OPINION> Commentary
Cleaner cyberspace
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-19 07:35

In a healthy society, porn and lewd materials should have no place in public life. Especially, they should be totally out of bounds for minors. However, for a long time such content has been just a few clicks away on many Chinese websites. How to effectively create a cleaner cyberspace remains a difficult task for the authorities.

But the difficulty is no reason to avoid the task or underestimate its importance. The latest round of anti-porn drive has not therefore come a day too soon. Its efforts to purify the Internet's environment for the healthy development of children are laudable, to say the least. The Ministry of Public Security and six other government agencies are working together to issue warnings to or shut websites according to law.

It is commendable that major companies such as Google and Baidu are targeted for the first time. The big search engines are among the most used by the general public including minors. So their failure to leave out vulgar content and eradicate links to pornographic sites is particularly inexcusable. It exposes children and teenagers to dangers and temptations that they are too young to cope with.

The campaign has been yielding positive results. Many websites have cooperated by taking more care to monitor content. It has raised the awareness of website managers that public distribution of pornography is illegal. In Shanghai alone, more than 35,000 online entries of indecent topics were deleted within a week of the launch of the campaign.

However, such campaigns in the past have proved that the effect is short-lived. Periodically limiting the spread of pornography online is not sufficient for porn and lewd content return after each campaign ends. Long-standing measures must be the real remedy.

It is important to cut off the interest chain behind porn websites and remove the roots of porn content. Most domestic websites survive on advertisements. And advertisements are placed on websites which enjoy higher number of page views and hits. Many websites stop at nothing to attract the attention of Web users, including offering erotic materials or providing links to them. It is important that the business models of these websites are put under scrutiny.

Service providers and the telecommunications departments are also involved because many porn websites need to rent server space, and charge money through mobile phones. Therefore we should have legislation for joint liabilities.

The service providers should not turn a blind eye to the harmful content when renting the channels. Departments providing telecommunications facilities and payment channels should also clean up their acts and cooperate in this anti-porn campaign by refusing the profits from porn websites.

Money made from this cannot be regarded as green GDP, for it involves pollution of the minds. The departments run the risk of becoming accomplices to porn websites if they do not bear the social effects and healthy growth of young people in mind.

Some say it is a formidable task to control lewd content because of the huge amount of information online. However, if we truly realize the harm this is causing to our society and if we sincerely care for the future generations, we can find ways to combat it. What is needed is a holistic approach that includes technology, legislation and political will.

(China Daily 01/19/2009 page4)