Fuzheado, Andrew Lih in Beijing, just told me over on Twitter that Chinese Web sites have been ordered to shut down in memory of the quake victims. He then Tweeted a link to the official edict.

This is why I’ll fight to the death to protect our freedom of speech. Already we’re talking a lot about this over here.

My wife remembers the day her parents decided to send her out of Iran. It was when a bunch of soldiers saw her laughing on the street when she was 13 or so. They came up to her and said “why are you laughing at a time like this?” (It was during the Iran/Iraq war).

Government control of its people starts with how it treats its media.

UPDATE: read the comments here. These sites are only entertainment ones and the edict doesn’t seem to be as stern as first reported on Twitter. It’ll be interesting to watch this story evolve over time.