China, Cyberspace Administration, Internet Censorship (video)

From the Washington Post: The Cyberspace Administration of China sang a song that promotes Internet censorship during a talent show hosted by the Beijing Internet Association. (Youku/Beijing Internet Association).... "Internet Power!" the chorus goes, for example. "Tell the world that the China Dream is lifting Greater China to prominence." The Cyberspace Administration doesn't just administer the Chinese Internet; it's in charge of strictly censoring it, too. Just last year, the U.S.-based group Freedom House rated China's Internet "not free," losing only to Iran and Syria in total points.

see also: China's Internet Censorship Anthem Is Revealed, Then Deleted - NYTimes.com and 

Five Predictions for Chinese Censorship in the Year of the Sheep | Foreign Policy: "Near-term prospects for media and Internet freedom in China are grim.-- A tightening Chinese firewall. Chinese Internet users are increasingly referring to their Internet as a “LAN,” or “local area network” — effectively a type of intranet — as it becomes more isolated than ever before. The combination of recent upgrades to the “Great Firewall” filtering system, new restrictions on virtual private network (VPN) services employed by users to reach blocked overseas websites, and a policy narrative extolling the principle of “internet sovereignty”—the right of each state to regulate its own cyberspace— has taken a toll. In 2014, Gmail, other previously available Google services, and Yahoo’s Flickr photo-sharing service joined social networks Facebook and Twitter as internationally-used web tools that are blocked in China. Expect revamped regulatory entities like the Cyberspace Administration of China to tighten controls at home while working with other authoritarian regimes to promote “internet sovereignty” and change the rules of global Internet governance. That doesn’t mean hope is lost; technologists will also continue their arms race with the Great Firewall, developing new tools to meet the demands of Chinese users determined to reach blocked services... Jail time for more prominent free speech advocates. Three internationally renowned advocates of media freedom will face potentially long prison sentences in the coming months – and their odds are not good. Dissident journalist Gao Yu was arrested in 2014 and forced to give a televised confession in May..." (read more at link above)

China’s fear of the Web - The Washington Post: "... despite its liberating qualities, the Internet is not free everywhere, and not for everyone. The authoritarian behemoths of China and Russia, as well as others, have made strenuous efforts to build what they call digital “sovereignty.” This usually means a kind of censorship in which information is placed behind a fence erected by the state. Tyrants are still fighting desperately to control digital information much as they did in the analog era, rather than letting it flow freely across borders and time zones...."

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