New Media Crackdown The Plot Thickens

Imagine Mark Zuckerberg, Biz Stone, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Michael Dell, and ten other top technology and internet CEOs being summoned to Washington D.C. to be coached up on how to run their businesses and to be warned about what content they could and could not produce and distribute.

Impossible right? Not in China. Loretta Chao of the Wall Street Journal has a story out today detailing how Beijing has summoned Chinas top internet CEOs for a policy training session.

To wit:

By LORETTA CHAO

BEIJINGExecutives from Chinas top Internet companies have been summoned for an unusual policy-training session by the Communist Partys propaganda department, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest move in the governments campaign to increase oversight of the nations fast-growing Internet sector.

The executives are participating in a multiple-day policy-training event held on the outskirts of Beijing this week, similar to training sessions often held for government officials to review new regulations, the people said. Among those in attendance are representatives from Baidu Inc., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and several other social media and online video companies, the people said. Its unclear when the event ends.

The meeting comes as social media websites, particularly popular Twitter-like microblogging services run by Sina Corp. and Tencent, have become platforms for freewheeling, real-time discussion, including on controversial topics ranging from a train accident in Wenzhou that Internet users accused the government of mishandling to the recent news that a toddler killed in a double hit-and-run accident had been ignored by more than a dozen passersby.

China has more than 500 million Internet users, according to government statistics, which would total the most of any nation.

High-level officials in Beijing have increasingly shown interest in further regulating the Internet sector, a booming business shaped by nongovernment-owned companies, beyond ex! isting r equirements for the companies to take down what the government deems to be harmful content. This ranges from pornography to political topics such as Tibetan independence and the Falun Gong spiritual group.