China’s nationwide anti-porn campaign is in full swing.

  In the first 10 days of its launch, nearly 700 pornographic Websites were shut down.

  According to authorities, the sites involved production, trade and dissemination of lewd movies, still and video pictures and pornographic discussions via chat rooms.

  Internet service providers across China are now forbidden to collect service charges for such sites. Those violating the rules will be placed on a blacklist by local telecom supervisory authorities.


  Internet cafes are required to install special software to keep lewd information away from Web surfers. Meanwhile, informant centers, hot lines and email services have been launched to solicit complaints about Internet porn. The government is also taking legal action.

  On friday, a man surnamed Deng, the lawyer for a porn trade Website that was shut down in Sichuan Province, was brought to trial – the first Internet porn case the city has prosecuted since the crackdown began.

  In may, a 20-year-old hacker was arrested on charges of disseminating lewd advertisements for profit in Xiantao City in Hubei Province.

   The man, surnamed Rong, illegally hooked up to a low-income welfare information system and launched a lewd homepage called “Sexual Paradise.” In two months he recruited 66,000 registered club members.

  Existing technology should be sufficient to ensure the Chinese government’s triumph in its campaign, a researcher with the state lab on national information security said on condition of anonymity.

   Some experts believe the proliferation of Web porn is the result of weak ethics education among young people.

  Statistics show that among China’s 87 million Internet users, more than 30 percent are students, and 50 percent are under 24. About 46 percent of minors often visit lewd Web sites, a study found.

   Lack of sex education, especially for college students, is seen by some as another reason why so many young people browse pornographic webpages.

  ”Porn sites are rooted in young people who were thirsty for the facts of life, on which education is so deficient in the nation,” said He Tao, a student from the prestigious Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

  He was echoed by a dozen more students from Wuhan and Xi’an in a recent interview.

  Traditionally, Chinese parents do not discuss sex with their children.

  Last year, China Social Survey, a well-known domestic sociological research firm, conducted a survey in several major Chinese cities. The findings showed that 93 percent of the students questioned have encountered sex-related problems, but only 2.6 percent got answers from their parents.

  Sex education is almost absent in universities, though related courses, limited to basic physiological knowledge, have been arranged in middle schools.

   Curious students therefore often feel they have no choice but to resort to porn for answers, experts said.

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