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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Monkey

China hopes to drive traffic away from Ferrari users

China social network site
The Great Firewall: slamming the breaks on social networking. Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters

China has banned the F-word from the country's biggest social networking sites, reports the Times. Yep, that's right: censors responsible for upholding the Great Firewall have moved to block mentions of the word "Ferrari" on a range of websites. Conspiracy theorists are pointing to an accident involving a Ferrari F430 at 4am on Sunday morning. Apparently the crash, which killed the young driver, may have been the son of a senior Communist party official. China has banned a number of words and phrases including "64" (the month and day of the Tiananmen Square crackdown) "iodised salt" (to prevent rumours it could prevent radiation poisioning after Japan's nuclear disaster) and "love potions" (regarded as "too permissive" by censors).

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