Now, only a few weeks after Chinese officials arrested over 220 people and shut down 700 adult websites, the cleansing of the Internet in China continues, in order to "create a green environment for millions of underage surfers."
Xinhua, China's official news agency, has announced that technical and other measures have been implemented in order to clean up websites and to police the sites they link to, ensuring that pornographic content is blocked from web pages, chatrooms and online bulletin boards.
Now Netease.com, Sohu.com, Sina.com, and other popular Chinese websites are scrambling to sanitize their offerings to a level that will be found acceptable to Chinese officials.
While Chinese websites have quickly come to tow the party line by eliminating "racy" content, mainstream search engines are still delivering "forbidden" content to Chinese surfers, confounding the government's attempts at universal censorship.
As the growth of broadband multimedia and enhanced wireless communication skyrockets in this rapidly developing nation, the challenges the government faces in trying to control these viral forms of interaction are daunting.
While the Chinese government is legitimately concerned over the Internet's negative influence on children, and fears a widespread adoption of Western ethics and ideals, it is uncertain whether the closing of porn sites and moderation of chat rooms will stem the tide of freedom that the Internet enables...
