Telecoms under fire to curb porn
Source: Xinhua |
November 30, 2009, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA'S major wireless telecom companies, all state-owned enterprises, are coming under pressure to eradicate access to porn through wireless application protocol sites on mobile phones.
"The telecom operators collect fees from mobile WAP services and these operators will take most of the profits generated by porn content on WAP sites," said Wang Song, an official with the multi-sector Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications.
"So the operators should take responsibility (for cutting the links)."
However, most Internet supervisory bodies have no effective equipment to monitor mobile WAP sites, and the manual checks currently employed are slow, Wang said.
Many pornographic sites take advantage of this to flood WAP sites with lewd material that would be filtered if it were on the Internet.
China's three major wireless carriers, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, offer WAP services to about 192 million mobile phone users, more than half of the Internet users in China.
The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center said last Tuesday that it was receiving a growing number of tip-offs about porn WAP sites.
On November 16, the Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications announced a crackdown on the creation and distribution of lewd material, which focused on Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Zhejiang, where many WAP sites are registered.
The office said the campaign was launched out of concern over minors having access to pornography.
In a survey of 235 middle school students conducted by the office in north China's Shanxi Province, 173, or 74 percent, had mobile phones and 142 had logged onto WAP sites.
Of the 199 senior high school student respondents, 83 percent knew that some WAP sites had pornographic content.
China Mobile, China's largest wireless telecom operator, has suspended cooperation with more than 460 business promotion partners since the crackdown started.
Last Friday, it announced it would invest 100 million yuan (US$14.7 million) to develop new technologies to filter out porn content on WAP sites.
"The telecom operators collect fees from mobile WAP services and these operators will take most of the profits generated by porn content on WAP sites," said Wang Song, an official with the multi-sector Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications.
"So the operators should take responsibility (for cutting the links)."
However, most Internet supervisory bodies have no effective equipment to monitor mobile WAP sites, and the manual checks currently employed are slow, Wang said.
Many pornographic sites take advantage of this to flood WAP sites with lewd material that would be filtered if it were on the Internet.
China's three major wireless carriers, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, offer WAP services to about 192 million mobile phone users, more than half of the Internet users in China.
The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center said last Tuesday that it was receiving a growing number of tip-offs about porn WAP sites.
On November 16, the Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications announced a crackdown on the creation and distribution of lewd material, which focused on Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Zhejiang, where many WAP sites are registered.
The office said the campaign was launched out of concern over minors having access to pornography.
In a survey of 235 middle school students conducted by the office in north China's Shanxi Province, 173, or 74 percent, had mobile phones and 142 had logged onto WAP sites.
Of the 199 senior high school student respondents, 83 percent knew that some WAP sites had pornographic content.
China Mobile, China's largest wireless telecom operator, has suspended cooperation with more than 460 business promotion partners since the crackdown started.
Last Friday, it announced it would invest 100 million yuan (US$14.7 million) to develop new technologies to filter out porn content on WAP sites.
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