BEIJING, CHINA — China’s dedication to keeping the minds of its citizens sanitized to hospital perfection continues – and has expanded beyond arrests for internet pornography offenses. Although the Xinhau news agency reports that 29 criminal cases for “vulgar” internet content have been prosecuted and 46,000 websites containing erotic and other “harmful” material have been ordered removed – 277 within 11 days — the battle for purity continues and expands.
While some arrests have focused on prostitution rings and video-chat service scams, the literally thousands of Chinese censors scouring the internet and beyond for unauthorized expressions of thought have also squashed political criticism and anything even vaguely resembling it, including the followers of Tai C’hi cult Falun Gong assembling in places and numbers larger than the government was comfortable with.
Xinhau gave voice to the government’s plan for increased surveillance and prosecutions, stating that “A principal of the Special Operation Office for the Crackdown on Online Porn and Lewd Content said the crackdown was not a flash in the pan and would be followed up with more activities.”
Some of those activities have included complaints directed at Google, MSN and Baidu, as well as other major mainstream sites that Beijing has not felt responded quickly enough to its demands for removal of content that offended its sensibilities. Wikipedia’s inclusion of topics such as the Dalai Lama and Falun Gong have earned it repeated blocking.
Although pundits expect to see efforts made to suppress online novels and radio programs, the next wave of censorship appears to be mobile telephones, which have been broadcasting too many amorous messages, if the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Culture and five other government offices are to be believed.
“We will incorporate ‘lewd’ messages spread via mobile phones into the crackdown,” a joint notice announced on Wednesday via Xinhua.
The government announced on January 5th that it would put special focus on its crackdown on those “violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people” during the month. The announcement came close on the heels of a Shanghai arrest of a woman who had recorded and posted video of herself having sex. Police estimate that tens of thousands of Chinese users searched for the video via Baidu.com, on of the country’s most popular search engines.
Chinese citizens are already banned from sending and receiving explicit mobile text and photo images, although how the government plans to police such transmissions is unknown.
The increased attacks against erotic content are expected to continue during the upcoming Chinese new year holiday and are believed to stem in part from the fact that the 20th anniversary of the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests (known officially as the “June 4th incident”) is fast approaching.
