Reports from the net and Twitter this morning that as part of the three days of official earthquake mourning, scheduled to begin this afternoon at 2:28PM, many and perhaps most entertainment venues, websites and broadcasting are to shut down. For more on the online side of this, including a translation of the Anhui provincial government notice on this, see the Shanghaiist.

Total scope and implications are not yet clear. Much of the discussion on Twitter right now is concerned with how websites are likely to circumvent any ban or benefit from a more easily enforced television ban. But it might just be taking time for orders to ripple through the system and be implemented. A cinema website I looked at this morning didn't say anything. But in my apartment right now all Chinese channels are carrying news and all non-news foreign channels are blacked out. Of course, I can still watch some airhead on CNN talking about Indiana Jones, but I guess some entertainment was destined to slip through. YouTube is also blacked out. After much early back-and-forth, the Olympic torch relay will also be suspended for three days (understandable after BOCOG initially misread public sentiment on the issue badly).

A national mourning period is perfectly appropriate. I find the the possibility of a broad entertainment blackout a bit strange. Perhaps watching a vulgar sitcom is inappropriate under the circumstances, but Imagethief doesn't feel that people need to be prompted to mourn under the current circumstances. The flood of terrible photos of death and grief have pretty much ensured an appropriately sober national mood.

In a period of disaster the government is naturally preoccupied with its domestic audience, as it should be. However if the entertainment and Internet blackout turns out to be comprehensive, it could end a stretch during which international press coverage of China has been largely sympathetic and positive, with much discussion of the openness with which the quake has been covered. Exercising of government fiat over of a broad swathe of private business in the interest of enforcing a period of national mourning is the kind of thing that would remind everyone that, "Grandpa Wen" or not, the recent openness might have just been a brief honeymoon.

Update: China Daily, via Danwei (who also report that newspapers will use only black ink for the next three days): All "public amusements" are suspended for the next three days.

Also, the US Twitterati have picked up on the order via tweets from @markvanderchijs and @frankyu. Some of the comments on this Friendfeed thread are a big ignorant. H/T Jeremy Goldkorn.