Transport George Orwell's novel 1984 — in which a totalitarian Big Brother government tries to rule citizens' lives and control their thoughts — into the 21st century, and it would look a lot like China today.
Consider what happened this week. Continuing a long battle to curb what it considers a subversive information source — the Internet — China tightened its censorship of online news services and bulletin boards.
Major search engines and portals have been ordered to stop posting unauthorized commentary. Only opinion pieces from government-controlled sources are allowed. Private individuals and groups must register as “news organizations” before operating e-mail distribution lists. Anyone who violates the rules faces prison. Already, China has jailed a journalist for sending text of a Communist Party memo to foreign websites.
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