Beijing boosts controls on online content

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has tightened its grip on what China's citizens can see online, upgrading the country's already powerful network of blocks, filters, and censorship known as the "Great Firewall," a new report has shown.

"China's Internet controls, which were already among the most extensive in the world, have grown even more sophisticated and pervasive under the new Communist Party leadership," US-based watchdog Freedom House said in a report last week. China's Internet service providers have boosted their capacity to delete content deemed "sensitive" by the Party's propaganda department, often reacting within minutes of publication, the group said.

New regulations requiring real-name registration for Internet-based services and cell phones mean that anonymity is much harder to come by than before, the report said. Meanwhile, circumvention tools like Tor which once enabled users to view blocked, overseas content, are now profoundly compromised.