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Earlier tonight, the Paley Center hosted a discussion about social media and digital activism with celebrated artist, architectural designer, activist and blogger Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and ReadWriteWeb's editor and founder Richard MacManus. The discussion touched upon a large variety of topics related to social media and digital activism in China, including translating Twitter into Chinese and Google's exit from the Chinese market.

Kaiser Kuo presented today at SXSW about Google in China. He spoke about how the Google situation will impact Chinese Internet users, other companies and the Chinese government.

In the presentation, Kuo (who also spoke to ReadWriteWeb a week ago) clarified how censorship in China works. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the Great Firewall that has the most impact in China - but something China calls "self-discipline." Kuo also discussed what the next moves will be from Google, since he believes that the ball is in Google's court and Beijing won't push the situation.

Reporters Without Borders released its annual report [PDF] on online access today. They call it Enemies of the Internet, and it shows a world where online censorship, intimidation and worse is increasing.

It's not surprising that as access to the Internet expands, more and more dictators and tyrants will try to suppress it. But what's troubling about this year's report is the inclusion of two democratic countries: Australia and South Korea.

Digital activism is defined by the newly launched Meta-Activism Project as "the practice of using digital technology for political and social change." One of the leaders in the field of digital activism is Mary Joyce, the founder and executive director of the Meta-Activism Project. Joyce is among the most knowledgeable and experienced digital activists in the world.

As a lead-up to the upcoming event in New York City with Chinese digital activist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and yours truly, I interviewed Mary Joyce about the strategies and success stories of digital activism.

The popularity of Twitter has produced a number of clones in China, just as there are Facebook clones. Some of China's Twitter clones have been closed down by the Chinese government, but some have survived. We take a look at both cases in this post. We also assess Twitter's chances of success in China, should it ever be freed from the 'Great Firewall of China.'

Fanfou, Jiwai and Digu were some of the first Twitter clones to become successful in China.

The leading social networking site in China, renren.com, started out as a blatant Facebook clone - but it now has tens of millions of users. Despite obvious similarities to Facebook, there is one significant difference from the U.S. in how Renren and other Chinese SNS are used. The bread and butter of these sites is social games using virtual items. Indeed, Farmville originated in China!

In this first post of a series, we outline the most popular social network sites in China. In follow-up posts, we'll look at Twitter clones, online video, and censorship. This series is based on a discussion I had with Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based expert on China's Internet.

In the West, the concept of the 'read/write Web' is a relatively easy one to get behind. Everybody can contribute content to the Web ('write'), as well as read it - it's a very democratic notion.

However in countries where democracy doesn't prevail, the read/write Web is often subject to censorship rules.

On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, and yours truly, Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell, the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City.

Italy today attacked the very basis of the read/write Web we focus on here at ReadWriteWeb when it convicted three of four Google employees on trial for failing to comply with the Italian privacy code. In essence, Italy just said that website owners are legally responsible for all content posted to their site, whether or not they have any part of it and comply with local laws once notified.

This sort of ruling attacks the foundation of the Internet as we use it today.

On January 12 Google claimed that hackers from China had attempted to break into its infrastructure, in order to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Because of those hacks, along with other malware attacks on Gmail accounts and ongoing concerns about the Chinese government limiting free speech on the Web, Google said in its blog that it was "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn" and that it would discuss with the Chinese government operating "an unfiltered search engine." If unsuccessful, Google said that it might close down or cut back its operations in China.

It's now over 6 weeks since Google's original blog post, but there are no signs that the company has stopped censoring its search results in China - let alone shut down Google.cn.

U.S. authorities have tracked down the hacker who wrote the code behind the attacks on Google last month.

The man is a freelance security consultant with ties to the Chinese government and military. The Chinese government had access to his work, although the man stated he "would rather not have uniformed guys looking over his shoulder, but there is no way anyone of his skill level can get away from that kind of thing," according to one analyst.

