China’s internet tsar on Wednesday likened controlling Chinese internet usage to “trying to nail Jell-O to a wall”, but admitted the government had toughened censorship in recent years.
“We have indeed called for reinforcements over prominent online problems, this is the truth,” said Lu Wei, who presides over internet management in China as minister for Cyberspace. “Especially a rectification centred on online rumours, cracking down on online crime and online rumours, in order to protect the rights of netizens and adolescents.”
Mr Lu’s frank remarks appeared to indicate that Chinese officials have become more comfortable speaking in public about the formerly unspeakable: China’s massive internet censorship apparatus, known as the Great Firewall, which the government has gone to great lengths in the past not to admit.