Chinese women sex bloggers explore new territory, prompt censorship

The San Franscisco Chronicle reports:

The China Internet Network Information Centre estimated 94 million Internet users in China in 2004, now the second-largest Internet population in the world following the United States. China has some 4 million bloggers.

"The Internet is advancing the fortunes of many other people the Communist Party cadres aren't so interested in promoting," says Rebecca MacKinnon, a veteran journalist who writes extensively on the Internet in China. She is the co-founder of Global Voice Online, a media project at the Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.


"It used to be that you couldn't be a famous cultural icon in China unless some cultural officials had signed off on the lyrics for your album," MacKinnon said at a talk for the Pop! Tech conference in Camden, Maine, on Oct. 21. "Now you can get famous if you publicize the titillating details of your sex life on your blog."

The Communist Party of China has competition.