Sina.com got its license rebuked for publishing content which the government deemed pornographic. (Photo : Reuters)
The National Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publications Office released a statement on Thursday extolling the government's victory over online pornographers.
Top porn gateway website Netease gets a one-month suspension and a fine of 856,228.8 yuan ($139,592) for violating the anti-pornography law by distributing pornographic reading materials over the Internet.
The statement also said that in January, police in Zhejiang Province detained four suspects for selling pornographic videos on China's most popular instant messaging app WeChat. The said group have reportedly made about 200,000 yuan in profits. The case has been passed on to the responsible judiciary branch.
In yet another case, eight suspects, one of them the founder of two notorious porn sites with 260,000 registered users, were arrested in Zibo City of Shandong Province. Five of the accused were already transferred to prosecutors.
Zhou, the porn site founder, reportedly earned more than 20 million yuan from pornographic sites that store 210,000 pornographic videos.
The statement also said that the government's new anti-porn drive is targeting search engines, gateways and video websites that are disseminating or trading pornographic materials via pop-ups and cloud computing.
Last February, three suspects connected with Sina.com were officially charged for violating the anti-pornography law by posting lewd articles and videos on the Sina website. Sina, on the other hand, insisted that the pornographic contents were not even pornographic by today's porn standards.
The Chinese government has been consistent in its anti-pornography campaign. Last fall, President Xi Jinping stressed that the government must have a strong army to seize control of the new media and prevent the proliferation of lewdness and pornography. Xi stated that the Internet must not be abused, but instead must be able to nurture the core values of socialism.
