The Chinese Communist party newspaper People’s Daily has raised 1.4 billion yuan ($219 - $222 million) after filing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for its website www.people.com.cn. As The Financial Times reported on Friday, this figure is almost three times the paper’s initial target of 527m yuan. The FT writes that people.com.cn now has a market capitalisation of $876m – rivalling that of The New York Times, which is valued at $943m.

The FT suggests that the Chinese authorities are hoping that the IPO will help state media expand their global influence. The financial paper points out that although state Chinese media have been commercially successful, tehy is vastly overshadowed by private Chinese digital companies like Sina and Tecent. Now, however, the Chinese state media seem to be looking to compete more aggressively. The FT quotes People’s Daily, which states, “we need to increase our popularity, expand the range of products and services we offer, reach a wider audience and increase page hits per visitor.” With the apparent aim of expanding its editorial impact, Chinese state television is also constructing a broadcasting centre in Washington, notes The FT.

Twitter announced yesterday that it would begin selectively blocking Tweets in some countries.

"Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country -- while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why."

Twitter writes that it will withhold access to Tweets in certain countries "if we receive a valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity". As an example of illegal material it names pro-Nazi content, which is outlawed in France and Germany.

The micro-blogging platform implies that it will not comply with all government requests to remove content. It states that, in some countries, the ideas about freedom of expression "differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there".

Until now, Twitter had to remove content from its entire network if it received a valid legal order to take it down in one country. This change in policy means that Twitter can block Tweets region by region.

After last year's disputed elections in Iran, social networking sites like Twitter helped protesters organise and also served as a way to send news, videos and photos out to the rest of the world, showing what was really happening in the country. Iranian security forces worked to stop people from using these sites to communicate, just as other countries, such as China, have done in the past and continue to do so.

Government censors are becoming more sophisticated, and this is where encryption software Haystack comes in.

Haystack was custom-made in San Francisco for Iran as the first anti-censorship technology licensed by the U.S. government for export to Iran, the Christian Science Monitor reported last month. First, it "provides high-grade encryption of data, similar to that used when accessing a bank Web site. It then hides that data inside other normal data streams and makes it look like normal Internet traffic itself," which makes the original data difficult to detect and stop."

According to the network, Haystack clients connect to its servers, "which in turn talk to Web sites on behalf of our users." The group's motto is "Good luck finding that needle."

However, if Haystack's methods are compromised, users' communications would be secure.

Following Google's announcement last week that it may leave China, the Chinese government has fired back, calling Google's action a "corporate maneuver," paidContent reported.

According to a statement by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu, "there is no exception for Google" in observing China's laws and shouldering its social responsibilities, China Daily, a state-run publication, reported. "Foreign companies in China should respect the laws and regulations, respect the public interest of Chinese people and China's culture and customs and shoulder due social responsibilities."

However, Google calls China's laws "attempts ... to further limit free speech on the web," David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer of Google, stated in a Google blog post last week.

Ma stated that China's Internet is open, and will keep on creating a favourable investment environment for foreign businesses, including Internet companies, and to protect their legitimate rights.