China announces anti-porn Internet campaign

 BEIJING (Reuters) - China has launched its latest campaign against Internet pornography that will also take aim at fraud, illegal lotteries and "rumour-spreading", the official Xinhua news agency said.

"The boom of pornographic content on the Internet has contaminated cyberspace and perverted China's young minds," it quoted Zhang Xinfeng, vice-minister of public security, as saying in a late night report.

"The inflow of pornographic materials from abroad and lax domestic control are to blame for the existing problems in China's cyberspace," Zhang said.

The campaign will crack down on "distributing pornographic materials and organising cyber strip shows, and purge the Web of sexually explicit images, stories, and audio and video clips," it added.

Zhang said they will target "content that spreads rumours and is of a slanderous nature" as well, though he did not provide details.

"China has roughly 123 million Internet users, most of whom are young people. The Chinese government believes they need to be protected from negative online influences," Xinhua said.

Last November a Chinese court sentenced the founder of the country's largest pornography Web site to life imprisonment.

Pornography was among the vices nearly wiped out in China under the strict and puritanical rule of Mao Zedong. But since economic reforms began and social controls have loosened, it has become more readily available.

China has an army of cyber police who patrol the Internet for unfavourable content, but their targets are more often politically sensitive subjects than pornography.

© Reuters