The Glorious People's Republic of China is about to be overthrown by tittle tattle, according to its ruling party. China's state-run news agency demanded ISPs regulators and police do more to cleanse websites of "toxic rumours."

The Chinese definition of “rumour” is anything which has not been submitted to a Chinese censorship committee, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. The Xinhua news agency's denunciation of Internet "rumor mongering" comes after a senior party official, Liu Qi, last week urged Sina Corp and other Chinese companies do more to staunch harmful hearsay among the 200 million or more Chinese who use Twitter.

"However, the rapid advance of this flood has also brought 'mud and sand' -- the spread of rumors -- and to nurture a healthy Internet, we must thoroughly eradicate the soil in which rumors grow," said a commentary from Xinhua. It said that concocting rumours was a social malady, and the spread of rumours across the Internet presents a massive social threat. Blogs and microblogs spark the "explosive" proliferation of falsehoods, the article said. (Glad to be of service. sub.ed.)