The Internet Wall of Shame Isn’t Going Anywhere Soon

From Reporters without Borders (HT BoingBoing via Instapundit):

Government gets blog service providers to sign “self-discipline” pact to end anonymous blogging

Reporters Without Borders condemns the “self-discipline pact” signed by at least 20 leading blog service providers in China including Yahoo.cn! and MSN.cn. Unveiled yesterday by the Internet Society of China (ISC), an offshoot of the information industry ministry, the pact stops short the previous project of making it obligatory for bloggers to register, but it can be used to force service providers to censor content and identify bloggers.

Google isn’t mentioned. This RConversation link from earlier this month indicates that Google is as censorious as it has ever been. So on anonymous blogging, maybe the ChiComs didn’t feel they even needed an agreement from Google.

“The Chinese government has yet again forced Internet sector companies to cooperate on sensitive issues - in this case, blogger registration and blog content,” the press freedom organisation said. “As they already did with website hosting services, the authorities have given themselves the means to identify those posting ‘subversive’ content by imposing a self-discipline pact.”

Reporters Without Borders added: “This decision will have grave consequences for the Chinese blogosphere and marks the end of anonymous blogging. A new wave of censorship and repression seems imminent, above all in the run-up to the Communist Party of China’s next congress.”

And in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

It Looks like the BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame isn’t going anywhere soon.