China Levies Fines for Spreading Digital Porn, Gambling, Violence

CYBERSPACE—Following through on its "Cleaning the Web 2014" campaign, which was launched in April with the goal of cracking down on the proliferation of pornography, violence and other banned content on both the internet and mobile devices, the Chinese government has announced that it will levy fines on 11 companies accused of violating "accepted moral values."  According to Reuters, "[State news agency] Xinhua said mobile game platforms run by Tencent, which runs one of the most popular mobile messaging apps in China, search engine giant Baidu and another nine companies were alleged to be involved in pornography, gambling and violence." The amount of the fines was not disclosed, but Liu Qiang, a deputy director in the culture ministry, told Xinhua, "We hope that major companies can shoulder their due, social responsibilities and offer healthy, quality, cultural products." As an indication of the sorts of fines being handed out, in May, Reuters adds, "Internet firm Sina Corp. was fined 5.1 million Yuan by Beijing authorities for allowing 'unhealthy and indecent content' on its online reading channel and on its main website." That amount converts to approximately $830,000. Contested content was not all live-action. Reuters reports, "The ministry also discovered comic and animated products that contained 'bloody, terror and violent content' on 21 websites run by companies such as China Telecom and Tencent." Ironically, Chinese censorship may be seen as not such a bad thing by producers of mainstream Hollywood content salivating at the thought of tapping into China's vast market, as Matt Sheehan explained for HuffPo yesterday.