Highlights

Society's help needed to cleanse the Net

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-26 07:50

The government crackdown to check obscene content on the Internet may have borne results, but there is still a long way to go before online sites can be ridden of pornographic content, says an article on the www.people.com.cn. Excerpts:

The crackdown on obscene content on the Internet, launched a month ago, has yielded satisfying results and thousands of websites have already been closed down. The Internet is much cleaner now than what it was a month ago.

But such websites will not disappear easily. Many may have been closed, but a lot of them are still operating by concealing their true identity and playing hide and seek with the authorities.

Profit is the ultimate force that keeps such obscene websites going and makes them violate laws and regulations. Hence, it is necessary to establish a long-term system to regulate the Internet.

To achieve that responsibilities have to be well divided among departments that oversee Net operations so that they can tackle the problem more efficiently. Besides, the mechanism to supervise Net operations should be enlarged if we want to reduce obscene online content. And laws should be strengthened to close down all illegal websites and eliminate obscene online content completely.

In a sense, obscene online content has become electronic narcotics. It can harm anyone, especially minors, and that's precisely why we should cleanse the Internet. Since China has the largest group of netizens in the world, the authorities alone cannot do the job. It can be done only with the help of the entire society.

(China Daily 01/26/2010 page9)