Official of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region closed three websites in the region for damaging ethnic unity by allegedly disseminating illegal content. Shuttered by the Xinjiang Internet Information Office are v.eleman.cn, 653139.com and muzikam.com.
Authorities also suspended in December the Xinjiang Information Net, a public WeChat account, for using over-the-top headlines. To describe a big snowstorm, the site titled their reports as “a series of bad news is on its way” and “something happened in Turpan.” The officials did not like the alarming reference to Turpan, a city in eastern Xinjiang Province which had incidents of terror attacks in the past.
Following the closure, to further protect ethnic unity, authorities also issued stricter regulations for websites and plan to boost law enforcement over cyberspace this 2016, reported Global Times. In closing the three website, the regulator pointed to the ban on the production, duplication, publication and spread of content that would result in discrimination and ethnic hatred or destroy ethnic unit under the Measure of Internet Information Service.
But Chinese authorities can only do so much in guarding the country’s Internet service because even foreign companies such as Facebook recently made an Android app in which their members who use mobile phones to access the social networking site could connect to it, reported CNN.
On the third week of January, (FB, Tech30), the mobile Facebook, teamed with Tor, a system that makes it possible for its online users to anonymous by encrypting and bouncing Internet signals around the world. As a result, Tor helps users evade the censors when they surf the web and hides a computer’s real location. But Tor is also used by criminals to hide from law enforcers their illegal activities.
Tor users, by tapping a button in the Google Android app of Facebook, (GOOGL, Tech30), in settings which FB tweaked, the app would automatically connect the Chinese user to Orbot, Tor’s mobile app.