China: blogging explodes

Posted by John Burke on September 27, 2006 at 10:46 AM

The number of blogs in China has reached 34 million, 30 times more than a mere four years ago. Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency reports that more than 17 million Chinese keep blogs and more than 75 million read them.

Although 70 percent of the blogs are dormant, meaning that they have not been updated for more than a month, the enormous amount of blogs are keeping Chinese censors on their toes.

In a country where the press and other forms of communication are controlled by the government, it has been predicted that the freedom of expression that blogs afford individuals could eventually bring an end to Communist rule, or the rule of any repressive regime.

Update: The Christian Science Monitor writes about the impact on mobile camera phones in China:

"When millions of people are armed with camera phones, information is harder to quash. Anyone can snap a picture of something they weren't supposed to see and - Molive or no Molive - send it to their friends. Those friends have friends. And a story that might once have been a rumor is substantiated. Ultimately, some of those images will probably find their way out of China - and countries like it - giving the rest of the world real, unfiltered news from a place we otherwise cannot see, and that will put pressures on the nation's leaders."

Source: ABC News, Christian Science Monitor

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