China's largest technology firms have called for Beijing to increase its censorship of online social media.

Apparently all of China's internet companies and operators have reached a "common agreement" to curb the spread of rumours online, online pornography, internet fraud "and the illegal spread of harmful information on the internet". Beijing is worried about the growth in microblogs, called "weibo" in Chinese and the potential which they have to tear at the seams of government censorship and controls.

But fortunately for them the ISPs have all rallied in support. Of course some of the technology companies have a vested interest in such things. These will be the security companies which have to develop the technology which will sniff out all the “bad stuff”.

But others do not want the Government bringing in rules which will be harder to comply with than any voluntary agreements.