Tuesday, September 27, 2005

China Internet controls codified

Much discussion in the industry today about the significance of new regulations in China, immediately effective, describing more precisely controls over Internet distribution of news. The FT's Asian print edition headlined the story "Beijing promises to keep online news healthy".

It's online edition carries a different headline but the meat of the piece is the same. Although the thrust is that the new regulations make it harder for publishers to circumvent print media regulation by going online, there is a ray of hope for b2b and specialist media. The FT says:

"...the rules appear to give a green light to online coverage of areas such as entertainment and the technology industry, since they define online news as reporting and commentary on politics, economics, military affairs, diplomacy, public issues and social “incidents”."

According to the print version of the story, "the rules [also] restate China's ban on foreign investment in local news organisations". As Mr. Murdoch pointed out in New York the other day, things appear to be tightening up in China.

No comments: