SHANGHAI, CHINA – The English-language version of the Chinese government-sponsored online newspaper People’s Daily Online briefly featured over a dozen links “promoting pornographic and explicit content” last week, according to the Interfax news service and other sources.A screenshot posted on the political blog ZonaEuropa.com on August 8th shows that the links included descriptive text and user names like “pregnant pussy,” “fat sex,” “preggo,” “teen lesbians,” “drunk college girls,” “blowjob,” “women peeing,” “teen girls,” and “sex toys.”

The links showed up under “Recent Posts” in the site’s “Online Community” section.

While the text of some links was sexually explicit, according to Interfax, clicking the links did not deliver users to porn websites, instead redirecting surfers to content that is permissible under China’s strict content regulations.

An official from the People’s Daily chief editing office told Interfax “Obviously this was not something done by our department.”

The official, who supplied Interfax with only his surname, “Wang,” said that it was “possible we could be the victim of a hacker,” and that the editors would “look into this further and have more information later.”

Other observers doubt the links were placed by means of an elaborate hack.

Polish blogger “Sinodrom,” after researching the incident, emailed ZonaEuropa.com the following conclusion: “This wasn’t a hacker’s attack. It was plain spam!”

“The guest book is based on a very, very lousy script,” adds Sinodrom, “and has no moderation whatsoever.”

The screen capture of the links can be viewed at the following URL: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060808_1.htm