China is offering it citizens up to US$86,000 to snitch on porn
After sentencing an erotica writer to 10 years in prison, China is trying to get its citizens to report racy content
China is hoping to create a nation of porn bounty hunters. The country, which regards all kinds of pornography as illegal, has just doubled the reward for reporting illegal publishing to 600,000 yuan (US$86,500).
But porn isn’t the only kind of content under fire. China has a habit of censoring content that doesn’t please its government. The regulations also upped fines for online and offline content that “endangers ideological security, cultural security, physical and mental health of minors” to a maximum of 50,000 yuan (US$7,200).
Others social media users decried the new measures, complaining that the government spends more time snooping on what adults are doing in their private lives than punishing actual criminals.
“In the era of whistle-blowing, no one emerges unscathed. Everyone will eventually be swallowed up by it,” said another Weibo user commenting on the initiative.
The regulator, which in Chinese goes by the catchy name of “Clean up the Pornographic, Strike the Illegal” (扫黄打非), has been cracking down with force this year. State media has reported that tens of thousands of illegal websites have been taken down – but the real danger is for the content makers.
