The rulers of the Glorious People’s Republic of China's are claiming a victory in its campaign against online rumours. Critics say the campaign is crushing free speech, but a top official has said that it was highly successful in "cleaning" the Internet.

In a rare public appearance, Ren Xianliang, vice minister of the State Internet Information Office, emphasized China's commitment to scrubbing the web of content it deemed critical or offensive. "The fight against rumours has received a positive response and has been quite effective," he said. He didn’t say who was positive about it.

"The Internet has become clean. The frequency of slander has declined, but it has not impacted the orderly flow of information."

He promised that China will work to strengthen regulation of the internet by training local internet regulators and net companies and further "manage" search and microblogs as well as Tencent's popular WeChat app.