Seven departments, led by the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre, part of the Internet Society of China, with the Ministry of Information Technology and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (Sarft), issued their list in an effort to control more aggressively websites that "pervert social morals and harm the physical and mental health of children," Chinese sources report.
Other Chinese sites including Netease, Sina, Sohu and Tencent’s QQ have also landed on the authorities’ list, mainly for linking internet users to sites, photo albums, columns and images.
According to Chinese reports, the list was compiled following complaints from the public. The websites that had not removed the links to prohibited material were put on the list.
The Chinese Government issues lists of this sort from time to time and have placed more emphasis on suppressing the spread of pornographic, violent and political messages across the internet after it instated a list of regulations against portals and video-sharing sites one year ago.
Yet Adam Schokora, manager of Edelman Digital in China, said this move is not necessarily an indication that the Government will be any more vigilant against these sites in 2009 than it was in 2008.
“Generally speaking, this new initiative is really nothing new at all, it’s just latest effort among countless others over the past few years to control content online in China. It’s not a stepping up of regulations or a sign of a stricter 2009, and despite many people thinking 2008 was lax, it was actually a very strict year for internet censorship in China,” he said.
Schokora said the list is also a show of strength to urge compliance with not just the largest sites in China but the smaller ones, as well.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘offenders’ worse than these,” he said. “These are big, very well-known sites, which makes sense because if they are pushed to ‘clean up’ content, the rest will likely soon follow suit to some degree.”
Ning Liu, senior analyst at BDA China, said the ramifications of the decision further denotes the importance of the internet in China as a vehicle for freer speech, saying, “Previously, the Chinese government mainly took internet as an information channel likely to be used to distribute anti-government contents and cause social instability. But now, the government also recognises that internet has become an influential new media having impact on the ethical code and society culture.”
“I believe the government will enhance the supervision over these contents this year and also forces internet companies to more self-discipline and screen vulgar contents by themselves first,” he continued.
