Ryan Pyle Blog: Internet Porn Crackdown

Hello.

China continues to wage war against the internet. Recent reports indicated that some 5,394 people have been arrested in an Internet Porn Crackdown. This latest round of arrests is, apparently, an effort to protect the emotional health of children.

I find this strange given the fact that I can walk about 20 meters from my house (in a nice part of town) and find a massage parlor offering prostitution, and 90% of the hotels I stay in when I travel in China pester me with phone calls at 10pm asking me if I'd like some sex for the evening. With AIDs running rampant and the divorce rate well above 50%, I'm glad the government focusing on internet porn. God knows it would be embarrassing if someone wrote an article claiming that prostitution is the largest profession amongst Chinese women.

In any event, the 5,394 arrests represents a 400% increase over the number of arrests in 2008. Clearly a message by the ever-powerful to play by the rules. And what are the rules? Well, that's a good question. Seems that a whole bunch of bloggers got caught up in the mix and porn is becoming a scapegoat for arresting anyone doing anything the government doesn't like online; like blogging about politics for example.

Maybe I'll get arrested for distributing internet porn over my blog, but instead of actual porn it'll just be pictures of young Chinese males (fully clothed) using computers, see above, and some highly opinionated text.

As China is set to become the world's largest economy sometime in the next 20 years, somewhere, somehow the world has to ask itself; are we really prepared to play by China's rules when they start dictating global policy? China's war on the internet is already going global as China as demanded that all international and domestic websites that wish to be viewed in China must register first with the Propaganda department, or else risk being blocked. Upwards and onwards.

I've got a front row seat to China's war on the internet. Exciting times.
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Copywrite: Reuters: LINK: CLICK HERE

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police arrested thousands in a drive against Internet pornography throughout 2009, officials said, vowing a deepening crackdown that critics say is being used to tighten overall censorship.

The Chinese government has run a highly publicised campaign against what officials said were banned smutty and lewd pictures overwhelming the country's Internet and threatening the emotional health of children.

Chinese police said late on Thursday the crackdown on Internet pornography had brought 5,394 arrests and 4,186 criminal case investigations in 2009 -- a fourfold increase in the number of such cases compared with 2008.

The announcement on the Ministry of Public Security's website (www.mps.gov.cn) said the drive would deepen in 2010.

Police would "intensify punishments for Internet operations that violate laws and regulations", said the statement from the ministry's Internet security section.

"Strengthen monitoring of information," it urged, "Press Internet service providers to put in place preventive technology."

With an estimated 360 million Internet users, China has a bigger online population than any other country. But the ruling Communist Party worries the Internet could become a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.

The ministry did not say how many of the 5,394 suspects arrested were later charged, released or prosecuted.

The anti-pornography drive has also netted many sites with politically sensitive or even simply user-generated content, in what some see as an effort by the government to reassert control over new media.

China has banned a number of popular websites and Internet services, including Google's Youtube, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, as well as Chinese content sharing sites.
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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