You cannot silence us online, press freedom campaigners tell China

Alleged censorship attempts by Chinese authorities will not stem the flow of information online to their citizens, say press freedom campaigners.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has responded to the latest wave of social networking site closures reported in China, after dozens of microblogs went down at the end of last week. The disappearing sites included two bloggers who have been interviewed by the Associated Press.

According to a release by Reporters Without Borders, four leading Chinese microblogging services, Netease, Sina, Tencent and Sohu, were found to be displaying messages saying they were "down for maintenance" or had returned to a "beta testing phase".

Blame has been pointed at the Chinese government by many, whilst others put the problems down to technical "glitches". But RSF has insisted that free speech will prevail online, whatever the cause.

"This latest censorship attempt shows that the Chinese authorities, who are obsessed with maintaining political stability, mistrust microblogging and its potential for spreading information and mobilising the public," Reporters Without Borders says in a statement on its website.

"Nonetheless, despite the massive resources that the regime deploys to control the internet, it is impossible to keep track of all the flow of information on Twitter and its Chinese equivalents."

According to a report by the Associated Press, microblogging sites and networks are becoming a more popular tool of online communication in China, after Twitter and Facebook were "unplugged" last year.

While access to Twitter is blocked in China, RSF says the site can be accessed by those who "know how to use proxies and other censorship circumvention tools".

But it added that a recent report by Human Rights in China shows the government will continue to try and "disconnect the Chinese internet altogether from the global internet".

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