By Amy Qin @ NYTimes.com, June 9

BEIJING — Whether read openly and voraciously or behind closed doors, celebrity gossip plays an integral role in the entertainment world, connecting stars and the big businesses that back them to an audience eager for the juiciest of details.

But to some officials in China, the bloggers that report those tidbits play another role: a threat to public order.

A large number of Chinese “celebrity news” blogs have disappeared in recent days after coming under the scrutiny of China’s cyberspace regulators. Their absence comes amid a broader tightening of online and media controls ahead of a once-in-every-five-years meeting of top Communist Party leaders this year, at which party officials will consider major decisions about who will lead the country in the coming years.

At a meeting on Wednesday with representatives from China’s leading internet companies, officials from the Beijing bureau of the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s top online regulator, called on the companies to “actively promote socialist core values” and create a “healthy, uplifting environment for mainstream opinion” by combating vulgar and sensationalist coverage of celebrity scandals and lifestyles [....]