In a regular series, Mobile World Live‘s Asia Editor Joseph Waring provides a regional roundup of news snippets:

China shuts down 50 websites
The Chinese government has shut down almost 50 websites and social media accounts over the past two months in a move to crack down on what it deems illegal content such as unauthorised political news and pornography.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) closed 17 WeChat (or Weixin in Chinese) pages, 24 websites and nine online channels, state-run news agency Xinhau said. CAC said the offending information also included fake government and media pages, and sites about gambling and fraud.

Smart offers unlimited Twitter during Pope’s visit
In the latest tit-for-tat battle to attract data customers by offering free internet access in the Philippines, Smart Communications will offer unlimited access to Twitter during the Pope’s four-day visit, which starts tomorrow.

The offer will be extended to all 69 million prepaid and postpaid subscribers of Smart, Sun Cellular and Talk ‘N Text. The company said customers need to maintain a load balance of at least 1 peso per day or subscribe to any plan, promo or bundle to take up the free offer.

Samsung ranked 2nd in US patents for nine years
Samsung has registered the second highest number of patents in the US for nine years straight. Last year it had 4,952 registrations, up 6 per cent from 2013.

IBM was number one with 7,534. Canon and Sony were ranked third and fourth, followed by Microsoft, Toshiba, Qualcomm and Google. LG Electronics was ranked ninth with 2,122, moving into the top ten for the first time. Panasonic was tenth.

Chunghwa faces Greenpeace protest
Chunghwa Telecom said it is considering legal action against Greenpeace for its unannounced protest at the construction site of its internet data centre yesterday.

The operator said it regrets Greenpeace’s “disregard for personal safety when it proceeded to trespass on private property”, the China Post reported.

Greenpeace called for the operator to commit to using 100 per cent renewable energy in the future. It has also called on Acer, Asus, Taiwan Mobile and Google to convert to renewable energy sources.

The Post said Chunghwa used 1.4 billion kilowatts last year, the majority of which was generated from coal-fired plants.