Yesterday I asked the question: does China really feel threatened by U.S. social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? As usual, I got an education in the comments to the post. While it's true that the Chinese government blocks Twitter, Facebook and all of the main American social media sites, several commenters pointed out they are blocked not because of their popularity (because they aren't, in fact, very popular in China), but due to their degree of freedom. In other words, the more open a social media service is, the more likely it will be blocked in China.

However, perhaps authoritarian governments shouldn't block social media - it may actually be helpful to them!

There's no doubting the impact of social media on our day-to-day lives in 2010. In the western world, most big brands have Facebook and Twitter accounts nowadays, many TV journalists "write a blog" about their beat every day, and services like YouTube are widely consumed. However it's the rise of social media as a tool for social activitism that has really brought these technologies to the fore. Sometime over the past year, it reached the point where some governments became threatened by social media and started cracking down on it. China has been the most high profile example recently.

But does the Chinese government really care about Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as much as we in the west think they do?

Last month, Google received high praise from human rights supporters after threatening to exit the Chinese search market, claiming it was no longer comfortable with censoring search results per government demands. But here it is a month later and Google has made no move to withdrawal its Chinese search operations, with censored results still appearing on Google's Chinese portal, Google.cn. In addition, the company may now be investing in a Chinese digital media company, as well. According to unconfirmed reports, the Internet giant is said to be a member of a Disney-led consortium looking to invest in a Chinese media and advertising company called Bus Online.

According to reports from China Daily, what is believed to be the largest illegal hacker training and recruitment entity in China has been shut down by police.

Three people were arrested and the equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars in assets frozen. The accused, who ran a now-shuttered site called Black Hawk Safety Net, are suspected of offering online attacking programs, disseminating viruses and recruiting almost 200,000 members. Police have confiscated nine servers and five computers and completely closed all associated websites.

While many large communities continue to chase ad revenue and subscription models, I can't help thinking the real money is in virtual currency and goods. Yesterday we featured an article about Beijing and the fact that TenCent (one of the country's most successful social networks) makes 90% of its revenue from virtual goods. With China alone representing a $4 billion dollar market, many are looking to gaming and virtual goods as the next emerging space.

It's Data Privacy Day and when it comes to generating privacy-related buzz in the blogosphere, there are few governments as controversial as China. From Google's recent security issues, to blocked social media sites to the proposed Green Dan censorship program, Western netizens have always had a tenuous relationship with China. As part of our Never Mind the Valley series, ReadWriteWeb spoke to several investors and entrepreneurs to find out what it's like to run a startup beyond what many describe as the "Great Firewall".

In the last quarter of 2009, a number of significant public speeches were made about Internet of Things in China. It started on August 7, when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made a speech in the city of Wuxi calling for the rapid development of Internet of Things technologies. It included this equation: Internet + Internet of Things = Wisdom of the Earth. Wen Jiabo followed up with a speech on November 3 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in which he encouraged breakthroughs in key technologies for sensor networks and the Internet of Things.

When was the last time you heard President Obama talking about Internet of Things? The Chinese Premier has made it a regular part of his speeches and interviews.

It looks like Microsoft has moved to the "sticks and stones" method for handling public relations gaffes. As we reported yesterday, France joined Germany in suggesting that its citizens switch from Internet Explorer to, well, anything else. Now, Microsoft's UK security chief, Cliff Evans, has responded by saying that switching to other browsers will only open you up to more security vulnerabilities than staying with Internet Explorer.

That's saying a lot for the browser implicated in the Great Google Caper of 2010 and we have multiple security experts who said a lot on why it just isn't true.

After years of trying to convince technologically inept relatives to stop using Internet Explorer, computer geeks worldwide may finally have something new to back up their words: the advice of the German and French governments.

The French government joined Germany today in recommending that its citizens switch to another browser in light of last week's admission by Microsoft that Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 all contained the same security vulnerability, in which "Internet Explorer can be caused to allow remote code execution."