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China has set up a new office wielding the whip of internet censorship, as if current levels of online control weren’t enough.
China’s State Council Information Office (the government’s propaganda arm) said was creating a new agency, the State Internet Information Office, under its jurisdiction to control all facets of life on the web.
Its duties are manifold, ranging from directing online content management, licensing online news providers, online gaming, video, promoting major news websites, register domain names and managing online marketing for the government. It will also investigate websites and punish violators.
Responding to criticisms, an unnamed government officer was quoted by the State news agency Xinhua as saying these remarks were “untenable” and were spread with an aim to “tarnish the image of China.” The new body, it said, would help regulate the Internet in ways similar to many other countries, and control vulgarity, fake news and online gambling.
According to the New York Times the growth of the internet in China has “spawned a sort of land rush for regulatory turf by government agencies that see in it a chance to gain more authority or more money, or both.” At least 14 government units, it says, have their finger in internet control in some form of another.
It suggests that this new agency may cause some infighting between it and these other units.
An Istanbul court has ordered the seizure of all of investigative journalist Ahmet Sik’s work on his incomplete book The Army of the Imam. His manuscript explores the connection between the police and the group headed by Turkish Imam Fethullah Gülen. Sik was close to finishing the work when he was arrested in March. Gülen is now living in exile in the USA. It has been alleged that the book will appear online on 11 April.
The Burmese government’s censorship board director, Tint Swe, has announced that the country’s censorship policy will be relaxed in accordance with its new constitution. Journal and magazine publishers will no longer need to submit their articles to the censors for approval before publication. However, news stories and articles about politics and business will still need prior approval.
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India, a book by the Pulitzer Prize winning author Joseph Lelyveld, has been banned in the Indian state of Gujrat. The book is seen as being controversial as some passages can be interpreted as hinting that Gandhi had a homosexual relationship. The Indian Law Minister, Veerappa Moily, has also recently indicated that the government might introduce a country-wide ban on the book.