Chinese Nab 62 for Social Media Immorality

CHINA—The financial markets may be agog today over the largest IPO in history by China-based Alibaba, but it's a good bet that the 62 people detained by Chinese authorities for "using social networks to organize prostitution or spread pornography" don't really give a crap. According to Want China Times, "Beijing police have busted four operations and captured 25 suspects for organizing prostitution via microblogs and instant messaging services since a campaign against pornography began in August... The other 37 suspects were seized in south China's Guangdong province for similar offenses." The article also contains a few examples of the sort of behavior that can generate unwanted interest by the state. For instance, "In Foshan, a city in Guangdong, 17 suspects were detained on Aug. 25 for using WeChat, China's leading smartphone messaging platform, to disseminate obscene images, post adverts to recruit prostitutes and organize prostitution services. Among them, 11 were held for criminal investigation. "In Dongguan, another Guangdong city," it continues, "a suspect surnamed Zheng reportedly uploaded 8,951 pornographic images via a Tencent microblog account in April and May and clocked more than one million visits." As in the United States, though, large web firms are pushing back against government interference, but the government seems to be holding firm in its intent to control all aspects of the internet. "Since August," reports Want China Times, "four Chinese internet giants, namely Sina, Sohu, Tencent and Xunlei, have been punished for failing to check questionable content disseminated via their products and services. More than 800 million people use instant messengers in China, sending more than 20 billion pieces of information every day." Considering Alibaba's prominence as a b-to-b online web portal, and considering that, according to Wikipedia, it "accounts for roughly half of all online payment transactions within China," maybe these stories are connected.