China shuts down porn sites
2009-01-21 22:32
Beijing - China has extended a crackdown on electronic porn to the country's cellphones, after shutting down 1 250 websites because of their explicit content, the official Xinhua agency said on Wednesday.
"We will incorporate 'lewd' messages spread via cellphones into the crackdown," the report quoted a joint notice from the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Culture and five other government offices saying.
China promised last week that the campaign, which was launched in early January, will be no "flash in the pan".
Over 40 people have been detained for disseminating porn on the internet, and over 3 million "items of online information" have been deleted, the report said.
Google, Baidu and other major websites have also been given a public dressing down for not being quick enough to wipe out targeted content, and outspoken blogging portals shut down for posting "politically harmful information".
The internet crackdown has been described by analysts as another step in the Communist Party's battle to stifle dissent in a year of sensitive anniversaries, including the 20th anniversary of the government's bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.