China shuts down 60,000 porn sites and arrests 5,000 people
China has shut down more than 60,000 pornographic websites this year and arrested 5,000 people as it steps up a campaign against obscene material. Beijing has run a highly publicised drive against lewd online content which it claims is overwhelming the country’s internet and mobile phones and threatening the emotional health of children. Critics have accused the Chinese government of deepening the crackdown, launched last December, and said censorship had blocked many sites with politically sensitive or even user-generated content.
The government checked the content of 1.79million websites and deleted 350million pornographic and lewd articles, pictures and video footage. With an estimated 450million internet users – more than a third of the country’s population – China has a bigger online population than any other country. It has blocked a number of popular websites, including Google’s YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, as well as Chinese content sharing sites.
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