In an anti-porn crackdown, the Chinese government has revoked the online publication license of the local internet giant Sina Corp, after discovering pornographic content last week.
As per a statement by the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications cited in the official Xinhua news agency, twenty articles and four videos posted on the site were found to be ‘objectionable’.
"As a result, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television revoked the company’s two crucial licenses on Internet publication and audio and video dissemination," Xinhua said.
The offending material was found through tip-offs from the public, Xinhua added.
China has initiated an orchestrated campaign to ‘clean up the internet,’ with Thursday’s decision on Sina being described as the harshest yet.
The government-backed crackdown is targeting firms as well as individual web users, with more than 100 websites carrying pornography and thousands of accounts on social media sites already shut down.
Recently, about 3,300 accounts on China-based social networking services, including WeChat and Weibo were deleted as part of the anti-porn campaign.
Apologising for the conduct, Sina said in a statement that it is cooperating with authorities, and will come up with new mechanisms to deal with pornographic content.
Though pornography is illegal in China, some people say that the authorities will take undue advantage of the situation by further tightening its grip on internet and curbing free speech by blocking other websites.
China has already blocked popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and also invested heavily in a firewall that restricts access to controversial websites.
