BEIJING, Sept. 25 - China on Sunday imposed more restrictions intended to limit the news and other information available to Internet users, and it sharply restricted the scope of content permitted on Web sites.
The rules are part of a broader effort to roll back what the Communist Party views as a threatening trend toward liberalization in the news media. Taken together, the measures amount to a stepped-up effort to police the Internet, which has become a dominant source of news and information for millions of urban Chinese.
Major search engines and portals like Sina.com and Sohu.com, used by millions of Chinese each day, must stop posting their own commentary articles and instead make available only opinion pieces generated by government-controlled newspapers and news agencies, the regulations stipulate.
The rules also state that private individuals or groups must register as "news organizations" before they can operate e-mail distribution lists that spread news or commentary. Few individuals or private organizations are likely to be allowed to register as news organizations, meaning they can no longer legally distribute information by e-mail.
Existing online news sites, like those run by newspapers or magazines, must "give priority" to news and commentary pieces distributed by the leading national and provincial news organs.
This restriction on the ability of Web sites to republish articles produced by the huge array of news organizations that do not fall under direct government control seems intended to ensure that the Propaganda Department has time to filter content generated by local publications before it can be widely disseminated on the Internet.
The new rules are the first major update to policies on Internet news and opinion since 2000.
"The foremost responsibility of news sites on the Internet is to serve the people, serve socialism, guide public opinion in the right direction, and uphold the interests of the country and the public good," the regulations state.
Although Chinese authorities have already effectively unlimited powers to control the gathering and publication of news, the Propaganda Department has sometimes struggled to censor information about delicate developments before it circulates on the Internet.
About 100 million Chinese now have access to the Internet. Though the government closely monitors domestic content and blocks what officials consider to be subversive Web sites from overseas, savvy users can obtain domestic and overseas information that never appears in China's traditional news media.
By the time officials have decided that a topic might prove harmful to the governing party's agenda, an item about it has often already been posted or discussed on hundreds of sites and viewed by many people, defeating some traditional censorship tools.
Experts who follow the Internet say one of the most significant changes is the ban on self-generated opinion and commentary articles that accompany the standard state-issued news bulletins on major portal sites.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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