February 2, 2010 - SOUTH Australia has become one of the few states in the world to restrict the internet under laws created by Attorney-General Michael Atkinson..

The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires internet bloggers, and anyone making a comment on next month's state election, to publish their real name and postcode when commenting on the poll.

The law will affect anyone posting a comment on an election story on The Advertiser's AdelaideNow website, as well as other news sites such as The Punch, the ABC's The Drum and Fairfax newspapers' National Times site.

It also appears to apply to election comment made on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

US President Barack Obama asked China to abandon the so-called practice of “internet censorship” during his China trip last month, calling for the freedom of expression and non-censored internet.

However, internet censorship is far from an issue of black and white. Even in Obama’s own country, whether to censor the internet or not is under intense debate.

Two federal laws intended to censor offensive online content were passed at the turn of this millennium, while four states -- New York, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia have passed Internet censorship legislation restricting/banning online distribution of material deemed "harmful to minors" since 1996.

By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO and GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Access to GoogleInc.'s YouTube service was blocked by Chinese authorities, as the video-sharing site continues to wrestle with governments offended by some of its content.

A YouTube spokesman said as of Tuesday evening it hadn't been contacted by the Chinese government and was working to restore the service, which had been disrupted for more than 24 hours.

The site has been temporarily censored in at least a dozen countries, according to YouTube, including Turkey, where a ban remains in effect. Such incidents are buffeting YouTube's attempts to expand into new markets, particularly China, home to the world's largest number of Internet users—nearly 300 million, according to the government.

YouTube faces stiff competition in China from domestic video-sharing sites such as Tudou.com, which are less likely to get blocked in their entirety because they restrict political or racy content that might draw fire from the government.