18,401 Porn Websites Shut Down

The Chinese government decided to block no less than 18,401 websites in the country due to the adult material published on them. As you know, the local authorities are quite exigent when it comes to the content published on the Internet, the censorship matter being often criticized by the web communities. According to the Shanghai Daily, 9,593 unregistered websites were already shut down while 8,808 pages were removed due to "pornographic, illicit or fraudulent pictures."

The same source reports that this is part of a national campaign started on April 12 by the Ministry of Public Security, a government department which decided to filter the content available to the Chinese users. "The campaign also required major Chinese portals, including sina.com, sohu.com, 163.com and qq.com, to conduct self-examinations and shut down problematic channels," The Shanghai Daily added.

If you look at the number of the Chinese pornographic websites, which is reported to be approximately 500,000 all over the world, the government's actions are somehow explained. But this is not the first time when the local authorities are involved into censorship matters which can affect the browsing experience of the Internet users.

For example, the Chinese officials recently took the decision to publish two virtual police officers on the most popular portals of the country in order to remind the visitors that they are not allowed to search or access any kind of prohibited material. The two cops are appearing every once in a while and are meant to help the authorities filter the content accessible to the nation's Internet users.

In the past, the censorship even sent some people to prison because the country strictly prohibits all kinds of criticism over the authorities. Beside the numerous blogs which were shut down by the government, the authorities even demanded Yahoo some private details about a user in order to arrest and send him to prison.