A Web user from a city south of Guangzhou is suing a popular local Website for blocking his login ID, shutting down his mailbox and erasing his Web postings, according to a report in Southern Metropolis Daily. The case has been accepted by the Zhongshan Intermediate Court.
The Web user, named in the report as Mr. Liang, is suing the Website for allegedly violating his personal copyright. He is asking that the site reinstate his ID and Web postings.
In China, where the Internet is strictly controlled by legions of Web police and various government offices, including the Public Security Bureau, the case also implicates the state’s censorship regime. A representative from the Website told Southern Metropolis Daily that Mr. Liang’s postings, made under the Web alias “Xiandai Ximin” (现代刁民), included “negative content damaging to government organs” and that they had “received a notice from Internet management authorities”.
[Posted by David Bandurski, September 22, 2006, 12:40pm]