China Censors 60,000 Porn Sites, 5,000 Arrested

lothos writes with news that China has arrested thousands more people and shuttered 60,000 websites in an ongoing anti-pornography crackdown. "Wang Chen, director of the Information Office of the State Council, said at a news conference that some 350 million pieces of pornographic and indecent internet content were eliminated, according to the Xinhua report. The government launched a special campaign a year ago to rid the internet of pornographic and vulgar content, Xinhua reported. Overall, the campaign included 2,197 criminal cases involving 4,965 people who violated Chinese law by disseminating pornography via the internet or mobile phones, the news agency said. Of those, 58 people received prison sentences exceeding five years."

welcome to china

[wan9xu]

where government officials can openly keep harems but citizens can't even watch porn.

Re:welcome to china

[couchslug]

I find it odd that the ChiCom government should CARE about porn.

Any insights on that one?

Let the citizens fap in peace and they won't rebel, while profiteering from said fappage could enrich the oligarchy.

Re:There is no left or right

[donscarletti]

...about some Italian detective/cop, and suddenly the young daughter walks into the room, topless, and sits there for five minutes. Nobody reacted.

Now, I am not reacting to say that this is harmful or degrading or whatever. But seriously, that is tacky, just plain tacky. They know that that scene was not gripping, so they put in a contrived pair of tits to keep the average punters interested. Honestly, in European films I have seen, particularly Italian, gratuitous nudity does coincide with a lull in the pacing that needed something to fill it, where Michael Bay would make a helicopter explode. Nice side effect of censorship is that it forces film-makers to try something new, rather than the tried and true chestnuts of violence, sex and obscenity that always work if you just use a little more than last time. Not that a bit of violence, sex and obscenity isn't good, but it is good to create legal and social forces to encourage other, more difficult things to be tried.

Re:welcome to china

[SanityInAnarchy]

The other difference is that here, at least the laws aren't as totalitarian. I'd rather have politicians who dishonestly slap me from time to time (then claim they didn't) than politicians who rape me openly.

Re:There is no left or right

[MBGMorden]

Not that a bit of violence, sex and obscenity isn't good, but it is good to create legal and social forces to encourage other, more difficult things to be tried.

Why do we as a people need legal or social "forces" to change what we want to see? If the world's culture wants to be about tits and explosions, then it's not up to some pompous prude in an office to dictate that this is somehow "wrong". Let people do what they darned well please.

Re:welcome to china

[TarPitt]

Relevant quote from 1984:

With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness. Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party's sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party's control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way she put it was:

'When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simpIy sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?'

Re:welcome to china

[Anonymous Coward]

> Most congress-critters are fine, upstanding people; their biggest problem is putting up with the American people

Awww. that's so cute! Did Santa bring you that belief in magic?

Politicians don't get into office unless they are desperately hungry for power. Everyone else who isn't gets raped by the people who are.

Politicians live to serve themselves and their biggest contributors. If you ain't paying the bills, you are nothing to them except the annoying thing they have to dupe into voting for them every now and again.

If you believe otherwise, I have a great bridge to nowhere you may be interested in buying.