The Chinese weren’t kidding about a porn crackdown – the government’s Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Protectorate handed down new regulations taking effect September 7, saying that those making and sending porn on the Internet, cell phones, and other devices or operating telephone sex services will face punishment as heavy as life in prison.
And the more hits, the heavier the penalties, apparently. The state news agency Xinhua reported that adult Websites getting 250,000 or more clicks would be considered “very severe” crimes and good for life sentences with convictions.
China launched a nationwide porn crackdown in July, closing over 700 Websites in the first week and arresting 224 people in the same timeframe. Further shutdowns and arrests have been expected since, though no hard numbers updates have come forth yet.
In early August, the government expanded the crackdown to include a bar on 40,000 keywords and lists of banned Internet games related to sex, violence, gambling, superstition, and “other unhealthy content harming national security,” which when applied to China’s Communist regime could be taken as a euphemism for political censorship.
Later the same month, Chinese publishers under government influence launched a crackdown against porn in conventional publishing, with the China Publishing Group calling for and end to publishing materials it said “glorify one-night stands, cheating on spouses, and other living attitudes and manners that go against moral standards.”
Five days after that, the first known conviction under the overall porn crackdown came down. Wang Yanli, described as China’s “porn queen,” was convicted by a People’s Court in Jiangsu province of operating a live audiovisual erotic chat that included four-hour strip shows to a reported 110 members between December 2003 and February 2004.
