E-Media Tidbits

Wednesday's Straits Times in Singapore quotes a top Chinese official as accusing Western media companies of having a double standard on the topic of Internet free speech.

"We seek to regulate, not control, the Internet," said Liu Zhengrong, deputy director general of China's Internet Affairs Bureau. "If an American website censors or deletes harmful information posted by an Internet user, this is considered normal. But when a Chinese website does so, it is considered abnormal and criticized. I think this is not fair and is a form of double standard."

Liu added that the Chinese restrictions on websites were not unlike than those practiced by the New York Times and Washington Post, according to the article by Straits Times Beijing Bureau chief Chua Chin Hon.