….And the ban hammer has been dropped! China’s Central Military Commission has just announced a list of “70 forbiddens” to “strengthen and improve ideology among armed service men and to further standardize honest behavior within the military” This list isn’t just for military personnel though, party cadres and government officials are also being urged (forced?) to develop a “clean and honest” government using these “70 forbiddens” as guidelines. more ›

Sometime yesterday -- nobody we've spoken to knows when exactly -- the Net Nanny pulled the plug off LinkedIn, and access to the professional social network is now no longer possible without the use of a proxy or VPN. more ›

Whether or not you think the whole will-they-wont-they Facebook China flirtation is a total pipe dream, there is no arguing that a jump in Chinese Facebook users is a good sign for the social media giant. And that's just what we've seen. In the last two months alone, users in China more than doubled from about 300,000 to over 700,000. The only explanation come up with so far is that Mark Zuckerberg's China visit in December inspired a slew of new Facebook devotees. more ›

Are you sick and tired of having to log on to a VPN to get on Twitter? Didn't you wish there was a local alternative to keep in touch with your friends here? Introducing Sina Weibo, the biggest thing to hit the Chinese interwebs in the year 2010. Quite a number of China-based expatriates have already signed up, and we want you to join us there too. Sign up for an account and follow us at http://t.sina.com.cn/shanghaiist now! more ›

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues his first trip to China hobnobbing with the who's who of China's tech scene. Earlier today, he was received by top executives at the Sina headquarters. According to Sina.com spokeswoman Liu Qi, Zuckerberg "exchanged his views on China's Internet market and wanted to understand Sina's Weibo (microblog), the hottest Internet product in the country." Sina's star has been rising rapidly over the last year with the launch of its own microblogging platform, Weibo, which added 50 million users in its first 12 months and is well on its way to break the 100 million mark in 2011. more ›

Resonance China points out a fun little graphic, apparently from Ogilvy's China social media team, demonstrating the typical users for five of China's most active social networks. more ›

The rumor about Facebook coming to China seems to be picking up steam with more and more Western publications picking up Sina.com's original anonymously sourced assertions. What's interesting is that almost everyone thinks it's a bad idea. Not only will they be facing a ton of competition from much more established social networks/clones, but people are asking what will it mean for privacy and, of course, censorship. Facebook itself has said it didn't have specific plans, hemming that, "We are interested in China, just as we are many other countries, and while we are studying and learning about them all, we have no specific plans for China at this time." more ›

In October last year we reported that Oak Pacific (the owners of Xiaonei.com), in a bid to capture more Chinese online social networkers, registered the domain name kaixin.com to compete with kaixin001.com, the fastest growing social network in China for young white collar Chinese wasting time at work. TechWeb.com.cn reported today (h/t @ganglu) that kaixin001 finally got around to suing Oak Pacific and the case has been accepted by the courts for using the 开心网 (kai xin wang) name. Looks like not-so-happy times may be ahead for Oak Pacific. more ›

Most social networks and web businesses generate their revenues from online advertising - but it looks like some do it much better than others. more ›