China's rumor crackdown has 'cleaned' Internet, official says

By Megha Rajagopalan BEIJING (Reuters) - China's campaign against online rumors, which critics say is crushing free speech, has been highly successful in "cleaning" the Internet, a top official of the country's internet regulator said on Thursday. China has the world's most sophisticated online censorship system, known outside the country as the Great Firewall. It blocks many social media websites, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others, along with many sites hosted in Taiwan and those of rights groups and some foreign media agencies. High profile users of Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog, have been targeted, apparently for political speech.

via Tech News Headlines - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-rumor-crackdown-cleaned-internet-official-says-105858005--sector.html