The Chinese government is trying to encourage "healthy and civilized" news on the Internet.

An excerpt from the AP story on Yahoo! News:

China is imposing new regulations to control content on its news Web sites, the government said Sunday, another step in its ongoing effort to police a rapidly expanding Internet population.

The rules, issued by the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Council, China's cabinet, will "standardize the management of news and information" in the country, the official Xinhua News Agency said. They take effect immediately, it said.

The report did not give any details on the regulations but said sites should only post news on current events and politics. It did not define what would be acceptable under those categories.

Only "healthy and civilized news and information that is beneficial to the improvement of the quality of the nation, beneficial to its economic development and conducive to social progress" will be allowed, Xinhua said.

It added: "The sites are prohibited from spreading news and information that goes against state security and public interest."

This was a bit disturbing:

Earlier this month, a French media watchdog group said e-mail account information provided by Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc.  helped lead to the conviction and 10-year prison sentence of a Chinese journalist who had written about media restrictions in an e-mail.

The NYT also reported on this development.