9 to 5 Mac reports that hackers accessed Foxconn's internal data and released the information (or 'dumped', in hacker/data-nerd parlance) online, including the logins and passwords for procurement sites, teh Intranets and email accounts, with the account of CEO and animal herder Terry Gou being no exception. more ›

We heard the bad news yesterday -- Weibo users on Sina, Sohu, NetEase and Tencent have until March 16th to register with their real names and identities, failing which they will no longer be able to post or retweet updates. Sina Weibo, the market leader in the microblogging segment, appears to be already feeling the heat. more ›

The Weibo accounts hosted by Sina, Sohu, NetEase and Tencent will require real name and ID number registration from all users by March 16th, with unregistered users to be denied posting and forwarding capabilities. The announcement was made at the Beijing Weibo Development Management Regulations Seminar held today in Beijing. more ›

Shanghai's dishonest internet users may be punished with restrictions on certain business activities in real life, a senior official announced on Wednesday. more ›

“Youku think they can live on free traffic without paying for the content,” said Tudou CEO Gary Wang in a statement, “and they are trying to hide the fact that they are actually not as competitive as they pretend to be.” more ›

Chinese President Hu Jintao expressed his concerns on Monday about the Westernization of the Chinese culture, and called for greater efforts to strengthen China's cultural influence worldwide. The remarks are the latest in a growing series of attempts by the Communist Party to control promote Chinese culture. more ›

Baidu Beat has done a roundup of the2011 top ten "most active" questions on their ask & answer forum “Baidu Knows” (百度知道, bǎidù zhīdào). The number one thing most Chinese people on Baidu are curious about? Bulls. more ›

The Beijing municipal government announced new rules yesterday requiring internet users to register on Chinese microblogging platforms with their real names before they are allowed to publish posts. Under the new so-called "Weibo Development and Management Regulations", microblog users would still be able to continue to post under nicknames, but each account can now only be activated if they are first tied to a real identity. Users who do not register within the next three months may find their accounts frozen and unable to publish new posts. more ›

Long a staple of Western internet humor, the rage comic has finally found a foothold in China via rage maker site baozoumanhua. more ›

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"The first social responsibility and professional ethic of media staff should be understanding their role clearly and be a good mouthpiece." more ›

China's two major internet service providers have been embroiled in monopoly allegations for the past month or so, and it looks like their pain will eventually be our bandwidth's gain. On Friday, China Telecom and China Unicom asked the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to halt their investigation into alleged monopolistic behavior. In exchange, they pledged to improve internet speed and China Telecom went as far as saying it would lower broadband costs by up to 35%. more ›

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The group of animal activists responsible for the online campaign that successfully shut down the Zhejiang Jinhua Dog Meat Festival earlier this year are back with a new mission. They've issued a human flesh search "warrant" on Sina Weibo for two guys (seen in the below pictures) who apparently chopped off the head of a kitten and posed for pictures with its decapitated head. The post has been shared a whopping 35,000 times and counting, and is one of the top retweeted posts on Sina Weibo today. more ›

Users of Shanghai Telecom's fiber optic internet were surprised last week when they found their internet speeds had been upgraded overnight from 2Mb and 4Mb, to 10Mb, 20Mb and even 30Mb! Though the upgrade is free, some entrepreneurial conmen (and women) cashed in on the opportunity by showing up on people's doorsteps asking for "upgrade fees" from unsuspecting residents! more ›

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The number of weibo users has now reached 300mln, according to the 11th China Cybermedia Forum. more ›

“We should be reaching out to our allies and constituencies within China. They're called the young people. They're called the internet generation. There are 500 million internet users in China. And 80 million bloggers. And they are bringing about change, the likes of which is gonna take China down.” more ›

Andy Greenberg of Forbes thinks so. He writes:

In recent months, administrators of services with encrypted connections designed to allow users secure remote access say they’ve seen strange activity coming from China: When a user from within the country attempts to reach a server abroad, a string of seemingly random data hits the destination computer before he or she can connect, sometimes followed by that user’s communication being mysteriously dropped. more ›

Air China, the world's largest carrier by market capitalisation and also the world's most profitable airline, begins inflight wifi trials on a Boeing 737-800 flight departing from the Beijing Capital Airport tomorrow. As soon as it receives approval from regulators, it will begin rolling out the service starting from its domestic flights. And the best part of it all is, they're not looking to charge us a single cent for it! more ›

Chinese author Murong Xuecun, described by some as being the best in his generation, recently popped up on Shanghaiist's radar for his account of an attempt to visit Cheng Guangcheng with a few of his friends. His profile in the New York Times, written by Edward Wong, was much discussed among China observers. Here's a video by Jonah Kessel which appeared together with the report more ›

On Tuesday, dissident-artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) who was freed not too long ago from an 81-day detention, was slapped with a RMB15 million fine for tax evasion, a princely sum he has been given 15 days to cough up. The very next day, his mother Ai Ying (高瑛) and brother Ai Dan (艾丹) announced that they were mortgaging the former residence of his father, the poet Ai Qing (艾青). Following calls on Twitter by Shanghai human rights lawyer Li Tiantian (李天天) and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming (艾晓明, no relation) to send money, his supporters also swung into action, setting up Alipay and Paypal accounts to collect donations. more ›

A farmer has put out a call for help on Weibo hoping netizens will take pity on him and use their social networking magic to help him sell his 55 tons of radishes before the cold weather destroys his harvest. more ›

On Monday, Yueyue's mother appeared on Sina Weibo under a verified profile to counter rumours in the Chinese media reports that the little girl had succumbed to her injuries from the horrendous double hit-and-run that has since captured nationwide attention. more ›

Pan Shiyi, real estate tycoon and president of SOHO China, posted the following tweet on Weibo earlier today, "The Board of Apple should decide right now to mass produce a new iPhone and iPad under 1000 yuan, and allow more people to afford Apple. This is the best way to commemorate Jobs." more ›

"Our ability to question and criticise the party and the government was not made possible by the powers-that-be, but by technological advancement. They are unable to completely control new media. If they were to shut down the internet and shut down Weibo, this would make international news and point to a complete reversal, as well as failure, of the reform and opening up of the CCP -- no one would be willing to take this step. As much as the Agitprop is frustrated by the current situation, the party isn't made of steel." more ›

If you often feel like that guy in the picture on the right, the problem is not yours alone -- Shanghai is home to the slowest internet in all of China. But here's some good news: China Telecom is introducing fiber-optic cables citywide to give a boost to your internet speeds, and they're rolling out incentives beginning next month to entice consumers:

As part of the initiative, users whose current household Internet speed is 2 megabits per second, for example, will see their broadband speed doubled to 4mbps without extra charge during the transitional period to complete the new network, a China Telecom manager said. more ›

Nope, not Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, but the other brother -- Neil Bush. Name not ringing a bell? He was the one who claimed back in 2003 that random women came to his hotel room in Hong Kong in the middle of the night and were NOT prostitutes and he did NOT pay them. more ›

Xinhua News Agency (in English here) says a first ever joint action by Chinese and US police has led to the arrest of a 26-year-old Fujian man, Wang Yong, who it said is the founder of "Sunshine Entertainment Alliance", the world's largest Chinese-language porn ring. more ›