CHINA: In its latest attempt to keep tabs on the internet, which Chinese officials consider a hothouse of subversive thought, the Beijing government has launched a recruitment drive for 4,000 web watchdogs to watch over the capital's cybercafes and internet service providers.
The internet security officers were being hired by Beijing Public Security Bureau and would be used to "service" the city's 800 cybercafes and 3,000 internet service providers through cyber-monitoring, according to local media reports. There are already about 40,000 officials routinely monitoring e-mails and websites.
About 94 million Chinese use the internet and the number is rising swiftly.
This month the government ordered that all websites, bloggers and bulletin-board operators must register with the government by the end of the month or be closed down and fined.
Beijing has created a special internet police force believed responsible for shutting down domestic sites posting politically unacceptable content, blocking some foreign news sites and jailing several people for their online postings.
Last month the propaganda departments of provincial and municipal governments were instructed to build teams of web commentators, whose responsibility would be to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under pseudonyms.
Users of Microsoft's new China-based internet portal have been blocked from using the words "democracy", "freedom" and "human rights" in an apparent move to appease Beijing.
Yahoo! and Google - the two most popular search engines - have already been criticised for co-operating with the Chinese government to censor the internet.
Authorities shut down 47,000 illegal internet cafes between February and December last year.