China waging war on online porn, rumors

WHO TO TRUST?

Contributing to the harmfulness of online rumormongering in China is the fact this has become a profit-making industry here, which is less the case in other countries, said Yu Zhigang, a professor with the China University of Political Science and Law.

"In the past two or three years, there seems to have been nothing we can trust," he said, warning that the increasing spread of rumors could impact morality and values, harm social order and even cause unrest.

Sometimes the effects on national interests are difficult to erase even if the rumors are eventually proven to be groundless, Yu pointed out.

In September, as authorities announced a regulation specifying conditions for defamation charges, an editorial in Communist Party of China journal Qiushi criticized the abuse of cyberspace's freedom seen in the trend for wanton defamation attacking the Party and the government.

"The Internet is full of all kinds of negative news and critical voices saying the government only does bad things and everything it says is wrong," said the editorial.

The more a voice opposes the mainstream, the more it would win applause. Meanwhile, rational and positive voices are often hounded out of cyberspace, according to the article.

It called on big Vs and commercial websites to stay alert, remember their social responsibility, observe professional ethics and offer genuine, comprehensive and objective information to the public.

CRACKDOWN

When the Internet cleaning campaign was launched early last year, officials told popular bloggers to "promote virtues" and "uphold law" online.

Then in September, authorities announced a regulation that Internet users can be charged with defamation and face three years in prison if their postings containing rumors are read by 5,000 users or reposted more than 500 times.

The government is also expected to strengthen supervision and management of Weixin accounts applied on people's mobile phones.

Earlier this month, China launched an anti-porn initiative called "Cleaning the Web 2014." The cyberspace raid will involve checks on websites, search engines, mobile application stores, Internet TV USB sticks and set-top boxes, authorities said.

Bu Xiting, an official at the Communication University of China, sees the campaign as a sign of the government's determination to create a healthy cyberspace and step toward the rule of law in the virtual world.

For Shen Yang, an information technology professor with Wuhan University, the key to winning the war against depraved online content is to promote voices featuring "positive energy." Suggested measures include opening more government Weibo accounts to provide useful, professional and high-quality information concerning people's daily lives so as to squeeze the space for rumormongering.

The government should also cooperate with traditional and social media to establish an emergency response mechanism to tackle online crimes which would impact social stability, according to the academic.

The whole of society should unite to bolster positive cyber culture to counter the negativity, he said. "It is a war we cannot lose, because the price for the nation and generations to come will be very high."