A state-media anti-Internet rumor blitz appears to be the latest development in Beijing’s campaign against harmful information on the Internet, with the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily and the state-run Xinhua news agency running multiple pieces that draw colorful parallels between rumors and drugs.

People on the Internet can “irresponsibly and unscrupulously produce and spread rumors,” the People’s Daily in a commentary published late last week (in Chinese). “Such ‘Internet psychological drugs’ are very easily addictive, and make people want to know more and learn more while reading,” it said, adding that it is as harmful as “Internet pornography, gambling and drugs.”

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Xinhua, in a news story about itself, said Thursday it signed a framework agreement with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier by subscribers, to launch a search joint venture. It will “make full use” of Xinhua’s position in media content and China Mobile’s user base, Xinhua said, suggesting the venture will also promote Xinhua news articles.

The move comes after the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, in June launched a beta search engine, dubbed “People’s Search” in Chinese. The search engine has a snappier and perhaps more capitalistic English name, Goso, which might sound to a bilingual listener like “go search,” since the sound “so” means “search” in Chinese. (The newspaper’s online portal also offers a Chinese microblog service, called “People’s Microblog.”)

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For Chinese people, Google is not god, and even if it puts on a full-on show about politics and values, it is still not god. Actually, Google is not a virgin when it comes to values. Its cooperation and collusion with the US intelligence and security agencies is well-known, which aroused spats with Europe. If some information is “unfavorable”, Google must delete it under the order of relevant US agencies. The data of its search results is also “stored for inspection.”

After Google launched an attack on China’s censoring, American officials and media responded vigorously. Is it still a corporate incident or commercial action? All this makes one wonder. Thinking about the US’ big efforts in recent years to engage in Internet war, perhaps this could be an exploratory pre-dawn battle.

A blistering attack, though Google (GOOG) clearly invited it by directing Chinese searches to an uncensored search engine based in Hong Kong, essentially using Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy against it.

There will undoubtedly be more like it in the future, especially if Google continues to tweak the Chinese government as it did today by indexing Twitter posts on its Chinese search site in open defiance of the country’s ban on the microblogging site.

[Image credit: China Daily]

Four months into a crusade against Internet pornography, the government is closing thousands of sites–some pornographic, some not–and tightening rules on who can register Web addresses inside China.

Foreign sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, blocked by censors in the run-up to the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule on Oct. 1, remain inaccessible to most Chinese users. Several prominent critics of the state who used the Internet to spread their message have been detained or imprisoned.

Yet this list of casualties obscures a larger truth: The censors are losing.

The dozen or so years since the Web came to China have seen repeated rounds of crackdowns and detentions, aided by a steady growth in scope and sophistication of the government’s filtering apparatus that critics dub the Great Firewall. Still, the Internet has enabled more Chinese to have more access to information today, and given them greater ability to communicate and express themselves than at any time since the founding of the People’s Republic.

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In an unusually candid statement, the Communist Party chief of Xinjiang acknowledged the intentional disruption of Internet service in Urumqi, saying that it was done to prevent the spread of further protests, according to China Daily. Despite the restrictions on communications, thousands of Han Chinese protested in Urumqi on Tuesday, and smaller groups of Uighurs continued to gather to air their grievances.

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As Google (GOOG) notes, there’s no formal explanation yet for the block, though it may be in response to a seven-minute video posted to YouTube last week showing Chinese soldiers brutally beating Tibetans last March after the riots in Lhasa. China, after all, isn’t renowned for its tolerance of free expression or dissident speech. Remember, animated beat cops patrol the nation’s 13 top portals, warning citizens away from material the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening.

Asked to comment on the block, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang claimed Beijing was unaware of it. “Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact it is just the opposite,” he told reporters. “China’s Internet is open enough, but also needs to be regulated by law in order to prevent the spread of harmful information and for national security.”

Beginning Sept. 1, animated beat cops will begin patrolling the nation’s 13 top portals, warning citizens away from material the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening.

According to the Beijing Public Security Ministry, the Sanrio-esque characters will begin showing up on all sites that are registered with the government by the end of the year. “We will continue to promote new images of the virtual police and update our Internet security tips in an effort to make the image of the virtual police more user-friendly and more in tune with how Web surfers use the Internet,” it said.

Beginning Sept. 1, animated beat cops will begin patrolling the nation’s 13 top portals, warning citizens away from material the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening.

According to the Beijing Public Security Ministry, the Sanrio-esque characters will begin showing up on all sites that are registered with the government by the end of the year. “We will continue to promote new images of the virtual police and update our Internet security tips in an effort to make the image of the virtual police more user-friendly and more in tune with how Web surfers use the Internet,” it said.