China has decided to take action against the widespread pornography on the Internet and has shut down six web sites deemed to have "unhealthy content". 'Beijing News' reported on Friday that among the six sites were names like 'www.ysdm.com' and 'www.xf13.net.'
The report said that operators of two other websites have been warned to clean up their act or suffer a similar fate. Internet authorities have increased the supervision of websites in China and a proposal to operate 'civilized' Internet websites was whole-heartedly welcomed in April by fourteen major websites in Beijing. China has 700,000 websites, with over 25,000 added on each year.
With 100 million Internet users the Chinese government is strictly policing the Net. The Chinese government had instituted a massive campaign against porn in early 2004 and last year 11 people were jailed for 12 years for running an obscene website in what is the biggest anti-porn arrest in the country to date. The government feels that porn is exerting a negative influence on the youth in the society.
Chinese regulation of the Internet has come under heavy fire as it had arrested a journalist on charges of spreading subversive activities via the Net. Internet firms like Yahoo and Google were heavily criticized for their compliance with Chinese government in such matters.
