I work in a Chinese popular site (douban.com) and I have to say that you are wrong.
There is some limited damage control tools, but Chinese sites and Chinese internet as a whole are far from totally controlled by the government. Quite the opposite actually: internet memes and rumors are spreading like bush fire and local and central government have very hard time playing firemen, and there is no week without its new scandal or revelations.
Douban is nowhere near as large or influential as, say, Weibo. Sensational topics discussed on Douban may spread, but their spheres of influence are restricted to the cyberspace, or remain within the confines of its demographic group, the young men and women who generally do not have a voice in a society defined by filial piety.
Popular social networking site like Weibo, on the other hand, has a very tight grasp on what can and cannot be posted on its pages. Weibo's users consists of people from all walks of life, from corporate CEOs to devote followers to the new party chairman. Unlike Douban, sensational topics posted on Weibo can sway public opinions and cause social tensions, and sometimes even press for policy changes in local governments, which is why it is being utilized by CCTV as part of its campaign against Apple in the first place.
And it's not just the government taking control of the Chinese Internet, it's that sites self-censor heavily, or else they risk of being shut down by the government without any prior notice (see the whole Yanhuang Chunqiu debacle from earlier this year). Publishing houses do the same - they are not directly forced by the government to censor stuff, but they have to do it themselves or they get shut down. (though I hear the self-censorship's been loosening up a bit - the new book written by Ezra Feivel Vogel about Deng Xiaoping's policies was recently released in mainland China and in it some passages about the Tiananmen Square incident remained intact, though still heavily-edited.)
Douban also suffers from self-censorship. Brad Pitt's Seven Years in Tibet does not have an entry on the site; Richard Gere's Red Corner used to have an entry, but it did not allow comments, and was recently removed; Lou Ye's Summer Palace also used to have an entry and got removed. (I'm just bitter that I can't add all the movies I've seen to my collection on Douban, because of the permanently-missing entries.)
I agree that a topic must be echoed on Weibo to become "sensational" but many of these topics started in Douban or other less noisy places.
> [Weibo has a] very tight grasp on what can and cannot be posted
There are automated filters, which are easy to circumvent, and human censors, who are not fast enough in many cases. And there is a fluctuent red-line that most influencial posters know and play with. I think the beast is now becoming stronger than its tamer. Which means either it will be shot in the head (shut down), which would trigger a gigantic turnmoil(#), or society and government will adapt to this new social force.
(#) turnmoil is what the government is trying to avoid, so turning off Weibo would be a medication worse than the illness.
1. You need a license from the government to run a web server
2. You need a chinese ID # to sign up for Weibo
3. QQ, Weixin, Weibo, RenRen, etc censor massive amounts of content at the whim of the government
4. The great firewall is getting smarter about detecting and blocking VPN connections, and VPN operators in China must be specifically licensed by the government
I can list more, but I think these alone paint a pretty convincing picture that 'totally controlled by China's gov' is closer to true than false.
But in English and in normal discussions, "totally" means "in totality", or "in the sum and all its parts". Related totalitarism means "control of every part of people's life". We need not to look very far to see an example of a "totally gov-controled internet": North Korea is just like that.
But China is not. The sheer number of posts by minute means it cannot be realistically "totally controlled", because automatic filters are easy to circumvent, and human filters are not fast enough. A simple rumour of ex-ex-president Jiang's death would spread like fire and no deleting can stop it. The only way to stop that would be to shut down internet, and /this/ would push everyone in the streets.
What I mean is that the Chinese Internet is now a heavyweight social force that is already out of Chinese government control (or anyone else, for that matter). They have to live with it, and adapt themselves.
You're under radar and they haven't needed to knock on your door yet, so far. When they do let us know...if you can.