One billion harmful, erotic posts deleted in year-long Internet cleanup
Xinhua, January 17, 2015 Adjust font size:
Chinese websites self-inspected and deleted more than 1 billion pornographic and harmful posts in 2014 in an Internet "cleanup operation", said the country's cyberspace watchdog Saturday.
Authorities also closed down about 2,200 websites and 20 million online forums, blogs and social media accounts that had spread erotic and illegal content, said Ren Xianliang, deputy head of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).
During the operation, domestic gateway websites have well cooperated, Ren said.
Among the 1 billion deleted posts, 220 million were on four leading gateway websites, namely Sina, Sohu, Tencent and Netease. Two major search engines Baidu and Qihoo 360 deleted 130 million posts.
Under CAC supervision, major websites tightened their internal management, adding more staff and applying new systems to improve internal inspection, Ren said.
However, misconduct has rebounded since late last year, he admitted, adding that even some major websites posted erotic and disturbing content to appeal to viewers.
On Saturday, the cyberspace management departments of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou respectively summoned the operators of about 50 major websites, pressing them to step up internal inspection and discipline. Endi