IP Democracy: China Tries to Crack Down on Web News

The Chinese government has published new rules to regulate news publishing on the web. Any news organization found guilty of publishing “false or distorted” information will be fined 30,000 yuan or $3,700 under the new regulations, which are intended to “standardize the management of news or information.”

The new rules also require any online news publisher to have least 10 million yuan, or $1.25 mil. in registered capital and it must employ at least five professional news editors with no less than three years’ working experience in the traditional media. Publishers who have been “in trouble” with online regulators are barred from publishing for two years.

News.com’s Blogma has a good round-up of the blogosphere’s sentiments on this crackdown. It’s not pretty.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on September 26, 2005 10:55 AM to IP Democracy