Regulation of news portals needed
The emergence of an increasing number of problems and malpractices in the process of the rapid development of China's Internet has made it vital to build a binding legal framework to regulate the fast-growing online sector.
Clandestine investigations by some journalists recently show how Internet portals screen information for business purposes, a practice long reviled by Internet users who advocate free dissemination of information. Some persons, let me call them "career Internet watchdogs", have been employed to delete unwanted information from the Internet, according to investigations.
These career online guards, mostly ex-journalists, browse through the sea of news and information carried on various influential commercial Internet portals to delete "harmful" information or opinion for handsome remuneration.
