The Chinese government maintained a tight grip on news and discussion of the Egyptian president's dramatic downfall—an event that could send a subversive message to its own population—but some Internet users managed to evade censors to celebrate. "A victory for democracy!" wrote one anonymous Internet user from Henan in an online forum. "The trend of democracy is unstoppable! There is no exception for China!"
Beijing's sensitivity to coverage of the Egyptian uprising has spurred new questions about the prospects of U.S. social-networking services entering the country.
Protesters in Egypt had mobilized support using popular local websites and Facebook, a website blocked in China. It is the type of rebellion that Chinese authorities have long feared could challenge the Communist Party's monopoly on power.
On Sina Weibo and other Chinese Twitter-like micro-blogging services, discussions of the massive protests that brought down Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were partly hidden, with searches for "Egypt" returning messages saying results couldn't be found or couldn't be displayed, a mechanism commonly used by Chinese websites to comply with censorship orders.
For more: Egypt Comments Slip Past China's Web Police - WSJ.com
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