Internet controls are handled in China by a dizzying array of party and government bodies. Most important are the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department, the supreme body enforcing “propaganda discipline” (or the party line) for Chinese media, and the Information Office of the State Council (SCIO). Of these two, the SCIO is the most active agent of controls for the Internet, and its Internet Affairs Office regularly sends out directives to online news sites about sensitive content.
The term “Ministry of Truth” — a reference to the department mentioned in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where speech is subjected to all-encompassing control by Big Brother, the totalitarian leader of the fictional Oceania — is now frequently used by Chinese journalists and Internet writers to refer collectively to the Central Propaganda Department, the Internet Affairs Office of the SCIO and all other subordinate bodies involved in propaganda controls.