SOME of China's major web portals recently launched a campaign to rid their forums and articles of pornographic, sexual and violent content, Eastday.com reported today.
Sina.com, China's largest Internet portal, shut down eight columns: "sex column," "nude arts pictures" and "sexy sports column." Another 159 articles and 71,526 postings from forums covering "unhealthy" content were uprooted.
Sohu.com, China's second-largest portal, has launched a 24-hour pornography report hotline for complaints. They will also appoint 10 to 20 ordinary Web users as Internet information monitors.
Employees who publish indecent content on Sohu.com will face economic, administrative or other punishments, the company announced. Their supervisors will also be punished if such incidents occur.
Beijing-based Qianlong.com, brought each department, channel and page under scrutiny on April 6. When they found content China considers "unhealthy", they wiped the site out completely.
It has already shut down three forums, deleted 934 articles and 3,174 photos.
On the first night, they deleted 210 erotic pictures from a photo channel, 26 underwear related photos from an entertainment channel and 18 provocative ads and nude pieces of artwork.
On April 20, owners of 14 Beijing based portals, including Sina.com, Sohu.com, Baidu.com, and Yahoo's Chinese Website, drew up a joint proposal, calling for all Internet portals across China to ban content that is sexual or violent.
