China’s obscenity watchdog steps up online pornography crackdown

China’s obscenity watchdog busted three popular online literature sites this week amid a recent clean-up campaign aimed at rooting out pornographic content on the internet, mainland media reported on Friday.

The anti-pornography office and the internet regulator jointly declared war against online obscenity last Sunday, as part of wider campaign to tighten its grip on the internet.

Entitled the “Clean Internet Campaign 2014”, the operation is targeting websites running pornographic articles “at the request of the people”, directives issued by the authority said.

Deputy office director of the anti-pornography department told the Beijing News on Thursday the office had uncovered eight “key cases” following “public complaints”.

Two literature websites based in Guangdong and Zhejiang respectively were banned for running pornographic articles for profit, while another website based in Fujian was suspended for spreading obscene content online, Xinhua reported on Thursday.

China Central Television spared two minutes in its half-hour-long Evening News Bulletin on the raid on Thursday, which showed police searching an office of the Guangdong-based website staffed mainly by young women.