China’s online population rises to 538 million
China’s population of Internet users, already the world’s
biggest, has risen to 538 million, driven by rapid growth in wireless Web
surfing, an industry group said Thursday.
The latest figure represents an 11 percent increase from
a year earlier, according to the report by the China Internet Network
Information Center. The government sanctioned group said that raised the share
of China’s population that uses the Internet to 39.9 percent.
The number of people who go online from mobile phones and
other wireless devices rose to 388 million, the group said. That was up 22
percent from a year earlier.
China’s communist government encourages Internet use for
business and education but tries to block access to material considered
subversive or obscene. Authorities tightened controls after social networking
and other websites played a key role in protests that brought down governments
in Egypt and Tunisia.
The rise of Internet use and the explosive popularity of
wireless access have driven the growth of a series of new Chinese industries
from microblogs to online video.
This month, regulators tightened control over online
video, telling providers they must prescreen all material before making it
available. The government complained that some online video was vulgar,
pornographic or too violent.
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