According to the website of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in Washington, Jilin City will be the first local government in China to enact rules overseeing the publication of news online:
Jilin city in Jilin province has announced that a new city ordinance will take effect on April 1 regulating who can post news on the Internet. According to the Jiang Cheng Daily, which the Jilin municipal government sponsors, the “Ordinance on the Supervision and Administration of Internet News” is China’s first local regulation addressing Internet news publishing. An “explanation” issued along with the Ordinance claims the Ordinance is necessary because “some Web sites or home pages post whatever government news, social news, and cultural news they want, link to news media Web sites outside of China, and establish news forums, and some even go so far as to post some injurious, harmful information that has a deleterious effect on society.” The explanation also noted that, while national-level regulations on Internet news publishing exist, those regulations are “insufficiently effective, excessively abstract, their utility is limited, and have created a situation where there is a lack of law that can be relied upon in practical administrative management work.”
More information is available on the CECC site here.
