China's online population hits 450 million

BEIJING — China's number of Internet users — already the world's largest — has risen to 450 million this year, more than a third of the country's population. A senior Chinese official says that official statistics show that the new figure, as of the end of November, is an increase of 20.3 percent compared to last year. China's boom in Internet usage has come with the growth of an equally extensive policing system, from technical filters that block sites based on certain words to human monitors who scan bulletin boards and micro-blogging posts for political dissent. Wang Chen, head of China's State Council Information Office, says a yearlong government crackdown on pornography, violence and other harmful material has resulted in the shutdown of 60,000 websites. — AP