Defensive no more about its censorship record, China is trumpeting its vision of “Internet sovereignty” as a model for the world and is moving to make it a legal reality at home. At the same time — confounding Western skeptics — the Internet is nonetheless thriving in China, with nearly 700 million users, putting almost 1 in 4 of the world’s online population behind the Great Firewall.

Facebook's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg met China's propaganda tsar Liu Yunshan in Beijing on Saturday (March 19) as part of a charm offensive in one of the few markets where the social network cannot be accessed. The rare meeting [...] suggests warming relations between Facebook and the Chinese government, even as Beijing steps up censorship of and control over the Internet.

Freshly elected Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen disappeared from China's most popular social network on Saturday (Jan 16), with censors working swiftly to block any mention of the Beijing-wary politician as she stormed to victory on the island.

China has announced plans to tighten its Internet controls even further beginning next month. The announcement and other tightening measures comes at a time when the reach of social media continues to expand.

Western media observers have been alarmed by the series of Russian laws passed that give the Kremlin an increased ability to police the Internet. For liberal Russians, and bloggers in particular, the newest limitations are just the latest part of a disturbing trend of new restrictions on Internet media that, not coincidentally, began when Vladimir Putin retook the presidency in 2012.

Numerous reports indicate that Iranian authorities restrict access to thousands of American and European websites, particularly those of international news sources, and even throttle down Internet connections to limit the ability of Iranians to surf the rest of the Web. Here at the Voice of America Persian Service, we are familiar with this situation firsthand.