Crackdown
A massive new crackdown on the Internet in China has started and it is targeting some of the major websites including Baidu, which has much of the search engine market, and runner-up Google.
State television reported that China’s Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies announced the campaign at a meeting on Monday. That report was accompanied by videos of officials hauling digital equipment away from one unidentified office.
The meeting ‘decided to launch a nationwide campaign to clean up a vulgar current on the Internet and named and exposed a large number of violating public morality and harming the physical and mental health of youth and young people.’
It further said that 19 Internet operators and websites named had failed to swiftly cut ‘vulgar’ content and had not heeded warnings from censors.
Interesting that both Baidu and Google, when contacted, said they knew nothing about it.
According to a report on an official website, Cai Mingzhao, a deputy chief of the State Council Information Office, who chaired the meeting, said, ‘Some websites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations. They have used all kinds of ways to distribute content that is low-class, crude and even vulgar, gravely damaging mores on the Internet.’
He told officials to ‘fully grasp the gravity and threat of the vulgar current infesting the Internet’ and said law-breakers face ‘stern punishment.’
Source: Reuters
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