TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Online Porn Merchants Dodge Internet Dragnet


Online Porn Merchants Dodge Internet Dragnet


Reuters News Wire (reuters@telecom-digest.org)
Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:47:26 -0500

China's Internet police have claimed tangible results in the "people's
war" against online pornography with the help of tip-offs, but they only
scratched the surface, state media reported on Tuesday.

A month-long crackdown against online porn sponsored by 10 ministries
had shut down 300 Web sites and deleted 10,200 links to pornographic
Web sites and 10,000 online "porn games," the China Daily said, citing
the Ministry of Public Security.

"Determined to protect their huge profits, porn distributors will do
anything to avoid detection," the paper quoted Li Baozhong, an
official with the General Administration of Press and Publication, as
saying.

"They are becoming more and more insidious," Li said.

In April, Chinese President Hu Jintao launched a campaign to rid the
country's unruly Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a
platform for Communist Party doctrine.

China's burgeoning Internet population reached 137 million in 2006, up
23 percent on the year before.

But despite a vast system of filters and tens of thousands of Internet
monitors employed to wipe out salacious content and ideas contrary to
Communist ideology, pornography remains prevalent in Chinese
cyberspace.

"It is a constant battle to uncover the latest tricks," Li said,
adding that the country's banking regulator had been recruited to cut
off porn operators' funding channels.

Li said a new system regulating Internet content and limiting the
amount of time the nation's youth could spend online was expected to
be launched next month.

China in April released a string of regulations aimed at curbing
excessive online-game playing to curb Internet addiction in the
nation's youth, including a real name and identity registration
system, but within weeks, newspapers had printed articles about the
ease of subverting the regime.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.

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