China Ramps Up Web Porn Crackdown

BEIJING—China's online porn crackdown is ramping up to target website operators within the nation.

According to state-run news agency Xinhua, the Ministry of Public Security announced Thursday that operations will heat up between August and October, conducted by nine government and Communist Party departments. The crackdown will include coordinated investigations and arrests involving law enforcement, national publicity, health, information technology, banking, and radio, film and television.

The government will seek out porn-site operators that use foreign servers and do business inside China, including sites that feature porn performances and prostitution, as well as fake porn websites that cheat prospective subscribers.

The agencies will also go after sites delivering porn content through WAP services to cell phones, organizations and individuals who advertise on porn sites, and companies that provide online payment services to such websites, reports Bernama.

Plans call for the crackdown to extend to service providers who provide overseas servers for domestic porn websites, adult product retail websites, and social video websites that link to porn websites.

Additionally, search engines that do not filter porn will also come under fire.

"During the move, we will not only aim to target serious online porn crimes but also cut the chain that implicates service providers, advertising firms and third-party payment providers," the ministry said.

This is just the latest government action in China's ongoing porn purge, which began early this year. For more, view the AVN.com news archives.