When the first protests stirred in Tunisia, that was fine. But now that revolution has toppled over into Egypt and threatens to spill into the Middle East, China is clamping down. The river crabs are now censoring harmonizing Twitter-like microblogs by banning searches for Egypt and comments on the few news reports on the unrest.

The WSJ explains:

Internet censors, meanwhile, appear to have been working hard to ensure that China’s army of 457 million Internet users don’t provide any independent commentary on the events in Egypt—or comparisons to China.

Searches on Sunday for “Egypt” on microblog functions of Chinese Web portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com revealed only messages saying either that the results couldn’t be found, or couldn’t be displayed. “In accordance with the relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results could not be displayed,” said the response on Sina.com’s microblogging site, Sina Weibo.