20 mins, 2009        [password required] Shanghai - on the face of it, a slick, modern, outward-looking city. But when it comes to the internet, as with much else in China, it seems the Government is in control. This film explores how China is trying to censor the web, but also how some Chinese people are finding ways round the system. RISE OF THE BLOGGERS: Isaac Mao thinks he's one of the earliest bloggers in China. By the end of 2002, Chinese bloggers were still in their hundreds and Isaac knew most of them. But after 2002, the number of bloggers in China increased dramatically. The government responded with heavy censorship denying access to many famous websites. CAT AND MOUSE: Now bloggers play a "cat and mouse" game with the government, continually trying to access forbidden information, while the government tries to catch them. Until recently Chinese people have been denied access to famous websites like You Tube, Flickr and the BBC. More recently these controls have been relaxed, but certain subjects, like Tibet and Taiwan, are taboo. HONG KONG: Although officially part of China, the former British colony of Hong Kong enjoys extra freedoms, and visiting Chinese get more of an idea of what the web really looks like. Rebecca McKinnon, a leading expert on internet censorship, describes how access to websites, speech and blogging on the internet is controlled in China. There are internet police - but most censorship is actually carried out by private businesses. CORPORATE CONSPIRATORS: Both Google and Yahoo have been criticised for their actions in China. Google China blocks searches on human rights and Tibetan independence. Yahoo was called before the US Congressional Committee for helping the Chinese authorities track down a journalist, who was subsequently jailed for ten years. THE LONELY BLOGGER: Chinese blogger Zhang Shihe documents the lives of poor, rural workers. His blogs show photos and video footage of their hard existence and, if villagers complain of official corruption, he reports it. A farmer describes how pollution is making his life misery and claims the government's doing nothing about it. THE "HARMONIOUS SOCIETY": Many of Zhang Shihe's articles have been blocked. In blogger-speak, he's been "harmonised" by the government. Some Chinese internet users think that if the government is blocking sites it must have good reason, while others use a proxy server to get round the "great firewall". The censorship of the internet, some argue, is stifling the economy, but for the government it's a vital tool in their control of society. EXTRA: Journalist Isabel Hilton offers a background to the Chinese government's attempts to control and censor the internet, and considers this in the bigger picture of the battle for human rights in the country.