英国卫报 China search engines apologise for 'vulgar' content

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China search engines apologise for 'vulgar' content

Tania Branigan in Beijing Wednesday 7 January 2009 12.21 GMT

Three of China's best-known internet companies apologised today for any damage they had caused to society by failing to purge "vulgar" content from the web.
Their apologies followed the announcement of a government crackdown on lewd content, which targeted companies including Google and Baidu, the search engine that dominates the Chinese internet.
On Monday, the head of the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre named 19 websites that he said were not doing enough to prevent pornographic and vulgar material from reaching Chinese users.
"We feel deeply guilty," Baidu said in a statement posted on its site today. "We apologise to internet users for any negative effects given to society."
Netease, China's second-biggest online games operator, and the popular portal Sina also issued public apologies.
"As to our problems and any harm they could possibly have caused internet users, Sina feels deeply sad and concerned," it said in a statement.
Google's China office promised to work with web users to build a healthier online culture. "After we received notice from relevant government departments ... [we] cleaned up links to vulgar content that could have adverse effects on internet users," it said.
Pornography is banned and censorship widespread in China, but the country's more than 250 million internet users have little problem accessing sexual content.
Officials had waged campaigns against obscene materials before, but had not targeted such big firms. Analysts have suggested the drive may be linked to wider efforts to rein back discussion on the internet, particularly as the country enters a year with many sensitive anniversaries.
The state news agency Xinhua reported yesterday that Sohu, another portal named and shamed by officials, had urged users to boycott obscene content.
Chen Luming, the company's vice-president, said it hoped portals would no longer be scapegoats for troublemakers who intentionally upload such material.
Under China's criminal law, the distribution of obscene content for non-commercial purposes carries a jail term of up to two years. Xinhua said the law regarding "vulgar" materials was not as clear because the definition of vulgarity was vague.
Cai Mingzhao, the deputy director of the State Council Information Office, said this week that "vulgar" content included information advocating bloodshed, violence, murder, slander and libel, and explicit or erotic sexual images, publications, animations, comics and videos.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/china-vulgar-websites-apology

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