Jan 312012
 

Well known Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei says he will stop tweeting if Twitter is censored as proposed by Chinese authorities.

Ai Weiwei’s incredibly popular and twitter feed is seen as the trail blazer in online commentary in China.

He has reacted to the threat of his tweets, which are often critical of the regime, being blocked by saying he will just shut down.

The China Digital Times reported that: “the new policy has been widely read as a concession to allow Twitter to enter China, in a similar vein to Google’s aborted censorship of search results on Google.cn. The speculation has been fuelled by co-founder Jack Dorsey’s recent visit to Shanghai, though that trip may have had more to do with Dorsey’s e-payment company, Square. Speaking to The Associated Press, Google’s chief legal officer played down the focus on China:

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Jul 072010
 

  There is considerable interest and attention paid to China’s attempts at online censorship but when a prominent government critic was detained this week it showed old fashioned and less sophisticated methods of shutting down free speech were alive and well.

 Best-selling Chinese author and democracy advocate, Yu Jie, told RFA’s mandarin service that he had been detained by security agents on Monday and threatened with imprisonment if he went ahead with plans to publish a book criticizing China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

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