CHINA — Chinese state television reported this week that the nation’s President, Hu Jintao, has initiated a campaign to cleanse the internet of “unhealthy” content and to use it as a means to promote Communist Party policy, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.“Development and administration of internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture [and] adhere to correct propaganda guidance,” stated a summary of a summary of a recent Chinese Politburo meeting read on a state television. “Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values.”
The Politburo also called for more Marxist education online and a consolidation of “the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere.”
The pronouncements of the Politburo are only the latest in a series of online content control measures enacted by the Chinese government, which has a long history of seeking to rein in the wide-open nature of the Web.
In January, Hu called for measures to “purify” the web, and earlier this month the government instituted a crackdown on internet porn and online “rumor spreading.”
Xinhua also reports that China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) indicated this week that it will “take action to stop pornographic websites from using banks’ settlement platforms and payment tools.”
Wen Haixing, director of the CBRC Department of Supervisory Rules and Regulations, said that the CBRC has prompted all Chinese banks to check for loopholes in their internal control mechanisms in order to prevent online adult businesses from conducting transactions surreptitiously through Chinese banking networks, according to Xinhua.
In a rare bit of good adult-related news for Chinese Web users, charges of “organizing pornographic activities” were recently dropped against a 36 year-old Chinese woman who was arrested for appearing nude online via webcam and organizing online chats for nudists.
Charges were dropped against the woman, identified only by her surname “Li,” because prosecutors from the district of Shijinshan determined that current Chinese pornography laws do not address chat rooms.
“Under existing laws, it is inappropriate to treat this as a criminal offence,” Xinhua quoted an unnamed Shijinshan prosecutor as saying.
The Chinese government has said that in addition to pornography and “rumor mongering,” its online crackdown will focus on political dissent, online lotteries, contraband, fraud, and slander.
