Porn peddlers go mobile

The government has effectively reduced the obscene content in the country"s Internet sphere, but porn profiteers have countered by moving their virtual stores to mobile phone services.

　
　

Chinese media, including official voices such as CCTV and People"s Daily, are championing a new campaign against so-called mobile pornography, targeting mobile phone operators who have diminished the impact of the government"s crackdown.

　
　

People"s Daily reported yesterday that the Anti-Porn and Illegal Publication Office announced Tuesday the launch of a nationwide crackdown on mobile porn content to "protect the mental and physical health of young people."

　
　

"The Ministry of Public Security and relevant departments have been dealing with (the proliferation of) porn websites in phone services since earlier this year, but why hasn"t it ended?" the paper asked.

　
　

Like the People"s Daily report, CCTV, China Youth Daily and other media across the country have also been exposing the surge in mobile pornography, pointing their fingers at the biggest mobile carriers.

　
　

According to Wednesday"s CCTV report, for every 2 yuan (about $0.30) a WAP (wireless application protocol) website charges for a porn download, the website may get 1 yuan, and the mobile operators and service providers split the rest.

　
　

The mobile operators were quick to respond to the media storm. Ma Li, a spokesman for China Mobile, said the company started inspecting its members" alleged breach of rules following the media reports, vowing to terminate such services, China National Radio reported Wednesday.

　
　

China Unicom also said it would punish anyone who offers connection services to pornographic websites, reports said.

　
　

However, a senior employee with Chongqing Unicom, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it is common practice for mobile operators to allow content providers who offer pornography.

　
　

"Mobile operators" tight control on service providers, which often depend on porn to woo visitors, will hurt business," she said.

　
　

She acknowledged that when users" complaints erupt or police intensify their anti-porn efforts, mobile service provider "clamp down" on pornorgraphy, but it tends to be a temporary symbolic measure, as the problem persists.

　
　

China"s three largest mobile operators, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile, all turn a blind eye to shady practices by content providers, as mobile operators always take the bigger share when splitting revenue with clients, the em-ployee said.

　
　

No easy task

　
　

Scouring online porn has become an ongoing headache for Chinese authorities in a country where Internet users have reached 360 million.

　
　

As the government takes stricter measures, including forcing google.cn to get rid of the porn links in its search results, it has become more difficult for people to find adult content.

　
　

But with the country"s mobile Web users now exceeding 192 million, authorities worry that a rampant spread of lewd content via mobile phones will poison the minds of their users, especially younger people who use handsets to share information proportionally more than the older user groups.

　
　

Sources with the Ministry of Public Security said mobile porn is hard to track down, as it is always spread through servers outside the country in a concealed way.

　
　

"Law enforcement officials have to spend at least one month tracking down a porn website after it goes online," Shi Xiansheng, assistant secretary-general of the Internet Society of China, told the Xinhua News Agency.

　
　

And a month is more than long enough for such websites to earn a lot of money, Shi said.

　
　

Shanghai police arrested a mobile porn provider earlier this year. The man, surnamed Sheng, had opened more than 40 websites since 2005, earning more than 1 million yuan, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

　
　

Tao Hongkai, a professor at Huazhong Normal University and expert on online game addiction, told the Global Times that government organizations are facing stiffer challenges in containing the spread of online obscene content in a 3G age, where cutting-edge technologies are updated in the blink of an eye.

　
　

"It"s impossible to uproot all this obscene content overnight, but it"s never too late to rate the content so that content unsuitable to teenagers can be filtered," he said.

　
　

Since January of this year, a group of 13 Chinese government departments, including the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Culture, have been busy with an anti-pornography campaign.

　
　

As part of the campaign, authorities have shut down 1,250 websites and deleted more than 3.2 million items of online information containing porn and vulgar content, Xinhua reported.

　
　

So far, 41 people have been detained for "promulgating porn online," the agency re-ported.

　
　

Song Shengxia contributed to this story
　

　

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