Chinese 'netizens' near 300m mark

China's fast-growing internet population will soon hit 300 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Centre.

The country now has 298 million 'netizens', as its government likes to refer to them, a rise of over 40 per cent since the same period last year, the organisation said.

Last year China overtook the US in terms of online population to become the world's largest.

However, China's internet penetration is still low at just 22.6 per cent.

In the UK internet penetration is estimated at 68.6 per cent, or more than 41 million surfers, according to Internet World Stats. Only Germany, with 53 million users, has more people online in the EU.

The explosive growth in China's internet population comes amid a new government sanctioned crackdown on vulgar material.

Web companies have been warned to purge their sites of sexually explicit material or face sanctions.

This week Amnesty International had its site blocked to Chinese users.

www.internetworldstats.com
www.amnesty.org.uk