China Ties United States In Number Of Online Citizens
New statistics released this morning show that China has tied the United States in Internet users. The Xinhua News Agency, citing data from the Chinese government, claim that China boasts 221 million online users—a 61 percent jump over the 137 million online users China reported at the start of 2007.
According to Nielsen ratings, the United States also has 221 million online users. While China is tied with the United States for total Internet users, it falls behind the US in live population-to-online population data. Only 16 percent of Chinese citizens have access to the Internet, below the 19 percent worldwide average.
The Chinese government has been known to censor out websites that it deems unfit for citizen view or biased against the established government. For instance, Google China filters out information on the Tiananment Square protests of the 1989, instead re-directing users to history pages that contain little or no information about the protests. Google also filters out photos from the protests to Chinese internet users. A number of blogs and social networking sites have also been blocked from citizen view.
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