease and even a similar site created by state-run newspaper People's Daily suddenly began showing a 'beta' icon next to their logos, suggesting some sort of testing. Then, on Tuesday evening, Netease's microblogging service also became inaccessible for two days.

Sina.com's microblogging service, the most popular such service in China with more than 5 million users, has been largely uninterrupted so far, despite also bearing the 'beta' icon. U.S. service Twitter has been blocked in China since last year and is not widely used.

A customer service representative at Sohu confirmed that its microblogging service was closed between Friday night and Monday, but said the closure was due to maintenance rather than a government order. Still, the simultaneous display of 'beta' icons on all the microblogging services worried users because 'site maintenance' has been used in the past by Chinese websites as an excuse to address outages related to private discussions with the government.

Chinese Internet executives have been complaining in private forums that government censorship authorities are overstepping their boundaries and interfering with fair competition, people familiar with the discussions say. But incidents like the apparent blog and microblogging crackdown suggest those complaints have not discouraged authorities.

中国互联网用户报告多个博客被关闭，一些博主说，这似乎是政府加强言论控制、并更严格管理中国快速增长且更趋复杂的互联网的最新举措。

周四晚间人们无法进入包括以坦率直言闻名的律师蒲志强在内的几个知名博主的博客。美联社报导，一位名叫姚远（音）的博主列出搜狐上几十位仗义执言的作家、律师和其他人开的博客，他说周四这些博客都无法进入。这位博主指关闭这些博客是对互联网的一次“大屠杀。”

此前本周一系列奇怪的错误使人们不能登陆一些提供类似Twitter服务的网站，在中国互联网用户更加担心中国日渐强大的微博服务可能将受到打击之际，一些博主发表了上述怨言。

目前尚不清楚中国政府是否是这些博客突然关闭的背后推手，中国政府监管国内网络内容并屏蔽一些外国网站。对敏感事宜敢于直言不讳的律师蒲志强表示，在他的博客停止运作前，他没有得到任何警告。他说，他们至少应该通知我，并告诉我我的博客有什么错误！这是不公平的，而且根本没有透明可言。他说这不是第一次发生这样的事情了。他表示，我认为[这是因为]我说的是真话，老百姓喜欢听真话，但政府不爱听。

目前尚不能联系到政府官员对此发表评论。

过去几年中国当局的审查力度加大，越来越多的外国网站被屏蔽，不许中国国内用户登陆，而且政府出重拳取缔移动网站。官方还加紧了对在中国注册的网站域名的监督，并加强对在线媒体公司的监管。这些措施导致数千家网站关闭，其中包括在线视频网站和一家名为“饭否”的中国微博服务网站。

在这一最新情况浮现之前，中国网站上的博客和微博服务就已经受到网站运营商的监控，政治敏感内容都被过滤掉。Twitter和很多外国博客服务，包括谷歌(Google Inc.)的Blogger，在中国都被至少部分屏蔽。

越来越多的束缚，加上谷歌今年高调决定不再配合中国的审查规则，已让中国大约4.2亿网民中的很多人进一步意识到了审查问题的存在。

据美联社报道，在上海拥有一家互联网推广公司的姚远说，如果网民不说话，所有网站将来都会遭到打击，老百姓将会永远失去网上言论自由，政府可以一劳永逸。

从上周五夜间开始，搜狐的微博服务整个周末都无法登陆，有关微博的担忧由此开始。搜狐微博周一恢复服务，但过后搜狐、新浪、腾讯和网易的微博，甚至是党报《人民日报》办的一家类似网站，突然之间开始在其标识旁边显示出一个“beta”图标，意思是说正在进行某种测试。然后在本周二晚上，网易微博也开始连续两天无法登陆。

新浪微博的用户超过500万，是中国最受欢迎的微博，尽管它也打上了“beta”图标，但到目前未止大体上未曾中断。美国的Twitter自从去年以来就一直被屏蔽，在中国没有被广泛使用。

搜狐一位客服代表证实，其微博服务在上周五夜间到本周一被关闭。但这位客服代表说，关闭是出于维护需要，而不是政府指令。不过，所有微博服务同时打上“beta”图标仍让用户担心，因为在过去，中国的网站曾以“网站维护”为借口，用来掩饰它们跟政府私下商讨时出现的服务中断。

据了解情况的人说，中国互联网企管人士一直在非公开场合抱怨说，政府审查部门正在越界，干涉公平竞争。但最近这场疑似的博客、微博整顿行动说明，这些抱怨并没有阻碍有关部门的脚步。