Hu Jintao Acknowledges Party Has Lost Control of the Internet, Launches Full-Scale Effort to Regain Control

By chinafreepress.org (translation)
Aug 6, 2009 – 12:21:24 PM

Boxun reports that last week, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan, Guangdong and other provinces and municipalities simultaneously convened provincial news work meetings. The meetings were personally chaired by provincial Communist Party secretaries, transmitted new instructions regarding media control by the Communist Party Central Committee. These were decided at a Central Committee meeting in Beijing that generated the most detailed and significant media guidelines of any meeting of the past several years. The meeting primarily focused on new media and the Party’s determination to increase its control over the Internet.

Hu Jintao said at the meeting: If one analyzes recent events, it is clear that we have lost control over the Internet. We have not paid close enough attention to the important role that the Internet plays in shaping public opinion. Recent events have gotten out of control because cadres have not paid sufficient attention to or sufficiently controlled the Internet. This is how mistakes have been made. From now on, from top to bottom we must seek “a productive means of managing the Internet.”

Full Chinese report: http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2009/08/200908070026.shtml