A ceremony was jointly held by over 100 websites in Beijing
Saturday to declare "war" against "Internet rubbish" by exposing
unhealthy Internet contents.
"This brochure listing 100 examples of wrong doings on-line will
help people stay away from unhealthy content," said Yang Haocheng,
a Chinese student who has returned from his overseas study,
attending the ceremony.
On the spot, people from 25 websites set up consultancy desks to
give the brochures and instructions about how to use Internet
scientifically while an Internet supervision center received
reports on websites featuring unhealthy content.
Liu Zhengrong, Director of the Internet News Service Work
Committee under the Internet Society of China (ISC), said the
activity is a self-conscious step taken by the Internet industry to
prevent an "unhealthy Internet culture" that has had a negative
influence on society, especially the younger generation.
"The move also responded to Chinese President Hu Jintao's list
of honors and disgraces," Liu added.
In recent years, the Internet industry in China has seen
remarkable progress with more than 700,000 websites, which increase
by 25,300 each year. The Internet has become an indispensable part
of people's daily life but is plagued by unhealthy content.
China, with 111 million Internet users, is the world's second
largest Internet market after the United States. However, a report
released by the government said earlier this month that each of its
e-mail subscribers receives an average of 16.8 pieces of junk mail
a week, which are 60 percent of the total e-mails they receive.
"In 2005 alone, we received more than 120,000 complaints from
the public, including 68.2 percent about pornography and 8.15
percent about gambling frauds," said ISC Secretary-General Huang
Chengqing.
"The unhealthy content online severely harmed young people,"
Huang said, adding China has around 78 million netizens aged under
30, among which 18 and under-18 totaled 18 million. A latest survey
shows 13.2 percent of China's young netizens have become Internet
addicts.
Huang said violence, online chatting, pornography and online
gambling are major cyber space attractions to young netizens.
Therefore, Internet websites operators and content providers should
take the social responsibility to create a healthy environment for
the younger generation to get access to the outside world.
According to him, the ISC has urged their 2,600 members
nationwide to be disciplined when operating websites, and netizens
to properly use the Internet.
The nationwide campaign has had an immediate effect, as reports
on unqualified websites have increased markedly, said Liu
Zhengrong. The number of reports increased to around 1,000, from
the previous 300. He stressed that many netizens proposed that the
government should encourage people to use their real names on the
Internet, improve measures to avoid Internet addiction, promote
filter software and enhance the legal system.
In 2004, Chinese government kicked off a massive campaign to
weed out pornography from the rapidly-growing Internet.
In 2005, 11 people were jailed for up to 12 years for running an
obscene website in China's largest case of Internet pornography.
The website operators of the 99 Sex Forum were accused of posting
pornographic pictures, videos and stories, and even opening
chatrooms providing information on prostitution throughout
China.
(Xinhua News Agency April 23, 2006)