China Threatens Websites Offering ‘Porn Novels’

BEIJING—China has a shitload of official departments, agencies and bureaus that oversee seemingly every aspect of life in the country, including the nationwide campaign to snuff out pornography. One such department is the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), which is responsible for print, news and electronic publications.

Earlier this month, GAPP issued guidelines to regulate the e-book industry, and in the coming years will step up its oversight with detailed development plans, related standards and an approval system for industry participants.

“The GAPP guidelines outline the establishment of a multi-faceted approval and administrative system that will cover content creation, editing, publishing, online operations, data conversion issues, and other facets of operation within the e-book industry,” reported marbridgeconsulting.com.

But GAPP isn’t holding off on its regulation of novels made available over the internet. Tuesday, it announced that it will shutter 47 sites if they continue to make publicly available pornographic novels. A list of 122 domestic sites that make such material available was reportedly issued by GAPP in July, but it is unclear which of those, if any, are the 47, or whether all but 47 already took the offending content down.

This latest announcement is just another front in China’s aggressive campaign to remove porn content from domestic web and mobile networks, as well as make unavailable foreign porn sites and mobile sites offering porn. Some observers claim, however, that China is using porn as an excuse to perpetrate political censorship on digital platforms.