Suddenly, porn surfing on mainland is free for all

A host of pornography websites and information technology websites have suddenly been unblocked by mainland censors since Tuesday morning. The question is: why?

The buzz apparently started with some Twitter postings in the morning that said: 'You can now freely search any porn you like in China. Everything seems to be unblocked.'

Then a Guangzhou-based internet analyst who uses the online identity Beifeng confirmed that at least 60 per cent of the overseas-based porn websites with Chinese content that he had bookmarked had been unblocked. He said mainland internet users could access more such websites with English content.

William Long, a Shenzhen-based blogger, wrote that besides 'a large number of porn websites', many overseas websites offering various types of online services, such as URL shortening and bookmark saving functions, had also been unblocked.

It is the first time censors have unblocked 'obscene' websites since 2008, when officials launched a large crackdown on pornography sites. The action shut down more than 16,000 mainland-based porn websites, not to mention countless overseas sites, by February.

This apparent lift of online censorship on porn has sparked intense speculation: Some are taking it as a tactic by authorities to distract public attention from the 21st anniversary of the June 4 crackdown at Tiananmen Square; others say that with the recent spate of extreme violence carried out by mostly middle-aged men, the government might be allowing a little pornography to deal with some pent-up testosterone.

Long said he believed it hinted at a change in the censors' strategy on controlling online information flow.