BEIJING, CHINA — Between August and October, Chinese authorities will extend their efforts to sanitize the internet beyond the country’s borders, targeting foreign Web hosts, websites and payment processors.On Wednesday, the Ministry of Public Security announced an expanded smut crackdown that will involve nine government departments responsible for overseeing police, publicity, health, information technology, banking and media. The effort will target pornography hosted abroad, websites that promote prostitution and “fake porn” sites that offer explicit content to randy Chinese surfers but then fail to deliver.
In addition, authorities will pursue porn delivered to cell phones via any medium, any organization or individual who advertises on porn websites, service providers who offer offshore hosting for websites owned by Chinese citizens, e-tailers who offer adult products, social-networking sites that link to porn, search engines that fail to filter pornography, domain-name registrars that provide incorrect information about domain owners, telecom companies that do not keep logs of all activity, and companies at home and abroad that provide financial processing services to any officially unapproved category of Web content.
“During the move, we will not only aim to target serious online porn crimes but also cut the chain that implicates service providers, advertising firms and third-party payment providers,” the ministry noted in an official statement.
On January 1st, China’s Culture Ministry began a campaign to eradicate from the Web pornography and speech critical of official policy. Dozens of people have been “detained” following accusations they were involved with the production or distribution of virtual smut. Observers believe the Web-sanitization efforts are preparation for presenting a positive image of the country’s culture during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Communist rule, which occurs in October.
Earlier this week, authorities imposed an additional ban on video games that promote drug use, obscenities, gambling or crimes such as rape, vandalism and theft.
