Caught in the Web.

In the fast four years, the number of people online in China has quadrupled to around 90 million, second only to the number of Internet users in the U.S. While the Chinese government has embraced the Internet as an economic tool, it has also clamped down on what it views as undesirable use and content through surveillance and filtering. According to Reporters Without Borders, a human-rights organization, 61 people are in prison in China "for posting messages or articles on the Internet that were considered subversive." The Chinese government fitters search-engine results so that sensitive keywords like "Taiwan independence" return no hits. China's 300 million cell-phone users are subject to scrutiny as well. The government has begun filtering text messages that contain keywords, phrases, or numbers that they find suspicious. Mobile-phone companies are fined or even shut down if they fail to property police their customers.