The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, criticised as restrictive today amendments to the country's communication law, adopted on 24 June by the Kazakh Parliament, and called on President Nursultan Nazarbayev not to promulgate them. "Despite some minor changes introduced by the Senate, this law limits freedom of the Internet and media freedom in general. Its adoption would be a step backwards in the democratisation of Kazakhstan's media governance," Haraszti wrote in a letter to President Nazarbayev.

nternet has revolutionized the way people communicate and act together as a group, theoretically allowing more power to individuals and groups to access information, share thoughts and promote personal and social agenda. China has also seen tremendous penetration of Internet related technologies and usage. The following article aims to give a quick overview and encourage a general discussion about the impact of Internet on Chinese society as a form of self-expression, social involvement, social grass-root movements and a tool for promotion of personal and social agenda in China where human rights and freedom of speech are believed to be limited and restricted by an authoritarian control. The paper will give a quick introduction on the Chinese Internet characteristics, will then present some famous recent case-studies that were translated by media and bloggers to English and discuss how those reflect on the current situation in China.

Dictators these days must resort to ever-trickier ways to prevent the truth of their failings from being made known via digital technology. Just one image in cyber space, such as the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan during Iran's protests, can plant doubts about a regime's claim to power – even among its supporters – and begin to erode its legitimacy. At times, however, a regime's attempts to block online citizen activists are as desperate as its violent crackdowns are tragic.

I'm not sure what the Chinese government is thinking, or whether certain parts of certain ministries and party apparatus have gotten completely out of control. Until recently, it had seemed to me that the Chinese government was managing its censorship system with surprising success: censoring enough (combined with strategic arrests) to keep people from using the Internet to organize a successful nation-wide political opposition movement; but at the same time allowing enough space for online discourse and citizen-muckraking that people have felt freer and more empowered than ever before, which actually seemed to work in favor of the central government's legitimacy - despite being very bad news for corrupt local officials. But this month, something shifted. It's unclear whether the shift is long-lasting or just temporary madness until the PRC's 60th anniversary on October 1st.