(Associated Press via NewsEdge) The number of Web journals in China has topped 34 million, an increase of more than 30 times from four years ago, Chinese news reports said.
Some 17.5 million people in China consider themselves blog writers, while 55 million regularly read them, newspapers and the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing a report by the government's China Internet Network Information Center.
Web logs are hugely popular in China, where the government controls all media and the Internet offers most people the only public forum for expressing opinions.
Most blogs, however, deal with pop culture, travel and family matters rather than political topics. But dozens of Internet essayists have been detained after posting political comments online.
China has the world's second-largest population of Internet users after the US, with 123 million people online.
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