Chinese police have claimed that thousands of people were nabbed for indulging in Web pornography in the year 2009 alone, and says it will further toughen its stand on Internet pornography and continue to crack the whip.
China’s love-hate relationship with the Web
China is known to have the most stringent policy on the use of cyberspace and blocking undesirable content on the Internet.
The Chinese government has also darted an extremely publicized drive against what it perceives as outlawed, smutty, and lewd pictures. The officials said that abundance of such content was ‘threatening the emotional health of children’.
A statement issued on ‘purification of the internet’ issued by China’s Ministry of Public Security said, "Lewd and pornographic content seriously pollutes the online environment, depraves social morals and poisons the physical and psychological health of the masses of young people. It must be firmly controlled.”
Late on Thursday, Chinese police said there was fourfold increase in the number of arrests and investigations in the cases of Internet pornography compared to 2008. In 2009, 5,394 arrests were made and 4,186 criminal case investigations done for Internet pornography alone and nearly 9,000 porn websites were deleted from the Internet.
However, the officials refrained from commenting on what actions were taken after these 5,394 arrests were made. How many of them were later charged, released, or prosecuted is not known.
Chinese officials have warned of intensifying the crackdown in 2010. These will include stringent punishments for illegal Internet maneuvers, beefing up information monitoring, and compelling service providers to implement preventive technology.
The statement further said, “The police would intensify punishments for Internet operations that violate laws and regulations, strengthen monitoring of information and press Internet service providers to put in place preventive technology."
Ulterior motive behind pornography drive?
However, critics are of the opinion that crackdown on Internet pornography is a ploy to tighten overall censorship.
Many websites that contain politically sensitive information or simple user-generated content have also been meshed in this anti-pornography drive. This has been perceived by some as government’s way of exercising control over new media.
China’s efforts to get rid of frowned–upon content available on the Internet are not new. In the past, social networking and user-generated content sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been banned.
However, Internet freaks have also worked their ways around to obtain access to these banned websites. Nevertheless, China has always successfully convinced independent companies to comply with its censorship initiatives.
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