To hamper and battle online pornography and other illegal activities, China has decided to put two virtual police officers in charge of a patrol that will see to such things. As per the reports, the two virtual officers, a man and a woman ‘will appear either on motorcycles, in a car or on foot, at the bottom of users’ computer screens every 30 minutes to remind them of Internet security’. These two virtual police officers will be scrutinizing news portals, web sites and all online forums that are based in Beijing. These surveillance officers won’t only keep an eye on the porn sites but also catch up websites that promote superstition, gambling, fraud and other such illicit things.

Till now, the Internet surveillance centre of the Beijing municipal public security bureau claims to have closed some 244 websites, 40 online pornographic novels and 128,000 Web pages dealing with pornographic materials. Zhao Hongzhi, deputy chief of the centre said, ‘We have achieved visible results in recent months but there is still a long way to go’. The service also enables users themselves to complain and report any such illegal activities by clicking on the pop-up icons with which they’ll be connected to Internet surveillance centre.

However, despite keen watch over sites, pornography is rampant. It must be noted that China bars signals or black outs TV screens, if and when CNN, BBC or any such networks take up topics which are related to China like Tibet, Taiwan or media liberty. The whole commotion is an after effect of the announcement that was made by Chinese President Hu Jintao, in April stating that measures would soon be taken up to get the country free of such ‘unhealthy’ content.
With China in the lead, I am sure the example will be soon followed by many other nations.

Source: Reuters90247