By Bill Chappel, NPR
The Internet, as you may have noticed, just seems to keep on growing. But not in China — in fact, Chinese officials said that the country had 41 percent fewer sites at the end of 2010 than existed one year earlier — mostly the result of government restrictions.
Worldwide, there were a reported 255 million websites at the end of 2010. That number, drawn from research conducted by Royal Pingdom, reflects a yearly gain of 21.4 million sites.
As the BBC reports, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences isn't alarmed by the fact that China closed down 1.3 million websites in 2010. In fact, the trend "means our content is getting stronger, while our supervision is getting more strict and more regulated," said researcher Liu Ruisheng. He also maintained that Chinese Internet users enjoy freedom of speech.
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