In a landmark breakthrough that is certain to be broken in the coming years, the AFP newswire, as posted in the Kuwait Times, is announcing that the number of Internet users in China has now topped five hundred million, which brings the total closer to a third of the roughly 1.3 billion people that reside there. The new numbers mean that approximately 56 million new Chinese users came online over the past year, roughly the entire population of Great Britain. PC World reports that the milestone was reached due mainly to the widespread use of weibos, or microblogs similar to Twitter, all of which are accessible on the Internet by a wide variety of sources.
One of the main access points in China are the Internet cafe’s so popular throughout the Asian world. The AFP says it got its information from the China Internet Network Information Center, a government owned and operated organization created to keep statistics on the Internet for the Chinese government.
The new numbers are impressive not only because they represent so many people; more than the United State and Europe combined, but because of the government’s attempts to control the spread of Internet use as a means of censorship.
The AFP claims to have sources inside the Chinese government who tell them that the government is quite worried about not just the spread of Internet throughout the country but the impact it will have. The source also confirms what many already thought, and that is the government is actively involved in shutting down or filtering comments made by people that are likely to cause dissent. Unfortunately for them though, filtering weibos is proving as difficult to control as Twitter has been in other countries in the Middle East over the past couple of years. Thus in spite of effort’s by the government, news spreads quickly, such as the bullet train accident last month and the real truth behind the smog that has been blanketing the nation’s capital for most of the fall and winter this year.
The news agency also noted that use of the Internet is not equally spread across the country. Rural use, for example, is still below ten percent, while use in Beijing is close to 70 percent, which is in line with national averages for most western countries. Perhaps more telling is the fact that less than one percent of government and party leaders get online though government accounts.
The news wire also said that it appears Internet use in China is leveling off as most of those in highly developed areas have already gained access and those in poorer sections aren’t likely to get on any time soon.