Since 2005, Internet access in the People’s Republic of China has become increasingly filtered and censored, a trend that will soon extend beyond traditional news sites and blogs and into the realm of Internet video. Beginning on January 31, a new set of regulations will go into effect, banning all web video content from broadcasting “politically or morally objectionable content” and requiring video-hosting sites to obtain a permit from the Chinese government. “Those who provide internet video services should insist on serving the people, serve socialism…and abide by the moral code of socialism,” the new law warns.

It’s difficult to tell exactly what the new regulations will mean for non-Chinese-owned video-hosting sites like YouTube and MySpace (and Fresh Cut) though; it’s possible that they will be banned outright, but the new laws may simply serve to pressure those sites into self-censorship. Part of the difficulty stems from the government’s inability to filter “subversive” or anti-Beijing video content in the same way that text filters work, so it’s likely that the government will coerce website operators into censoring users themselves. A recent article in Forbes speculates that video-hosting sites will be forced into compromising positions of self-censorship, like MySpace China:

The site has been criticized by bloggers for demanding that users report one another when they spot posts with objectionable political content. Its terms of service prohibit members from discussions that would “leak state secrets or undermine the government,” or “spread rumors and disturb the social order.” MySpace China, however, hosts no video.

Last fall, Yahoo! faced several lawsuits from human rights organizations after handing email records over to the Chinese government that served to jail a “cyber-dissident,” and other sites could soon find themselves on similarly uncertain moral footing. In addition to hosting some of the word’s tightest internet regulations, China also boasts the world’s largest prison population of cyber-dissidents, with 50 currently detained, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Censorship in China by Webel